Good for the Governor of California!!!!

Governor Schwarzenegger’s new health plan proposal is full of controversy.

It puts a provider tax on doctors and hospitals (which the docs have predictably already attacked), it hits HMO profits by putting a 15% cap on expenses and profits (WellPoint is currently operating on about a 20% expense and profit margin), and it mandates that both individuals, and employers with more than 10 employees, pay for health insurance coverage or be penalized.

Any one of those things right there have doomed lots of other comprehensive health care proposals.

I am not here to tell you this bill should pass as it is. If it ever does pass, it won’t pass as it is.

Too often in the health policy debate it’s easy to by cynical—to point out everything that is wrong and quickly predict yet another health policy political train wreck.

But when does the cynicism stop and the country get on the road to fixing its long broken health care system?

Give the Governor of California a hand for putting a credible proposal forward—and telling everyone, “Everything is on the table.”

This may not be perfect health policy but it surely is leadership!!

Now, if the stakeholders (who are so quick to selfishly criticize from their narrow viewpoint) and the state legislature can show the same kind of leadership and vision we could just have us a workable piece of legislation that will do what legislation is supposed to do—help people.

There are more than six million in California that need that help right now and any other working age citizen of California who isn’t uninsured is just a layoff away from being uninsured.

The Governor's plan.