Orange County Register, May 22, 2007
Appeal Democrat (Marysville, CA), May 23, 2007
Recorder Online, May 24, 2007 

Assembly and state Senate proposals share many shortcomings with governor's plan.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed in January to require every Californian be covered by health care insurance, and to impose taxes – which he called "fees" – on doctors, hospitals and businesses to subsidize people who can't afford the premiums.

The governor tried to make attractive an ugly, government-mandated, subsidized health care program. It was like putting lipstick on a pig.

Democrat Assembly and state Senate leaders last week offered alternatives. They, too, would impose mandates, requiring employers to pay for employee health care or pay a tax to provide the insurance. It was like putting eyeliner on a pig.

In both cases we are left with a pig, gussied up to appear attractive, but certainly not embraceable.

Why do we say this? One need only look as far as Massachusetts. After only one year, that state's mandated universal health care's eyeliner and lipstick already are wearing thin. According to Sally Pipes, president of the Pacific Research Institute free-market think tank, for Massachusetts' health care plan to have survived even one year:

"[I]ts guardians have had to make many changes, each of which has increased current and future government spending, increased the government's role in regulating the health care market, decreased individual responsibility to purchase insurance and made certain that the plan will fall far short of achieving universal coverage."

Concludes Ms. Pipes: "So one year in, we have a plan that … falls 20 percent short of its stated goal. Its costs have already increased by at least $13 million and are on target to skyrocket by some multiple of this once the doctors' bills start coming in."

This is the fate of government-contrived attempts to impose universal health care. These schemes require private persons or companies to do what they prefer not to do by imposing arbitrary government mandates. The arbitrariness is evident in the three California proposals.

The Democrat Senate plan would tax businesses 7.5 percent, while exempting the self-employed. The Democrat Assembly plan would tax businesses 7.5 percent, but exempt businesses less than three years old or with fewer than two workers or with payrolls less than $100,000. The Republican governor's plan would tax hospitals and most businesses 4percent and doctors 2 percent.

The Assembly plan, AB8, and the Senate version, SB48, are being taken up in their respective house appropriations committees. No legislator has yet incorporated Mr. Schwarzenegger's proposal in bill form, which may be a sign his is less enthusiastically received in the Democrat-controlled Legislature.

All three plans ignore the 4{+t}{+h} U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in January that a Maryland state government mandate on private companies to provide health care in that state conflicts with federal rules promoting uniform treatment of employees across the United States. Not only is it a bad idea to impose socialist-type mandates, it's most likely legally unworkable.

The free market liberated from today's government mandates, such as what types of coverage must be included in a policy and which companies consumers may buy from, would lower prices by allowing consumers to buy only what they want, need or can afford. But the free market further restricted by new mandates only adds more costs to the system while restricting consumer choice. Meanwhile, it's worth noting that no one in California is completely shut out of obtaining some form of health care, even though about 6.5 million go without health care insurance, many at their own choice.

In Utopia, health care might be provided more attractively and lavishly for all. But we live in the real world of California, and no amount of government-applied lipstick and eyeliner will change that.