Advocates for Working People Say CNA-Sponsored Bill is a Setback that Excludes Thousands of Children and Threatens County Health Systems
LOS ANGELES – The Service Employees International Union, California’s largest health care union, and several health care advocacy groups are taking steps today to stop a Senate bill that could lead to the closure of county hospitals and clinics and exclude children from health care coverage.

The bill, SB 1459 (Yee), is sponsored by the California Nurses Association and proposes cutting public hospitals out of efforts to provide coverage to adults without children at home, instead favoring private insurance companies –  despite the CNA’s well-publicized opposition to private coverage plans in last year’s healthcare reform effort. The bill also excludes many uninsured California children by leaving in place federal citizenship and residency requirements.

“SEIU strongly supports providing health coverage to all Californians. Unfortunately, SB 1459 undermines access to care for Californians, enriching for-profit corporations while undermining public services – that’s the wrong direction for California; it’s out of touch with our needs,” said Annelle Grajeda, president of SEIU 721 and president of the SEIU State Council.

“Last year, CNA opposed healthcare reform that would have extended coverage to millions of lower-income, working families,” said Grajeda. “Now they're pushing a bill that deliberately excludes thousands of these same families' children from coverage as well as undermining public systems that lower-income people rely on. Their healthcare agenda is blind, if not outright hostile, to the needs of lower-income, working Californians.”

SEIU has been working with teams of advocates for years to ensure all Californians, especially children, have access to health care and that safety net health care systems, including public hospitals, emergency rooms and trauma centers, are adequately funded. Two bills, SB32 (Steinberg) and AB1 (Laird) provide coverage for all children, streamline and simplify Medi-Cal and Healthy Families and protect the county health care systems in the state.

If passed, the damaging effects of SB1459 could be far-reaching. The bill would:

• Undermine the county hospitals and clinics which low-income Californians rely on.
  
• Exclude coverage for many children in California.
  
• Corporatize eligibility determination, which would eliminate thousands of public service jobs and often results in many who are eligible for public programs being denied coverage.
  
• Expose the privacy of immigrant families.
  
• Weaken existing law on streamlined enrollment.

“SB 1459 represents steps backward on a number of fronts, including enrollment streamlining,” said Grajeda. “It’s as if the author and the sponsors haven’t actually been paying attention to healthcare reforms for the past decade.”