Gubernatorial Candidate Campbell Offers Health Care Plan for Calif.
On Thursday, Republican gubernatorial candidate former Rep. Tom Campbell released a health care proposal designed to extend private coverage to an additional two million uninsured Californians, the AP/San Jose Mercury News reports (Williams, AP/San Jose Mercury News, 9/17).
Under the plan, California would seek a federal waiver to create a $42 billion pool using existing state and federal funds allocated yearly for Medi-Cal and Healthy Families.
Medi-Cal is California's Medicaid Program and Healthy Families is the state's Children's Health Insurance Program
State officials then would divide the pool among current Medi-Cal and Healthy Families participants, as well as the additional two million Californians who are "involuntarily uninsured."
Splitting the pool would allow the state to spend up to $4,375 per person for health insurance coverage.
Private insurance companies could compete for contracts to cover the uninsured populations in a particular region. Campbell said the plan would include coverage for pre-existing conditions (Buchanan, "Politics Blog," San Francisco Chronicle, 9/17).
Implementing Campbell's proposal would require the federal government to repeal the antitrust exemption for insurance companies. Federal officials also would need to authorize insurers to sell health plans across state lines (Chang, "Capitol Alert," Sacramento Bee, 9/17). This is part of the California Healthline Daily Edition, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.