On Wednesday I wrote, in a diary entitled "CA Health Insurers will win tomorrow" (and then continued in its text "or not -- if we can stop them"), about AB-52, the bill that would allow the Insurance Commissioner -- currently Dave Jones, the driving force behind the bill -- to regulate health insurance premium increases in the same way that he now does automobile and properly/casualty insurance.
I have some good news and some bad news.
The good news is that the bill passed the Assembly yesterday.
More good news is that only one Democrat voted "no."
The bad news is that no Republicans voted "no" on the floor.
You may find that bad news puzzling. Join me after the gnocchi for an explanation of what happened yesterday -- to the extent one can tell -- and of the state of play.
1. Yesterday's weird vote
If making legislation is indeed like making sausages, yesterday the machinery was gummed up and spitting out sparks. One Republican and one Democrat were absent with valid excuses yesterday, leaving 51 Democrats and 27 Republicans present. Republicans tried to delay the vote. After their delaying tactics were rebuffed, Republicans walked out of the chamber for 30 minutes and missed the debate and floor vote. The sole speakers against the bill were two Democrats, Charles Calderon and Jose Solorio. The floor vote itself was 43-1. (This was the figure initially reported in Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones's press release.) The single negative vote came from Dr. Richard Pan; Assemblymen Calderon and Solorio did not vote, along with five other Democrats present. Democrat Tony Mendoza had apparently been absent from the floor for benign reasons and added a 44th vote; Republicans trickled in and the tally stood at 44-7. Legislators can keep changing their votes during the day, though, so the final total as of yesterday afternoon was 45-28. Keep an eye on that 45th vote: we'll come back to it.
So: all 27 Republicans present eventually voted "no," along with Dr. Pan. Six Assembly members present, all Democrats; seven never voted.
One would think that a "yes" vote is better than an abstention is better than a "no" vote -- and in 44 out of 45 cases, the former part is right. This time, though, the "no" vote galls me less than the abstentions -- and the abstentions gall me less than that 45th "yes" vote. This is a perfect example of how the final scorecard doesn't really tell the story.
2. Pan Fried
We'll start with the "no" vote, Dr. Pan. As his staffer explained yesterday to our own cooper888:
Pan's position is that prohibiting rate increases doesn't solve the problem and the unintended consequence would be people being dropped by their carrier.
I don't buy it -- but at least it seems like a matter of principled objection. Dr. Pan is no stranger to the health care industry and is at least willing to stand up for what he believes and take his lumps.
There's another possible explanation, of course. Not to be cynical, but Dr. Pan also comes from a relatively conservative district in the eastern Sacramento suburbs (e.g., Citrus Heights) where he got only 49.6% of the vote in 2010. He could easily be redistricted into an even less favorable one. If Dr. Pan's political self-preservation instincts played a role in his vote I don't completely begrudge it -- so long as we have the votes without him.
Why else am I less irked at Dr. Pan than at some of his other Democratic colleagues? Simple: because he didn't vote -- or rather non-vote -- with the Republican caucus.
3. Abstinence-only Democrats
Leaving aside the 44 "yes" votes (including Mendoza), Dr. Pan, and the absent Isadore Hall, six Democrats were in a position to vote "yes" on the floor vote but instead joined the Republicans in not voting at all. Let's meet them:
Joan Buchanan, San Ramon, 53.4%
Charles Calderon, Montebello, 68.9%
Cathleen Galgiani, Merced, 58.4%
Alyson Huber, Elk Grove, 52.0%
Henry T. Perea, Fresno, 59.8%
Jose Solorio, Santa Ana, 65.5%
This chart may require a small amount of explaining. The Assembly member's name is in bold. A city indicating the location of the district -- not necessarily where the member lives, but from where it looks to me like the plurality of the votes may come -- is in italic. The numbers following that are the percentage of the vote that the candidate received in 2010. They break down nicely into three pairs.
3a. Tough districts. I tend to give Joan Buchanan and Alyson Huber a pass. Their votes weren't needed; voting with Democrats -- as I'd want them to have done if necessary -- would call insurance companies into their districts to try to topple them in their close races (most likely using extraneous issues that wouldn't even involve insurance.) I want a legislative Democrat to be willing to fall on a grenade if necessary to save important legislation -- but not to do so gratuitously and sacrifice their seat.
