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San Francisco Chronicle
October 8, 2005
By Steve Lawrence, Associated Press Writer
SACRAMENTO--Health care advocates said Saturday
that they were left angry and disappointed by Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger's veto of two bills designed to provide medical
coverage for about 800,000 uninsured California children.
The vetoes were announced Friday night, hours
after Schwarzenegger promised at a bill-signing ceremony
on other legislation to "continue putting our children
first."
One of the vetoed bills, by Assemblywoman
Wilma Chan, D-Alameda, would have expanded eligibility for
the state's Healthy Families health care program and stepped
up efforts to sign up children eligible for that program or
Medi-Cal, another health care program for the poor.
The other bill, by Assemblyman Dario Frommer,
D-Los Angeles, would have set up a fund in the state treasury
to pay for the Chan legislation through a combination of government
funding and private contributions that would have been tax
deductible.
In his veto messages, Schwarzenegger said
he supported health coverage for all children but questioned
how to pay for the legislation.
"This bill would cost the state almost
a half billion dollars a year without providing a funding
source at a time when California has a $7.5 billion (budget)
deficit," he said in turning down the Chan bill.
But Chan said her bill would have been phased
in over three years and would have only cost about $20 million
in the first two years. Part of the cost would be covered
by federal aid, she added.
"There would be some opportunity to
maximize federal funding in the years ahead, and we would
have had two or three years to look at this in the context
of other budget priorities," she said in a conference
call with other bill supporters. "I never had an opportunity
to have that conversation with the governor's office."
She also said she never received any suggestions
from Schwarzenegger on how to improve the bill.
The bill's supporters said they would continue
to push for expansion of children's health programs.
"The reality is that 90 percent of kids
are covered with health insurance," said Rebecca Stark,
an organizer for PICO California, a church-based organization.
"The job is almost done. We need the courage to finish
the job."
On Friday morning, surrounded by Girl Scouts,
Schwarzenegger held a ceremony to tout his signing of several
other bills that he said would benefit children, including
a measure to ban the sale or rental of extremely violent video
games to minors.
In another veto announced Friday night, the
cigar-smoking governor turned down a bill that would have
required health insurance plans to cover stop-smoking programs.
He said the legislation, by Sen. Deborah
Ortiz, D-Sacramento, would have boosted health insurance costs
without triggering much of an increase in usage of the programs.
"While more than 55 percent of insured
Californians already have tobacco-cessation coverage, only
10 percent of smokers trying to quit utilize the benefit,"
he said.
But Ortiz said that the number of smokers
who quit jumps sharply when they have nicotine replacement
products and counseling on how to stop smoking.
She said employers and health insurers know
that stop-smoking programs save them money in the long run
but are reluctant to cover the programs if their competitors
won't.
"By requiring all plans to cover these
products, the playing field is level, everyone will share
in the cost savings and California will have a healthier economy
and work force," she said.
Schwarzenegger also drew criticism Saturday
for his Friday night veto of another Ortiz bill that would
have set up a testing program to determine the type and amounts
of chemicals that Californians carry in their bodies.
Ortiz said the bill was a first-step in finding
ways to mitigate the health problems caused by those chemicals,
and she accused Schwarzenegger of caving in to opposition
from oil and chemical companies.
Schwarzenegger said the bill would have resulted
in a flawed study.
"The bill will only provide a partial
snapshot of chemicals present in tested participants without
proper context of what the presence of specific chemicals
means or how it interacts with other health factors,"
he said in a veto message.
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