Governor to veto health bill; call special session

The Legislature's dominant Democrats vowed today to put their health insurance bill on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk today, even though he has said he'll veto it and indicated that he'll call the Legislature back to Sacramento after this week's adjournment to deal with the issue, and perhaps some others.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, flanked by labor union and consumer representatives, told reporters that their bill, Assembly Bill 8, will be taken up on the floors of both houses today and predicted that it would pass with Democratic votes, despite their expectation of solid Republican opposition.

The bill, they said, would cover an additional 3-plus million Californians, the working poor and their families, mostly, or about two-thirds of the hard-core uninsured. The heart of the plan, and its most controversial feature, is a requirement on employers that they spend at least 7.5 percent of their payroll on health coverage for workers.

Schwarzenegger has his own plan that would cover more of the uninsured, but would be financed by a 4 percent requirement on employers, plus taxes on doctors and hospitals and federal funds. That plan, however, would apparently require a two-thirds legislative vote, thus giving Republican lawmakers a virtual veto.

Today's votes are part of an orchestrated "drill" under which Schwarzenegger would veto AB 8, then call the Legislature into special session in hopes that he and Democrats could reach a compromise that could be enacted with a simple-majority vote, with the financing to be placed before voters as a ballot measure next year, thereby bypassing GOP lawmakers. And the financial package could include a boost in sales taxes or some other general levies as an alternative to fees or taxes on employers and health care providers.

Schwarzenegger is expected to veto AB 8 as early as Tuesday, the issue his special session call that could include legislative redistricting reform, water development and other issues left hanging as the regular 2007 session ends. The Legislature plans to be in session today and Tuesday, then break for two days during Rosh Hashanah and return on Friday to close the regular session, with hundreds of bills still awaiting final action.

As Núñez and Perata staged their news conference, the Capitol's hallways were filled with hundreds of red-shirted, chanting members of the California Nurses Association, which wants the Legislature and the governor to reject both of the pending health care plans and embrace, instead, a "single-payer" system that would replace the health insurance industry.

But the two legislative leaders say that their bill is, in Núñez's words, "the best compromise we can craft...a compromise we can be proud of."

"We are not trying to prove a point here," Perata added. He and Núñez said they're pleased that Schwarzenegger will continue the special session to work on a compromise.