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California Governor Schwarzenegger Meets with Business Leaders to Discuss Health Care ReformDate: 19.01.2007
Posted by: Anabolic Info Team United States
GOVERNOR: Financially we will be much better off if we can send most of the people that are right now using the emergency room to a doctor. So I think that what we are saying is, not debating should we get coverage or not, or should we get treatment or not, because that already has been decided.
>>: Right.
GOVERNOR: So the question now is, how do we do—instead of paying 1,000 dollars maybe in the emergency room, how do we get them the care, the same care or maybe better care, for 100 dollars? That’s really, I think, the question that we are debating. But of course there are some people that are up in arms about it, and we understand there are different points of view about all of those things. But I think that we are looking at it in a much more realistic way about all of those things.
And I think this is—again, if you think about the amount of people that use the emergency room that really shouldn’t, but only because they have no health care, so that’s the only place where they can go, and then a lot of the emergency rooms get stuck with unpaid bills, and that’s what we want to avoid. It’s, again, something that gets passed on to all of you.
But anyway, let me just make a few comments here. First of all, let me just say that I want to say thank you to all of you, for the business leaders and everyone to participate in our roundtable discussion. This is something that we are doing up and down the state, having roundtable discussions, and also to have town hall meetings, and to talk about this subject of reforming health care and to fix a broken system. This is what this is all about.
We’ve had some really fascinating conversations of what kind of burden it is on businesses now, to see the increased costs of health care, the double digit inflation, the double digit cost increases every year, and how it almost is becoming now to the stage where it’s like Workers’ Comp, where it’s the poison of the businesses. And I think that we have to do everything we can to protect our businesses in California, and therefore reform the system. And we have had some interesting conversations here, how tough it is now for businesses to cover people, and how sometimes businesses back out and do not want to cover people, the employers, because of the increased costs.
So it is something that we want to fix. Millions of Californians, as we know, are without insurance; 6.5 million, as a matter of fact. And someone has to pay for that, and I think that the businesses are all paying for it through a hidden tax. And what we want to do is get rid of that hidden tax. The hidden tax comes in through all kinds of different ways, which is higher premiums, higher deductibles, higher co-pays, higher out of pocket costs and so on. So we want to eliminate that because that will bring the costs way down.
We have figured that it’s approximately 14.7 billion dollars that the businesses in California are paying in hidden taxes right now. So if we eliminate that, and if you think about the 4 percent fee that we’re talking about, that businesses should contribute, that is only like a billion dollars versus the 14.7 billion dollars. I think that this also—because there will be more people that will get insurance, that will bring the costs also down. I think we have a great advantage here that we want to cover everybody, not just have the insurance companies pick and choose of who they want to cover. Cover everybody, no matter what their age is or what their medical problems are, everyone should be covered.
And I think that by doing these roundtable discussions that we are having now here in this room, or all over the state, I think we will get the information out there to the people, to the businesses, and to everyone in California, of what we are trying to do, and to let everyone know that even though you are insured, don’t think that you should not care about this issue, because you should be caring about this issue, especially if you are insured, because you are paying a hidden tax, and that hidden tax is a lot of money. We can eliminate that and reduce it down if we have everyone insured. So this is what the ultimate goal here is.
And businesses—as usual, we are very pro-business, our administration, because we know that when businesses do well, the economy booms and this is what we have seen over the last three years, since I have come into office. The economy has gone up, businesses are booming, therefore we create more revenues. And our revenues, the state revenues, have gone from 76 billion dollars to 101.3 billion dollars because the businesses are doing well. So we want to continue to have businesses do well and to be more competitive, and this is why we have to fix our health care system, the broken system.
So if you have any questions, please feel free. Yes, please.
Q: If you could get into a little bit about the context of this meeting. You were saying earlier about town hall meetings; I believe it’s maybe the first time you have come out since your unveiling of your health care agenda, to talk to business leaders and so on. If you could put this in the context of the other meetings that you might have in the future with consumer groups, or unions, or what have you —
GOVERNOR: Yes.
Q: —how does this fit into that overall?
