Hillarycare for California: Not a laughing matter

It was just a tiny squib in our regional newspaper, but the little headline was arresting: "State Senate Passes Universal Health Care Bill."

Say what you will about news media bias, the fact is a lot editors simply are numb between the ears. Thus they can take a story about the takeover a multi-billion-dollar industry and whittle it down to three column inches.

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All we could learn from this item was that the state Senate had passed the measure by state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, Senate Bill 840, by a vote of 25-15.

It was like 1993, when the flabby Washington, D.C., press corps wrote story after story about Hillary Clinton's move to socialize medicine, but never said what was in her 3,000-page bill. Every story was about who was supporting and who was opposing it – nothing about what it would do.

Finally, the public learned its contents – not from the news media, but from a radio talk-show host. After Rush Limbaugh read sections of the bill over the air, the populace was outraged. Congress hurriedly kicked dirt over it and pretended it was all a misunderstanding.

Kuehl's bill is not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but if it becomes law, it will be enough to devastate medical care in California, put thousands of people out of work, create a huge new bureaucracy, subordinate medical professionals to that bureaucracy, and vest dictatorial power in a Health Insurance Commissioner – with an eight-year term of office and two-term limit.

Buried in the bill's 53 pages is the key paragraph: "No health care service plan contract or health insurance policy, except the California State Insurance System, may be sold in California for services provided by the California State Health Insurance System."

The bill would allow you to opt out of the state health insurance monopoly, but you'd have to be self-insured. And, if you're being seen by a specialist, note that "beginning with the seventh month of system operation, all [my emphasis] patrons shall be required to obtain a referral ... for specialty care if the care is to be paid for by the system."

Generously, the state would allow you to see a specialist without such new referral "if the patient pays the full cost of the specialty care ..."

If you're a doctor, you would be under "limitations on health provider reimbursement above a specified amount of aggregate billing." Similarly, there would be "limitations on aggregate reimbursements to manufacturers of pharmaceutical and durable and nondurable medical equipment." (My emphasis.)

That thunderous sound you hear is made by physicians and researchers stampeding out of California.

The bill also would impose a "uniform payments system for providers and managers," including "upper level managers employed in private health care facilities, including hospitals, integrated health care systems, group and solo medical practices and essential community facilities ..." (My emphasis.)

All this is to be done in the guise of helping the working stiff who lacks health insurance. Never mind the pain of hordes of displaced health-industry workers, for whom the bill would provide "support during the transition for training and job placement."

And how is the transition to be financed? The commissioner "shall attempt to recover [my emphasis] moneys held by California foundations ... created pursuant to conversions of health plans from nonprofit to for profit status." In other words, the state would steal these funds.

Also, if your private health-insurance coverage overlapped the state plan, your insurance company would have to pay the state – a cute twist on double billing.

The commissioner would "establish formulas for equitable contributions ... from all California counties and other local agencies." The state would rob local government – again.

As for bureaucracy, how about these new entities: California Health Insurance Agency, Health Insurance Policy Board, Office of Consumer Advocacy, Office of Health Care Planning, Office of Health Care Quality, Health Insurance Fund, Public Advisery Committee, Payments Board, and the big enchilada, up to 10 "health care planning regions," each with "at minimum, "an office of ... consumer advocate, health care quality, health care planning, and partnerships for health."

If the latter sounds familiar, remember that Hillarycare would have done the same thing nationally.

Unlike Clinton's measure, Kuehl's plan wouldn't make you a criminal for seeking treatment outside your own region, but that kind of coercion can be added later.

The bill would require, and mentions multiple times, provision of "culturally and linguistically sensitive care," and never mind that you can get that under the current system. Kuehl also is pushing the egalitarian agenda by providing that you couldn't have a private hospital room if an "appropriate" non-private room was available.

You must remember that one of the goals of thinkers like Kuehl is to make us all the same by recognizing our differences. And if you find that disorienting, we're sure that – with a proper referral – the state will provide "appropriate" psychiatric care.