ACA/Obamacare: California Proposition 45

"Californians are split over a high-profile voter initiative that opponents say could complicate the future of President Barack Obama ’s health-care law in one of the states that has gone furthest to embrace it.

Proposition 45 would grant California’s insurance commissioner new powers to veto health-insurance premium increases for individual and small-group policies, a popular sentiment in a state that has seen large rate jumps in the past, though they have recently moderated.

Some prominent Democrats, including Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, have endorsed the measure, which would also grant citizens and outside groups the power to delay health-insurance rate increases by requesting a government review.

The measure is strongly opposed by health insurers, who have donated tens of millions of dollars to defeat it. Opponents say the measure could hamper efforts to further implement the health-care law in California, which spent more time and money than any other state building its insurance exchange, Covered California. They say Covered California’s power to negotiate with insurers on behalf of consumers would be weakened, and that federal subsidies could be hard to price for many of the low-income people who dominate the exchange.

“It starts to raise very serious questions about the certainty of what Covered California will be able to negotiate with the insurance companies…and even whether some plans will be available,” said Rep. George Miller (D., Calif.), one of the Affordable Care Act’s co-authors. “The problem is Prop 45 was written before we got to the final stages here” of the ACA.

Prop 45 was originally drafted for the 2012 election, but the measure failed to qualify for the ballot in time. Since then, Covered California has become the most robust exchange in the country, signing up 1.4 million people during the last enrollment period.

The new powers under Prop 45 would broadly enhance the influence of Dave Jones, the Democratic state insurance commissioner. Since taking office in 2011, he has said that a missing piece of the health law was the lack of authority to reject insurance rate increases."

- Californians Split Over Letting Official Veto Insurers’ Rate Boosts, WSJ, 10/09/2014
Link to the entire article appears below:

http://online.wsj.com/articles/californians-split-over-letting-official-veto-insurers-rate-boosts-1412803775?KEYWORDS=california+health