Ballot Measure Battles Start To Heat Up
Election day is still more than six months away, but rapidly escalating actions regarding several healthcare-related ballot measures suggests they will be tersely – and expensively – contested to the end.
The California Hospital Association announced on Wednesday that some 1.3 million signatures have been gathered to back a ballot measure that would keep a bed tax used to leverage federal Medi-Cal funding intact. That's about 500,000 more signatures than required.
Current law levies a bed tax on hospitals that raises about $3.2 billion a year. About $2.4 billion is then used to leverage federal matching funds for the Medi-Cal program, while the remainder is used to pay for healthcare coverage for low-income children.
However, the tax is slated to end in early 2017. The initiative would extend it indefinitely, and would require another voter referendum to rescind it. It would also place restrictions on how the tax and the leveraged funds are used, meaning lawmakers cannot divert the money for other purposes.
“The Act protects taxpayers and patients by prohibiting funds from being diverted to purposes that are not health care-related,” said Christopher Dawes, chief executive officer of Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford and Stanford Children’s Health. “The money would have to be used for its intended purpose, to help provide healthcare services to children, seniors and other low-income Californians, and any changes in the program or to how the money is spent would have to be approved by voters first.”
The hospitals are putting the full weight of their wallets behind the initiative as well. Lucile Salter Packard has already contributed $1.3 million toward its support of the measure – part of more than $50 million hospitals have already contributed, records show. That's despite the fact that there are no public opponents against the measure, which is known as Medi-Cal Funding and Accoutability Act of 2014.
Meanwhile, insurers are throwing out tens of millions of dollars to defeat a ballot measure that would give state regulators the ability to block any premium increases they deem unreasonable. Consumer Watchdog, the Santa Monica-based advoacy group that sponsored the initiative, claims earlier this week that insurers have contributed $25 million so far, including $12 million in the month of April. They have also formed an opposition group, known as Californians Against Higher Health Care Costs.
“California’s biggest health insurers are spending tens of millions of policyholder dollars to be able to continue to pass on unreasonable spending on executive compensation, political contributions, advertising, investments and civil fines to consumers,” said Consumer Watchdog President Jamie Court. According to the campaign finance tracking organization MapLight, WellPoint alone has contributed $12.5 million. In addition to obtaining the signatures to place the measure on the ballot, it has also contributed $250,000, records show. Court believes the insurance sector will spend at least $50 million and perhaps as much as $100 million to defeat the initiative.
Consumer Watchdog's predecessor group sponsored Proposition 103, which rolled back automobile insurance rates in the 1980s and put rate hikes under the purview of the California Insurance Commissioner. The insurers litigated the matter for years afterward.
Several other ballot initiatives are also expected to be the center of bitter contests. Union-sponsored initiatives that would cap hospital executive compensation and hospital charges are strongly opposed by the CHA. The California Medical Association and other physician groups are also expected to mount strong opposition to another Consumer Watchdog-sponsored initiative that would raise the current noneconomic medical malpractice cap above its current $250,000 limit, and impose some drug testing on physicians.