GOVERNOR: We just recently had a meeting with consumer groups and with consumer advocate groups, and at the same time with business leaders. And they were sitting at the same table, and we had wonderful discussions, and everyone was interested to get this done. This is the important thing, that I think that we have seen that health care proposals have been made, but they were always dead on arrival. Now, for the first time, we have put the spotlight on this issue. Businesses are talking about it, that it is extremely important for them to be more competitive, that we reduce the costs of doing business, and therefore provide health care for everybody, get rid of the hidden tax.
So I think that what we want to do now is to do like the same thing as we did last year with infrastructure, with the infrastructure bonds. Go around the state, up and down the state, and talk to all the different people, if it is the people that run hospitals, if it is physicians, if it is business leaders, small businesses, big businesses, medium businesses, to include everyone, consumer advocate groups, everyone should be included in this discussion. We want to hear from everybody, to flesh it out, because as you know, there are other proposals on the table that Senator Perata has proposed, and Speaker Núnez, the Republicans are very soon going to come in with their own proposal. All of those things will be considered, because we want to have Democrats and Republicans together make the decision in which direction we are going to go. And I think we have a good chance to get this done this year.
Q: Governor?
GOVERNOR: Yes?
Q: I have a question. You’re talking about the 14.7 billion dollar hidden taxes --
GOVERNOR: Didn’t I see you at the Olympics? Yeah, all over the place.
Q: (IA) 14.7 billion annually in the hidden tax you’re talking about for business. 4 percent into the fund you’re talking about, from business, 1 billion dollars annually. What is the transitional period? Is there going to be a period here where businesses are going to be paying both, as you shift from one to the other?
GOVERNOR: Well, we have a big belief that this year this will be passed. And as soon as this is passed, then from that point on we go and the businesses start paying in their 4 percent, and hospitals start paying in their 4 percent, if that’s exactly—we are not saying that our bill is going to be the one exactly the way it is, it’s going to pass. But as soon as the bill passes, then we will start that following year.
Q: But the hidden taxes will just vanish?
GOVERNOR: No, no. It slowly will vanish. It’s like Workers’ Compensation. It’s the same situation as Workers’ Compensation. We reformed Workers’ Compensation. The first year businesses called me and said, “You know, I don’t see the reductions yet, the way you have talked about. You talked about 25 percent reductions.” And I said, “Well, give it a little bit of chance, because it hasn’t yet fully been in effect.” Then the second year they said, “Oh, yeah, they 17 percent came down.” Then all of a sudden the next year they said, “Now we are down to 35 percent already.” And this year they are down past 50 percent already, way beyond of what we actually promised; we promised only 25 percent reduction.
So this is exactly what will happen here. It’s not going to go from one day to the next, no. But I think that as it takes effect, I think over a period of time, you will see the costs coming down, the health care costs, and that hidden tax will slowly disappear. All of this will happen.
Q: Any estimate of what that period of time would be?
GOVERNOR: I think it could be a half of a year—what do you guess?
>>: Well, as soon as the plan goes into effect, everyone will be insured. So once that happens, I think you’ll actually see a pretty dramatic drop-off. The hidden tax is driven by the uninsured people, all those millions of uninsured people.
GOVERNOR: Yes?
Q: Can you talk briefly about the proposed spanking issue?
GOVERNOR: I have not looked at it yet. I just think that one ought to address that issue. But as I have said yesterday in some of the interviews, that we are very fortunate that in America we are in a country where that is not a popular thing. Where I grew up on Austria, it was—of course it was like 40, 50 years ago—it was a much more common thing, that everyone got smacked, everyone got whacked with the yardstick, in school, by the teacher, by their parents. So that was just a much more cultural thing then. Not any more, either, that has changed also in Austria.
So I think that we have seen, my wife and I, we have seen that we have never, ever, touched our kids, and we have been very effective with our methods of disciplining the kids. Because in the end, you recognize very quickly that if you say to your kid that there will be no play date this weekend and you don’t get out of the house, you study and you do your arithmetic, and here are the math problems you’re going to solve and all those things, that they hate that actually much more than getting spanked or something. So I think that we can discipline the kids and we can really make the kids grow up to be good citizens, and to be good kids, without hitting them.
Q: Governor, how are you feeling? How is your hip? How are you mending?
