By: The Lewin Group, Inc
Authors: John F. Sheils, Randall A. Haught
Published: January 19, 2005
Financed by: Health Care for All Education Fund
Legislation analyzed: SB 921 as of April 30, 2004
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In this study we estimated the impact of covering all California residents under a single health plan. The proposal that we analyzed is the “Health Care for All Californians Act: SB 921”, (hereafter referred to as the “Act”) introduced in February of 2003, with clarifications provided by the authors’ staff through April 30, 2004. This analysis does not reflect any changes to the bill that may have occurred since that time.
The program would cover a broad range of health services for all California residents, including an estimated 4.7 million Californians who are currently uninsured. Premium payments to insurers would be eliminated for employers and individuals, except for coverage of services not covered by the program. Instead, the system would be funded with current spending for government health programs and new taxes to replace the premiums eliminated under the program.
We estimated the amount of health spending in California under current law in 2006 for the various payers in California including employers, households, the federal government and state and local governments. We then estimated health expenditures for each of these payer groups assuming the Act is implemented in 2006. The difference between estimated spending in 2006 under the Act and the estimated amounts spent in 2006 under current law, provide estimates of the impact of the program on spending for each payer group. Estimates of the cost impacts of the Act are provided for employers by firm size, industry, households, by age, income level and other demographic characteristics.