3b. Iffy districts. I'm not sure about Cathleen Galgiani and Henry Perea. They had healthier margins in 2010 -- but this is a redistricting year. One can easily imagine a non-partisan commission drawing district lines in the Merced and Fresno areas that would not be a lot better than Pan's district. If they felt that they had to protect themselves, and would have been there (before Buchanan and Huber) had their votes been needed -- as if we can believe them -- then so be it. Let's leave them aside and ask ourselves the big question:
What the hell was going on with Charles Calderon and Jose Solorio?
3c. Safe districts. Charles Calderon, brother of Ron Calderon, the State Senator from the Montebello area, is the dean of legislative Democrats. He started in the legislature before term limits were enacted and is now in his 20th year. He is currently the Senate Majority Leader. (I repeat: he is the Senate Majority Leader.) He is a relatively conservative Democrat who was one of the "Gang of Five" -- Gary Condit was another one -- who tried to oust Democrat Willie Brown as Speaker in the late 1980s. (Willie Brown didn't react well to that.) I'm not sure whether he's termed out, but he's probably unbeatable if not. If he is, he probably doesn't need a job with the insurance industry anyway. Maybe he just loves insurers (or hates the uninsured -- or about to be uninsured), but in any event there was no electoral reason why he could not for this.
And that brings us to Jose Solorio. He's from Latino-minority, relatively impoverished Santa Ana. How does someone from Santa Ana vote against regulating runaway health insurance rates?
4. Inappropriate comments
Solorio and Calderon both sit on the Appropriations committee, which had to pass this bill for it to reach the floor, and their comments there to bill sponsor Mike Feuer give some hint of their thinking. Their comments at the Appropriations hearing -- not one where one is supposed to get into the underlying merits of the bill -- were recounted by California Healthline, a news website of the nonprofit California HealthCare Foundation:
"I don't want to stop it, I think it's a good bill," Assembly member Charles Calderon (D-Montebello) said. "But I think you need to take an amendment on this bill ... that says there will be a review by an independent actuarial in the case of a rate increase disagreement."
Feuer said he was reluctant to change the policy of AB 52 while standing in the appropriations committee hearing.
"That's complicated ... and the concern I have is, current law is different than that. I can build on existing rules, but I can't roll them back."
Assembly member Jose Solorio (D-Santa Ana) pushed back. "I was hoping you'd be agreeable to taking an amendment in a way that says if a rate is justifiable and sound, then the rate would be accepted," Solorio said. "I'm hoping that we can hear commitment from you that, on the floor, you can take an amendment."
"What is clear is this," Feuer responded. "I understand there's a reaction in this committee, and I'm very committed to responding to it, to that conversation continuing. I'm always open to deep engagement with all stakeholders."
Solorio snapped back: "I hear you say you're unwilling to make an amendment," he said.
AB 52 festered for a while in the 17-member Appropriations Committee, without the votes of Calderon and Solorio, before finally picking up the ninth vote it needed to be reported out.
5. The 45th vote
Now we get to what is in some ways the most maddening part. Take a look at that list of the six Democrats who intentionally abstained on the floor vote. One of them eventually voted "yes," so that on the voting record he or she appears to be the very equal of Mike Feuer. Care to guess who it was?
No, I think I'm not going to tell you yet. First you'll have to get past Dave Jones's press release.
6. Dave Jones is a much nicer fellow than Seneca Doane
Here's what he had to say yesterday:
Insurance Commissioner Jones Applauds Passage of AB 52 By California Assembly
Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones announced today that the California Assembly has passed AB 52, authored by Assembly Member Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles), by a vote of 44 to 27. The bill gives the Insurance Commissioner the power to reject excessive health insurance rate increases and protects consumers and businesses.
"I want to thank Assembly Members Mike Feuer and Jared Huffman for their good work in authoring this bill, the Chair of the Health Committee, Bill Monning for his help and Speaker John A. Pérez for shepherding this bill through the Assembly," Commissioner Jones said. "This bill levels the playing field for California's consumers and businesses and I look forward to continuing this effort to ensure that it becomes law."
