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# Local lawmaker’s bill shot down DENIED: Universal health care bill vetoed by governor
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/local-lawmakers-bill-shot-down-denied-universal-health-care-bill-vetoed-by-governor/
- Published: 2006-09-06T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T21:22:30.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Health, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*Nursing association upset over veto*

*By JESSICA ROBERTS Special to the Daily Press*

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday he would veto the universal health care bill authored by Santa Monica State Senator Sheila Kuehl.

Bill SB 840, known as the California Health Insurance Reliability Act, was introduced in February of 2005, and passed the house and senate this year. It was signed off by the state legislature last week. If approved, the bill would have provided health care coverage for all Californians.

The bill’s supporters had hoped to create a system that would have provided all of the state’s residents with a single standard of coverage. Between 6 and 7 million people in California do not have health insurance — almost 20 percent of the state’s estimated 36 million residents.

Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) said the bill would have ensured every Californian complete coverage, guaranteed the rights of patients to choose doctors, allowed the state to negotiate bulk rates for prescription medication, and controlled health-care costs.

Schwarzenegger characterized the bill as “socialized medicine” and said it “is not the solution to our state’s health care problems.”

He added that a single-payer system would create a “vast new bureaucracy” to take over California’s health insurance and medical care, which would be “a serious and expensive mistake.”

The bureaucracy of the current system was one issue the bill’s supporters said would be improved. By placing all residents under the same system and replacing the mix of private and public insurers, the bill would reduce administrative costs for health care from 30 percent to less than 5 percent.

“Where there are no cost controls at all now, and enormous administrative overhead and profit for insurance companies, there would have been a transparent system that actually would succeed in making healthcare coverage affordable in California,” Kuehl said in statement issued Tuesday.

A study by John Sheils and Randall A. Haught of the Lewin Group, a firm with 18 years of experience in health care cost analysis, found that the bill would have saved $20 billion in administrative costs, reducing total spending in California by $8 billion in the first year.

Schwarzenegger questioned the affordability of the bill, but Kuehl said it would not cost any more than the current system.

“Premiums to be paid by businesses and individuals under SB 840 would have taken the place of all premiums, co-pays and deductibles we now pay, saving every person who now pays for healthcare significant money,” she said in the statement.

Schwarzenegger also criticized the bill’s effect on health care, saying it would “reduce a person’s ability to choose his or her own physician, make people wait longer for treatment and raise the cost of that treatment.”

Supporters said the bill would not take away physician choice.

“In truth, all providers of health care would have remained as they now are, public or private, under the bill,” Kuehl said. “The big difference is that every person would have been able to select their own physician, dentist, hospital, or pharmacy, and there would have been no unreim-bursed care. Doctors would have done a great deal better under this bill than they do now under the thumb of insurance companies.”

The California Nurses Association (CNA) condemned Schwarzenegger’s veto Tuesday.

“Gov. Schwarzenegger is abandoning millions of Californians to health insecurity and potential financial ruin from un-payable medical bills," said CNA President Deborah Burger, RN.

She cited an Institute of Medicine study that some 18,000 deaths every year are associated with lack of health coverage, and noted that half of personal bankruptcies are linked to medical bills, all problems that she said would be solved by the bill.

One problem for the bill’s critics was the use of the term “residents” to describe those eligible for coverage. At a time when immigration issues have drawn a great deal of media attention, the question of paying for health coverage for non-citizens has been controversial.

Burger said the coverage would ultimately save the state money, since taxpayers would not be forced to take on the burden of emergency care for uninsured residents who may have entered the country illegally, or health problems resulting from untreated illnesses in the general population.

“It does make a difference when looking at the real costs of healthcare,” she said. “The state would have to pay for a tuberculosis outbreak or flu outbreak as a result of people not getting drugs they need, whether they’re here illegally or not.”

CNA had been a major supporter of the bill, since it “makes sure everybody has access to health care,” according to Burger.

Burger criticized Schwarzenegger’s use of the term “socialized medicine,” calling it inaccurate, adding that he had missed an opportunity to follow his own rhetoric. “(This) exposes the fraud of Schwarzenegger’s supposed ‘moderate’ election eve conversion, and demonstrates his continuing allegiance to HMOs, the insurance industry, and other big corporate donors to his campaign at the expense of everyday Californians,” Burger said.

Schwarzenegger has received more than $3.5 million from donors in the health care industry, according to the Secretary of State’s campaign finance filings.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 6, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/090606.pdf?ref=smdp.com)