Health Bills in the Hopper

A dangerous gap in health services that leaves more than 5 million Californians without health insurance is being tackled on several fronts in Sacramento, a most welcome response.

Two bills to extend coverage will come before the Assembly Ways and Means Committee Wednesday. Committee approval will facilitate continuation of this useful process, although a favorable vote will by no means guarantee that action will be taken this year.

At the same time, a broad-based coalition of public service organizations is among several that are making preliminary plans for ballot initiatives to allow the voters to decide the issue next year if the legislative process fails this year.

There are many serious obstacles. Gov. George Deukmejian has provided no leadership on the issue. The California Chamber of Commerce also has failed to provide the kind of leadership one would expect from a community increasingly battered by the disarray in the health insurance realm. And federal officials are resisting a waiver to federal regulations governing employee benefits to facilitate state-mandated employer-paid health insurance.

There are two bills before the Ways and Means Committee this week. AB 350, sponsored by Assembly Speaker Willie L. Brown Jr. (D-San Francisco), requiring employers to provide health coverage for their workers, has substantial legislative support but could not be implemented in the absence of a waiver from federal regulations. AB 328, sponsored by Assemblyman Burt Margolin (D-Los Angeles), is a more ambitious program that would create a state health insurance plan, with subsidies for lower-income families and provisions for pooled coverage that could lower health insurance costs for small employers and individuals. The committee can keep alive the search for a solution by approving both.