"The California Assembly today recognized that our families shouldn't have to live in fear that they are just one rate hike away from no longer affording health insurance," said Assembly Member Feuer. "I am grateful for the broad support this bill has garnered from the business community, as well as organizations representing seniors, consumers and working families. But until AB 52 is signed, California families and businesses will continue to have to depend on the whim of an insurance company to halt an unjustified rate increase."
"In a struggling economy, small businesses are the backbone to economic recovery and job creation. However, small businesses have trouble attracting talented employees because many people cannot afford to take a position that does not provide health insurance," said Aubry Stone, CEO of the California Black Chamber of Commerce.
"AB 52 will help small businesses provide health insurance for their employees. When employees have reliable health care, they become more productive. The Hispanic Chamber of Commerce strongly supports this critical measure," said Julian Canete, CEO of the California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
Introduced in December 2010, AB 52 would require health plans and insurers to seek approval from state regulators prior to raising health care premiums, copayments, or deductibles. The bill now moves to the Senate.
7. The 45th vote -- REVEALED!
After speaking against the bill, and after refusing to vote for it during the floor vote, Charles Calderon belatedly voted for the bill. So, that means that you have the bill's sponsor Feuer as a "yes," Calderon as a "yes," Huber (for example) as an abstention, Solorio as an abstention, and Pan as a "no." How do you rank them in terms of how admirable they were? Here's a hint: of these five, I rank Pan as #3.
8. AB-52 in the State Senate
Next up is the State Senate. We need 20 votes to win (with Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom breaking a tie.) We have 25 Democrats. The 15 Republicans will surely all vote "no." We can lose at most 5 Democratic votes -- so we need to nail down 20 supporters to make this happen.
One bit of good news is that no Democrats in the State Senate have current districts as tenuous as Pan, Buchanan, and Huber. Only one sitting Democratic State Senator was most recently elected to his or her seat with less than 60% of the vote (and that was Juan Vargas in SD-40 with 59.5%.) Redistricting complicates everything here as well, of course, but barring some truly horrific line drawing electoral consequences will not be a good reason to give anyone a pass.
9. Calling State Senators
I know that information is out there as to who -- like Solorio -- has gotten a lot of money from Health Insurers, but I haven't yet found it. We will clearly have to make lots of calls to State Senators. Two that I'll note for now, because they come from the same district as Solorio and Calderon (and one from the same family) are conservative Lou Correa from Orange County and Ron Calderon. Let's get them on record as supporting AB 52 notwithstanding the comments made in opposition to the bill. (Swaying Sen. Calderon's vote is the place where Rep. Calderon's ultimate vote for AB52 might especially help. Is he really going to vote against a bill that his big brother favored?)
10. Not yet unleashing the hounds -- except for one
Action items on contacting Senators will be upcoming; I don't want to step on what may be a strategy being developed by people more "in the know" than I am. I do, however, want to ask for your help in doing one thing -- something that may help us concentrate the minds of some State Senators. I'd like to ask you to join me in expressing your disappointment.
I'm not sure what Charles Calderon is up to, but I do know this: (1) he wants the casual observer (e.g., one who didn't read this story) to think that he supported AB 52 and (2) his brother is one of the State Senators we want to influence. So I don't suggest that we do anything targeting him at this point. He may yet help us.
Jose Solorio's misfortune is that he has no brother in the State Senate. He's termed out of the Assembly, but his political consultant lists an ID number for "Solorio for Senate 2014," which is when Lou Correa's seat will be open. So we can send a message to sitting State Senators by sending a message to him.
Solorio's Sacramento office number is (916) 319-2069. You may wish to join me in calling him and conveying a polite but firm message: "I am disappointed that you did not vote for AB 52 to give the Insurance Commissioner the ability to block unreasonable hikes in health insurance premiums." When they ask me whether I'm one of his constituents, I'm saying that I'm not, but that I may be in the same State Senate district as he is after redistricting. (That, by the way, is true for me at the moment.) How you answer that sort of question, if at all, is for you to decide.
3:02 PM PT: Via Facebook:
The bill will be heard next in the Senate Health Committee, whose Democratic members are Chairperson Ed Hernandez, Kevin de Leon, Elaine Alquist, Mark DeSaulnier, Michael J. Rubio, and Lois Wolk.
Calls to all of the Democratic Senators on the Health Committee would be helpful. Their contact information can be found at senate.ca.gov/senators.