Amid attacks by the Trump administration and Congress on the Affordable Care Act, Medicare and Medicaid that will further drive up costs for care and push more people out of health coverage entirely, California legislators should stop talking about universal coverage and act.

Senate Bill 562, to guarantee health coverage for all Californians, and eliminate the high premiums, deductibles, and other costs that force far too many to skip needed care, has already passed the state Senate and could be taken up in the Assembly immediately.

Nurses and other health activists have been knocking on doors and talking to thousands of Californians from San Diego to the Oregon border about Senate Bill 562 and found overwhelming support for action on the bill.

Related: California health bill pushes unrealistic, empty promises


Today, 15 million Californians remain with no health coverage or pay for insurance they can’t use due to the escalating costs.

A Kaiser Health tracking poll last year found that 43 percent of adults with insurance can’t afford their deductibles. Among those who struggle to pay medical bills, 73 percent cut spending on household items, 61 percent have used up all or most of their savings.

It’s about to get worse. Covered California last fall approved premium increases of 12.5 percent. And now health policy analysts predict insurers will use the repeal of the ACA’s individual mandate as an excuse to demand additional double-digit premium hikes this year. It all works for health insurance giants, which are making huge profits in California, $27 billion from 2011 to 2016.

The only barrier for urgent action is an intransigent Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, who has petulantly refused to do his job, blocking public hearings and any amendments on the bill.


Rendon and the health care industry interests he represents have tried to justify inaction by invoking misrepresentations and outright distortions about the bill. The false claims include:

1) It will cost $400 billion. Wrong. Over 90 percent of that is what we already spend on healthcare.

Savings from a single-payer system on funds insurers siphon off for profits, paperwork for denials of care insurers don’t want to pay for, and lucrative executive pay packages, and the state’s ability to use its bulk purchasing power to lower drug costs, will further reduce the overall spending. No other proposed approach to “cost containment” starts with $37.5 billion in savings, as Senate Bill 562 does, and then constrains prices and costs in the most effective ways.

2) Rendon asserts Senate Bill 562 is “incomplete” and says its lead sponsor, the California Nurses Association has failed to address his concerns, including additional funding needed. Not true.


CNA submitted 17 amendments on health policy specifically requested by Rendon’s consultant prior to his blocking the bill last June.

A CNA-commissioned study proposed additional revenues that would reduce what nearly every California family and business now pays for health care, while guaranteeing all state residents are covered, with no premiums, deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs.

But ultimately it is the job of Rendon and the Legislature to decide what revenue means to employ — in other words, to do the job to which we elect them, a process Rendon arbitrarily aborted last year.

3) Senate Bill 562 would “take everybody off Medicare and veterans care” — a false claim now being made by gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa that has no purpose other than to stoke fear among our seniors and our veterans.


In fact, the bill strengthens Medicare. It eliminates co-pays seniors currently pay and covers prescription drugs, while preserving the rest of Medicare. Veterans Administration health care would be excluded from the bill’s Healthy California program, since the VA is a closed system where the facilities and clinicians are federal employees.

4) State constitutional impediments, including Proposition 98 and the Gann initiative limits, bar enactment. Wrong. As former state Sen. Sheila Kuehl has explained, legislators have long shown ways to designate specific additional funding. Recent examples are the gas tax and cap and trade.

5) The Trump administration won’t grant a waiver for use of federal revenues. But other states have received the necessary federal waivers — the precedent for California exists.

Speaker Rendon and other elected leaders should make protecting the health security of Californians a top priority. With Senate Bill 562, they have in their hands the ability to finalize a bill that will make us all proud. With more threats looming from Washington, there’s no time to waste.


Burger is a registered nurse and co-president of the California Nurses Association.