GOP engaging in ‘bogus talk’ on health care, Schwarzenegger says
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger talks to reporters outside the White House on Monday following a private meeting with President Barack Obama. The governor rejected GOP calls for Obama to start from scratch on health care.
WASHINGTON – While Republican leaders in Washington are urging President Barack Obama to start from scratch on a health care bill, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday dismissed the idea as “bogus talk.”
It marked the second day in a row that Schwarzenegger strayed from his party’s positions.
On Sunday, he defended Obama’s economic stimulus plan and chided elected officials, most of them Republicans, who oppose the overall stimulus but are quick to trumpet individual projects in their states that are paid for by the stimulus.
Standing outside the White House after meeting privately with Obama on Monday, Schwarzenegger touted the economic stimulus plan yet again.
“I think the stimulus package has been very successful so far, and I think California has benefited tremendously,” he said.
Schwarzenegger also said it’s good that the president is reaching out to Republicans as he prepares for this week’s health care summit with congressional leaders.
“Since half of the people are Republicans, why would you exclude Republicans?” he asked. “Then half of the people hate you for having done health care reform.”
He sided with Obama on the question of the starting point for the talks, saying it would be wrong to begin all over in preparing health care legislation for Congress to consider.
“I think any Republican that says you should start from scratch, I think that’s bogus talk, and that’s partisan talk,” the governor told reporters.
Obama met with the governors as a group Monday morning. Schwarzenegger was the only governor to get a private meeting later with the president.
Schwarzenegger said he discussed a wide array of issues with the president, including roads and bridges, high-speed rail, education and creating new tax incentives for energy- efficient homes.
But he said the economy was the top issue.
“It was truly encouraging to see him being so interested in talking about job creation being his number one priority,” Schwarzenegger said.
GOP engaging in ‘bogus talk’ on health care, Schwarzenegger says
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger talks to reporters outside the White House on Monday following a private meeting with President Barack Obama. The governor rejected GOP calls for Obama to start from scratch on health care.
WASHINGTON – While Republican leaders in Washington are urging President Barack Obama to start from scratch on a health care bill, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday dismissed the idea as “bogus talk.”
It marked the second day in a row that Schwarzenegger strayed from his party’s positions.
On Sunday, he defended Obama’s economic stimulus plan and chided elected officials, most of them Republicans, who oppose the overall stimulus but are quick to trumpet individual projects in their states that are paid for by the stimulus.
Standing outside the White House after meeting privately with Obama on Monday, Schwarzenegger touted the economic stimulus plan yet again.
“I think the stimulus package has been very successful so far, and I think California has benefited tremendously,” he said.
Schwarzenegger also said it’s good that the president is reaching out to Republicans as he prepares for this week’s health care summit with congressional leaders.
“Since half of the people are Republicans, why would you exclude Republicans?” he asked. “Then half of the people hate you for having done health care reform.”
He sided with Obama on the question of the starting point for the talks, saying it would be wrong to begin all over in preparing health care legislation for Congress to consider.
“I think any Republican that says you should start from scratch, I think that’s bogus talk, and that’s partisan talk,” the governor told reporters.
Obama met with the governors as a group Monday morning. Schwarzenegger was the only governor to get a private meeting later with the president.
Schwarzenegger said he discussed a wide array of issues with the president, including roads and bridges, high-speed rail, education and creating new tax incentives for energy- efficient homes.
But he said the economy was the top issue.
“It was truly encouraging to see him being so interested in talking about job creation being his number one priority,” Schwarzenegger said.
U.S. wants health insurer to justify rate hikes
LOS ANGELES – The Obama administration Monday asked California’s largest for-profit health insurer to justify plans to raise customers’ premiums by as much as 39 percent, a move that could affect some 800,000 customers.
In a letter to the president of Anthem Blue Cross, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said she was very disturbed to learn of the planned increases, calling them “extraordinary.”
“I believe Anthem Blue Cross has a responsibility to provide a detailed justification for these rate increases to the public,” Sebelius wrote.
She said the company should also make public what percentage of customers’ premiums go to medical care versus administrative costs.
In a statement, Anthem Blue Cross of California blamed the weak economy and rising health care costs for the rate hike, while pledging to reply to Sebelius’ query promptly.
The rate hike “highlights why we need sustainable health care reform to manage the steadily rising costs of hospitals, drugs and doctors,” the statement said.
Sebelius said Anthem Blue Cross’ parent company, WellPoint Inc., “has seen its profits soar, earning $2.7 billion in the last quarter of 2009 alone.”
Not counting roughly $2.2 billion it gained from the sale of a pharmacy benefit management subsidiary, WellPoint earned $536 million in the final three months of last year.
In a rare move, California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner is hiring an outside actuary to determine whether Anthem is abiding by state regulations and spending at least 70 percent of premium dollars on medical care as opposed to administrative costs. Poizner’s spokesman, Darrel Ng, said that’s the only recourse because rate hikes do not need to be approved by the state.
