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GUEST: Jerry Flanagan, Health Care Policy Director at the Foundation for Tax Payer and Consumer Rights

Last month, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez joined forces to file a much-touted health care reform bill, ABx1 1. If ABx1 1 and its accompanying ballot measure are passed, they would represent the largest public program increase in more than 40 years. The proposal would would require all California businesses to contribute toward their workers’ health care, extend health coverage to nearly 4 of 5 million uninsured Californians and would be the largest expansion of coverage since the creation of Medicaid and Medicare. However, a Southern California based consumer protection group has written to California Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill, asking her to examine cost overruns hitting a similar program in Massachusetts and the lack of controls over insurer profiteering in the California measure. Hill is conducting an independent fiscal analysis of the state’s health care legislation.

For more information, visit www.consumerwatchdog.org.