Schwarzenegger’s desire for universal healthcare a natural segue

Arnold Schwarzenegger says one of his first purchases after coming to America 38 years ago was health insurance.

“It’s a cultural thing, maybe,” he says.

“I come from Austria, where everyone’s insured. It was a totally normal thing to me. Like eating and sleeping and finding an apartment. It was like, ‘Now you’ve got to get the insurance.’ One of the things I wanted to do the first month.”

He found an insurance broker -- a former Mr. Olympia -- at a bodybuilding gym on Ventura Boulevard in L.A. The broker thought young Arnold was being set up, that somebody was playing a joke. No, Schwarzenegger insisted, he really did want to buy health insurance.

He bought a policy for $23 a month, and paid an extra $5 for disability insurance.

“I knew I could get sick,” he says. “Or I could have an accident. Or something can happen in training. In sports, you have all these injuries. You see people always tearing out knees....

“And sure enough, 3 1/2 years later, I tore my knee -- my ligament, the cartilage in the kneecap, everything -- and I needed knee surgery.”

The surgery cost $8,000. Schwarzenegger paid just $1,000. Plus, he got $1,500 in disability.

“It was one of those perfect examples” of why people need health insurance, he says.

Skip ahead about 30 years. The mega-rich Hollywood superstar is seriously thinking about running for governor in 2006. Nobody yet could imagine a 2003 recall of Gov. Gray Davis. Schwarzenegger political strategist George Gorton argued the action hero needed to sponsor a 2002 ballot initiative that would serve as an introductory course in campaigning and show the public his compassionate side.

Schwarzenegger had an idea: He wanted to propose a state subsidy to help all children get health insurance, according to a Schwarzenegger biography, “The People’s Machine,” by Times reporter Joe Mathews.

His consultants protested. The cost would scare off voters, especially fellow Republicans. So instead, Schwarzenegger sponsored a successful initiative to fund after-school programs.

But Schwarzenegger didn’t drop his idea. He promised to fight for insuring all children while running for governor during the recall. And “since the day he got into office,” an advisor says, “he’s been asking for a plan to address health insurance. But there were so many other things, we just didn’t get to it.”

Now they finally are -- the whole Capitol, executive and legislative branches.

It’s the issue du jour for the two-year legislative session that kicks off Jan. 3.

Today, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) intends to disclose a Democratic proposal that would provide immediate coverage for all children. Also, employers would be required to provide a health plan or contribute to a state insurance pool.

Last week, Senate leader Don Perata (D-Oakland) proposed covering about two-thirds of uninsured Californians through their employers.

Schwarzenegger said in an interview that he’ll unveil his plan for healthcare insurance before his Jan. 9 State of the State Address. “I’ll call it the ‘state of the health of California.’ ”

He wants everyone to be covered, presumably including illegal immigrants.

It’s “a broken system,” he keeps repeating, in an effort to generate public pressure on the Capitol to fix it.

There are 6.5 million uninsured Californians. They can’t go to a doctor’s office for flu treatment, so many show up at a clogged hospital emergency room that, by law, cannot turn ailing people away. ER care costs much more than an internist’s. “It’s staggering,” Schwarzenegger says.

Somebody has to pay for treating the uninsured, and it’s usually the rest of us who do have insurance. The New America Foundation, a think tank, estimates that the average insured California family paid an extra $1,186 in premiums this year to reimburse medical providers stiffed by the uninsured.

“A hidden tax,” Schwarzenegger asserts.

Which raises another subject: Many experts don’t see how universal healthcare can be funded without increasing some taxes. Schwarzenegger, while campaigning for reelection, vowed not to hike taxes.

On Monday at an L.A. news conference, the governor seemed to hint that although he wouldn’t propose a health plan that included a tax hike, if somebody else did, he might look at it. “I’m not telling you now what I would or would not consider,” he said.

On Tuesday, I asked him what that meant. “It meant,” he replied, “that everyone should put their ideas on the table, whatever they might be.... Let us all together look at all those ideas and maybe we can pull something together that works.

“And I also was saying that, to me, raising taxes doesn’t make sense.”

On Wednesday, he firmed up the no-tax notion at a Capitol news conference: “It is very important [as legislators develop their proposals] that everyone understands that taxes is not on the table because ... the people are already punished with the hidden tax.”

An advisor must have whispered in the governor’s ear, “Don’t suggest that you’re even thinking about it.”

Schwarzenegger isn’t disclosing details of his plan -- just insisting, in a daily mantra, that there must be “shared responsibility” for fixing the system. Everybody and all interests must be involved, he says: employers, individuals, providers, insurers, governments.

It should be a donnybrook among the interests -- insurers, hospitals, doctors, business -- that could make last spring’s battle over infrastructure bonds seem like a pillow fight.

But Schwarzenegger radiates optimism.

“It’s totally achievable,” he says, raising his voice and emphasizing each word. “Believe me. I can taste it. There’s a will in this building. I mean, it is absolutely doable.”

For this governor, health insurance is much more than an issue du jour. It’s a longtime conviction and commitment.

George Skelton writes Monday and Thursday. Reach him at george.skelton@latimes.com.