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Playing Politics with People's Lives

Dan Walters has an interesting piece in today's Sac Bee looking at the issue of universal health care in California.

Sen Keuhl's SB 840, which would mandate a universal health care system for California (though the how it will be funded part was left out of this version), passed out of a key Assembly Committee last week and is expected to pass the full house sometime in the last few days of the legislative session. But as Walters notes, it is almost certain that Gov. Schwarzenegger will veto it. Again, our governor will be given an historic opportunity to dramatically improve the lives of millions of people, and again he will choose to side with his big-business contributors.

Walters examines breifly why such necessary change has not been able to be achieved at the ballot box:

It is, as much as anything, an ideological question that's affected by the simple fact that the vast majority of Californians who vote -- 90 percent or more -- already have health care coverage, while the vast majority of those lacking coverage do not vote.

The California Nurses Assn. has made that analysis, and also realized that structural change like universal health care will never pass in California until the undue influence of corporate money in politics is removed. That analysis was part of the Nurses' motivation for Prop 89, which would establish a system of public financing in California. Not surprisingly, Schwarzenegger is against that as well.

We are lucky to have a candidate for governor, Phil Angelides, who has said he does support universal health care for all Californians, and who has pledged to put the power of his office, as the fifth largest economy in the world, into making it happen. It is quite a contrast to what we have now.

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