"Universal health care" is on the blockbuster list of campaign catchphrases this year in California. Supervisors have approved Mayor Gavin Newsom's Health Access plan for the uninsured, but it is not a valid model for California, nor for San Francisco.

The health program aims to provide care only within San Francisco, for any adult resident, regardless of immigration or employment status. It will cost taxpayers an estimated $200 million a year, but this figure is a fraction of the true cost. And for those not insured in San Francisco, Mayor Newsom, although well. meaning, is providing the incentives to keep them that way.

Uninsured In, Jobs out
When the mayor realized that the city fell short $28 million to pay for his Health Access plan, he collaborated with Supervisor Tom Ammiano, who wants to fill the gap by taxing small businesses an average of $273 per month for subsidized health care for each full-time employee. The Newsom/Ammiano plan would flood San Francisco with the uninsured and unemployed while driving out small businesses.

Under imposed government plans, people lose the ability to choose the health care they want.

The better solution is to fix health insurance. Many people don't want to pay for private health insurance that state governments have made too expensive through excessive regulation. Mandated benefits increase the cost of basic health coverage from a little less than 20 percent to more than 50 percent, depending on the state. In New Jersey, insurance programs must cover "children" at home up to the age of 30 - the so-called "slacker mandate."

One reason that health insurance is expensive is that the insured already pay for the uninsured. Those not insured can still go to the emergency room and see the same doctors as people with insurance. Hospitals are bound by law to treat all patients, whether or not they can afford it. Those stunned at the sight of their hospital bill must understand that they are also paying for the uninsured, who cannot be counted on to pay.

Government control of health care also results in significant opportunity costs such as long waiting lists for services and poor quality care. Under government control, private insurance companies become frustrated with bureaucracy and exit the market.

Such would be the result of extending the San Francisco plan statewide. It would also be the result of the government monopoly health care advanced by state Sen. Sheila Kuehl.

Relax the tax
There is a better way. The number of uninsured will drop when the price of health insurance drops, not when the cost is merely shifted to other San Franciscans or Californians.

A good first step is to change California's tax laws to make Health Savings Accounts deductible from taxable income, so that individuals can save for their own medical expenses, and have a bigger incentive to buy well-designed private health insurance in a competitive market.

Forty-four other states allow this simple deduction and California should follow suit, regardless of what happens in November.