Interest Groups Vie for Influence in Health Care Reform Debate

Supporters and opponents of proposals to overhaul California's health care system are running competing advertising campaigns hoping to influence lawmakers as negotiations are expected later this summer, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports.

Blue Cross of California is running a $2 million ad campaign seeking to block lawmakers from major reforms to the health insurance industry.

Brian Sassi, president of Blue Cross, said his company supports changes to the health care industry but is wary of higher rates and other potential consequences.

Blue Cross has proposed that the state increase funds for its high-risk insurance pool to help expand coverage and reduce premiums. Sassi said the company also has proposed a tax increase on insurers to help fund the effort.

Meanwhile, a coalition of diverse stakeholders in the health care industry is waging an advertising campaign urging Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and legislators to pass a reform bill.

The Together for Health Care Coalition includes health insurers, unions and physicians. The California Medical Association has been the leader in forming the coalition, while AARP, a member of the coalition, is running its own $3 million ad campaign in California.

Mike Madrid, communications director for CMA, said, "We need to signal we're going to spend what it takes to get something done." He added, "The voters are clearly already there."

Public approval is important because opponents are expected to seek a voter referendum to repeal any reform plan approved by the Legislature and signed by the governor (Ainsworth, San Diego Union-Tribune, 6/18).

"The accepted wisdom is that a comprehensive health care reform package must be reached by August and that pushing it over to 2008 will effectively kill the entire effort," a San Francisco Chronicle editorial states.

"Within the next three months, California will either emerge with the most comprehensive health reform plan of any state -- or the vision articulated by [Schwarzenegger] and others of providing universal health coverage to all Californians will lie in fragments, destroyed by competing interests unable to achieve everything that they want," according to the editorial.

California lawmakers "must not blow this unusual opportunity" to enact health care reform legislation, the editorial concludes (San Francisco Chronicle, 6/17).

Three radio programs on Friday took up the issue of health care reform in California. Summaries appear below:

KPCC's "KPCC News" featured a discussion with health care providers at Southern California clinics about health care overhaul proposals. The segment includes comments from:

• Luis Artavia, medical director of the Community Health Alliance of Pasadena;
• Penny Hooks, a physician assistant at Elizabeth Center for Cancer Detection;
• Amy Nguyen, a physician at CHAP; and
• Ulin Sargeant, a staff physician at CHAP (Felde, KPCC, "KPCC News," 6/15).

• Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez (D-Los Angeles);
• Schwarzenegger; and
  
• Assembly Minority Leader Mike Villines (R-Clovis) (Small, KPCC, "KPCC News," 6/15).

• Kim Belshé, secretary of the Health and Human Services Agency;
• E. Richard Brown, director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and a professor at the UCLA School of Public Health;
• Assembly member Hector de la Torre (D-South Gate);
• Chris Ohman, CEO of the California Association of Health Plans; and
• Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access-California (Morrison, KPCC, "Patt Morrison," 6/15).