By Len Feldman
Teachers across California are joining parents and working families in expressing their deep disappointment in the governor for vetoing legislation that would have provided the framework for universal health care in the state.
The California Health Insurance Reliability Act (CHIRA) would have provided comprehensive and affordable health care coverage to more than 6.5 million Californians who can’t currently afford it, including 800,000 school-aged children.
“At a time when studies show there is a direct link between children’s health and their success in school, the governor is turning his back on a plan that would have helped cover these uninsured children and saved billions of dollars in wasteful health care industry spending,” says CTA President Barbara E. Kerr. “Like all working people, teachers, parents and their children deserve a fair health care system that provides for all. This bill would have put us all on that path.”
With CTA’s support, Senate Bill 840 by Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) made it through both houses of the Legislature and went to the governor in late August. In explaining his decision to veto the bill, the governor denounced CHIRA as “socialized medicine.” Kuehl said the governor’s veto message “reveals his real agenda: leave health care in the hands of private insurance companies and let working families lose coverage one family at a time.”
The bill would have expanded health care coverage in part by streamlining the administrative functions of insurance companies.