GOVERNOR: When I have a meeting like this, an interesting meeting like this, I don’t think about it at all. So this is why I like to work, because then I don’t think about it. But if I do think about it, it is always some pain there and discomfort, which of course is natural. But, you know, I don’t think there is much reason to complain about it, because there are so many people that have their own problems. So within the next few weeks I will be off the crutches, and I will be moving around very quickly again, and it will heal very quickly.
Q: The bodybuilding, has that helped you in your recovery?
GOVERNOR: Well, you know, I’ve had injuries my whole life. I mean, you know, when you’re in sports, and when you squat with 600 pounds and so on, you get injuries in your back, and in your knees, and in your shoulders from bench pressing. And doing all those stunts and the stuff that I have done in the movies, so I have had many injuries, including heart surgery and hip replacement, and shoulder surgery. The bionic man. Yes? There’s one more here.
Q: (IA) what will be the method of coercion for those millions of uninsured right now? There’s going to be what they call the ‘frictional uninsured’, people who just will not buy the insurance. What will be the method to get those people in, since those tend to be the healthy people, and the ones who will provide the financials?
GOVERNOR: Well, I think it will be mandatory. I mean, people will have to get insurance. That’s the only way this is going to work, if everyone is insured, and there is no one anymore going to the hospital, to the emergency room, because they don’t have insurance.
Q: What’s the method of ensuring that a 20 year old who just doesn’t want to buy insurance, what will (IA)
GOVERNOR: It’s the same method as we have with car insurance. You know, that when they said everyone has to have car insurance, there are still some people that don’t, but if they get caught, then there will be some penalties.
Q: Well, in that case, there’s a privilege the state can take away. What privileges will the state take away (IA)
GOVERNOR: Do you want to address that?
>>: You know, when the Governor has said that he wants to create a culture of coverage—we know that everybody would rather be covered than not, first of all. So if we create the opportunities at the point of health care delivery, in the schools, there are all kind of places where we can reach out to people who don’t have insurance and give them the opportunity to get it. That’s most of the solution.
But we also have the tax system. There are other ways to ensure that everybody is ultimately on board. But we believe if you make it affordable, and you make it available, people would rather be insured than not.
GOVERNOR: I think it’s also important that we—I think what this will do is slowly we want to change the mentality of the people so that they look at health care as one of the top, when you list the important things, what is important in their life. So it is—you know, Europeans in general will list that amongst the top five things. It’s very important. Like when I came over to this country, that was the first thing I was looking for, and I was asking people, “Where can I get health insurance?” Because I came from a country where it was natural that everyone had insurance, so I felt uncomfortable not having it when I came over here. So I think that if you slowly change the mentality of people, and not make them feel like, “Well, you know something? I’m 20 years old, nothing is going to happen, I’m not going to get sick, I’m young, so 10 years from now I’ll maybe address this issue.” I think we want to change that to say, you know, let’s have health care, because if you don’t, if something happens, someone else has to pay the bill, and you are now having an effect on someone else, and that’s not fair. So that’s why everyone should get coverage.
Q: Governor, could I get one more in, please, on your hip? About a year or so ago I was in an event and you showed up with a fat lip from falling off your motorcycle, you having that accident then. And seriously now, we lost Sonny Bono, Michael Kennedy in skiing accidents, and you’ve had two accidents now since you’ve been governor, and I wonder if you’re actually giving some thought to curtailing some of these potentially dangerous activities, because we don’t want to lose you.
GOVERNOR: Well, thank you very much.
Q: Seriously.
GOVERNOR: You know, I come from a background, like I said, where I’ve done stunts my whole life of almost 30 years in the movie business, and where I could have gotten killed many times over in doing those stunts, because some of those things are dangerous. And when you are motorcycle riding, when you are horseback riding, when you are skiing, those are all things that the insurance companies tell you, when you do a movie, “You’re not allowed to do those things, because those are the things that could really injure you.” So of course I never stopped doing those things, I always did, even during the movies. So I think it’s just—you know, some people just are out there and doing sports. I feel, at the same time, you could walk across the street and get run over by a car. And also --
Q: But you’re a public servant now, sir. Don’t you feel a different responsibility to the people of California --
GOVERNOR: Yes, so I just—
Q: —than to your movie company?
GOVERNOR: I just serve the people with crutches now (IA). But I will protect myself, but thank you for your concern, I appreciate it very much. Thank you.
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