The California Health Care Reform bill aims to expand the state's public insurance programs, merge the individual and small group market, and create a new authority to certify and offer products. It also includes an individual mandate requiring everyone in the state to purchase health insurance by July 1, 2007, with subsidized coverage for lower-income families. Employers that do not provide insurance will be subject to a yearly surcharge of $295 per employee. The bill is not universal coverage, nor does it mandate employers to pay for health coverage. It does not include cost reduction measures. Massachusetts has a smaller percentage of the population without health insurance than California, and a similar plan in California would require an additional $9.4 billion in new revenue. An additional $30 billion in Medi-Cal spending would be required in California for public programs to be funded at a level comparable to those in Massachusetts. Massachusetts had more extensive regulation of insurers and insurance products than California, so they could simply extend an existing structure of regulation. In California, an entire structure of regulation would need to be created to assure Health Reform in the US.