President Barack Obama cited the Anthem rate hikes in an interview with CBS’ Katie Couric on Sunday as a reason to move forward with his health overhaul legislation, which is stalled in Congress.
“That’s a portrait of the future if we don’t do something now,” Obama said. “It’s going to keep on beating down families, small businesses, large businesses.”
Health insurance analysts agreed that the rise in individual premiums will be echoed on a smaller scale in the rest of the health insurance market. Employer-based insurance and group policies are expecting 10 to 20 percent increases in the next year, said health industry consultant Robert Laszewski.
About 13 million Americans purchased health insurance through the individual market in 2008, the most recent data available.
Surges in their premiums can be explained by competing interests: Insurance companies are working to maintain earnings expectations in the face of rising costs, while rising premiums are driving healthy people to drop coverage, Laszewski said.
Individual buyers “get clobbered in an economy like this,” said Laszewski. “If it becomes unaffordable for (policyholders) and they’re healthy, they tend to walk away, leaving sicker, more expensive patients on the policy.”
Anthem notified customers that rates would go up beginning March 1 and might start increasing more frequently than the usual annual increases. The increases ranged from 30 percent to 39 percent.
The company has declined to provide details on the rate increases. It’s also not clear whether customers in other states are being affected.
Licking their wounds, health care advocates ask, ‘What now?’
For months, a health care overhaul seemed so within reach. Then came Tuesday’s Senate vote in Massachusetts, and suddenly the hopeful mood that once buoyed health care advocates from coast to coast turned into a vast sinkhole of disappointment.
Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, couldn’t bear the news as election returns from Massachusetts added up to a resounding victory for Republican Scott Brown and a clear defeat for Democrats and health care advocates.
“Haven’t watched any cable news tonight. Given my mood, no good can come from it,” Wright tweeted Tuesday night.
On the morning after, overhaul advocates in California expressed disappointment that Democrats had lost their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, portending increasing difficulty to pass sweeping health care legislation.
While efforts on the national level are far from dead, one question seemed clear: What now?
“We’ve been talking things through, trying to figure out what this all means, and working out strategy,” said Michael Russo, the health care advocate at the left-leaning California Public Interest Research Group.
Russo and other consumer advocates on Wednesday took stock of the new environment in which supporters of a health care overhaul must tread. “There’s no doubt that we’re not as cheery as we were,” Russo said. “It seemed like such a clear path to getting a health care reform bill enacted just a few days ago. … Certainly, now it seems harder to get there.”
Democrats on Capitol Hill tried not to look back Wednesday, as the road that could have led to a health care bill took an unexpected twist.
In November, House Democrats narrowly won passage of sweeping measures to overhaul the country’s health care system. The Senate approved its own package the day before Christmas.
Following the Massachusetts vote, the White House signaled that it would seek to take a more deliberate approach to winning passage of a health care bill. Democratic leaders were said to be considering scaling back the legislation to salvage what they could. The long-held ambition of near-universal health insurance coverage, in a country with 46 million uninsured, could be jettisoned from the legislation – a clear victim of the new political realities.
President Barack Obama urged lawmakers to scale back legislation to “those elements of the package that people agree on.”
Some key tenets could survive the purge, including subsidies to help low-income people pay for health insurance and guaranteed coverage for those with pre-existing health problems.
If Congress failed to pass a health care bill, “it would be very disappointing because we have come a very long way,” said state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, a member of the Senate Health Committee. “Should it not succeed, it does indeed give greater importance to leadership coming from state legislatures,” he said.
Leno has authored the latest iteration of a state single-payer health care bill – which twice before won passage only to be vetoed both times. The Senate Appropriations Committee is to consider the legislation today.
Other members of the Legislature say California has a role to play, even if Congress does act.
“I do think there will be a federal health care bill,” said Assemblyman Dave Jones, D-Sacramento, who chairs his chamber’s Health Committee. “But I’ve always thought California should still have the flexibility to improve upon it.”
Just a few years ago, the state seemed poised to act on its own, with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on the brink of winning support for universal health care in California.
In the end, he could not bridge the differences between some liberals and factions in his own Republican party.
In the absence of comprehensive change, California has taken a piece-by-piece approach. Last year, the governor signed legislation banning gender discrimination in health insurance coverage, outlawing the practice by insurance companies of charging different premiums for men and women.
Consumer advocates have been unable to secure many items on their wish lists, such as guaranteed health insurance coverage regardless of pre-existing conditions, a protection included in federal legislation now steeped in uncertainty in Congress.
The same challenges that vexed health care advocates in California have intensified on the federal level, particularly in light of Tuesday’s vote.
“I think the need and urgency for health care reform is the same today as it was the day before. It’s the same this year as it was last year. It didn’t change because of a special election in Massachusetts,” said Wright, of Health Access California.
“It happened in a state where health reform is needed least, because they’ve already adopted many of the elements of health care reform,” he said of the Massachusetts vote. “Sure, there’s a lot of symbolism” in Tuesday’s election results, he said. “But there’s an underlying math that health care advocates still have 59 votes in the Senate.”
“It seemed like such a clear path to getting a health care reform bill enacted just a few days ago. … Certainly, now it seems harder to get there.”
MICHAEL RUSSO, the health care advocate at the left-leaning California Public Interest Research Group
Californian leads effort to defend abortion rights in health plan
WASHINGTON – As a school nurse long ago, California Democratic Rep. Lois Capps worked with children of the uninsured, getting eyeglasses for them with help from the local Lions Club.
She’s one of the most liberal members of the U.S. House, a longtime advocate of universal health care. She says she’s thrilled to be a member of a Congress on the verge of passing a historic overhaul of the nation’s health care system, legislation that she says was first proposed by President Teddy Roosevelt and that “means everything to me.”
In a high-stakes battle, she’s also threatening to vote against the bill because one issue is even more important to her: abortion.
Capps’ name has suddenly become synonymous with defending abortion rights on Capitol Hill. She’s engaged in one of the biggest fights of her nearly 12-year congressional career.
Capps, of Santa Barbara, is one of 40 lawmakers threatening to derail the legislation if a House-Senate conference committee does not remove language that would restrict access to abortions.
The issue is stirring up plenty of passion in Washington, much to the satisfaction of Capps, who whipped up hundreds of backers when they flooded Capitol Hill for a day of lobbying last week.
“The stakes are now really high and the advocates are going to make all of the difference in the world,” said Capps, attending a standing-room-only abortion-rights rally and standing in front of a bright orange and white sign that said “Abortion Is Health Care.” She drew loud applause when she announced: “I am one who cannot even envision voting for health care reform that takes us back on women’s rights.”
Watching Capps, 71, at the abortion-rights rally, Jingyi Zhang, 25, of San Mateo, called her “a good leader,” and said she was happy that California was playing a prominent role in trying to protect abortion rights.
“I feel like California and New York should be the leaders because they tend to be perceived as the most forward-thinking of the states,” she said.
Capps said abortion-rights backers got “a huge wake-up call” last month when the House voted to include abortion-limiting language in its health care bill by accepting an amendment offered by Michigan Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak.
Backers of abortion rights have a new mantra, “Stop Stupak,” and they much prefer the competing “Capps Amendment,” which would not add any more restrictions to abortion coverage.
Capps may not be well known nationally, but her amendment is quickly gaining fame in the nation’s abortion debate.
“She will probably be known forever as the author of the Capps Amendment,” said Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
While Capps has become a darling of abortion-rights groups, anti-abortion groups are working hard against her amendment.
“Americans, women included, reject the radical feminist vision of an abortion for every home, at government expense,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, which opposes abortion rights.
If the Stupak amendment is removed, she said, the vote on final passage of the health care bill will be “the most significant pro-life vote” of the year, adding: “This will be a career-affecting vote.”
At the same time, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is backing Stupak’s amendment, saying that without it millions of insurance purchasers would be forced to pay an “abortion surcharge” because they’d be forced to pay for abortion coverage.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved Capps’ amendment earlier this year. Under the amendment, the government could not mandate or prohibit coverage for abortion services for plans in the health insurance exchange. It would ensure that patients have access to at least one plan that covers abortion services and one that does not.
In addition, the amendment would retain and expand existing conscience protections for health care providers who refuse to provide abortions because of their personal beliefs, and it would clarify that public funding may not be used for abortion services except in cases of rape, incest and to protect the life of the woman.
Many abortion-rights backers said the committee work was intended to be a compromise between opponents and proponents of abortion rights and to ward off a divisive fight over abortion when the bill came before the full House.
“We thought that was pretty much something that had been taken care of,” said Sacramento Democratic Rep. Doris Matsui, a member of the committee.
But when the bill came to the full House, a majority voted to scrap the Capps amendment at the last minute in favor of Stupak’s plan, which opponents say would result in the biggest rollback of abortion protections in a generation.
Under Stupak’s amendment, consumers who get government subsidies to buy insurance in the exchange could not buy a plan that covers abortions, except in cases of rape, incest or to protect the life of the women.
“My goal has always been to ensure that the voices of the majority of Americans who oppose federal funding for abortion were heard in this important debate,” Stupak said.
Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado, the co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, said abortion-rights opponents are “hijacking” the health care debate and that “they took hostages and demanded a ransom.” But she said backers of abortion rights will not trade away those rights to get a health care bill passed.
“That is a devil’s bargain, and it’s a bargain that we will not make,” DeGette said.
California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, part of a team of women leading the abortion fight in the Senate, said abortion-rights backers will defeat Stupak’s amendment, but she said it’s a fight that they had hoped to avoid.
“We didn’t ask for it,” she said. “We didn’t look for it. But now that we’re in it, we will win it.”
Boxer called Capps “a smart and sharp” leader and said that supporters of Stupak’s amendment are trying “to chip away and tear away” the abortion rights guaranteed by the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court case. She noted that no other medical services are being singled out for non-coverage under the health care bill.
“They’re picking on women,” Boxer said. “And the women of America are just simply not going to stand for it.”