Poizner Says Federal Health Reform To Add to Calif. Fiscal Troubles
In a speech on Wednesday night, California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner (R) said that the new health care reform law (HR 3590) will make it more difficult for the state to balance its budget, the Los Angeles Daily News reports.
Poizner is running against former eBay CEO Meg Whitman for the Republican gubernatorial nomination.
Earlier in the week, Poizner said the new health reform law "could cost a trillion dollars, with a half trillion in new taxes and several unfunded mandates on our state."
Poizner said, "California's consumers will bear the burden of higher health insurance premiums and health care costs, in addition to an onerous federal mandate that will require residents to have health insurance, whether they want it or not."
However, Assembly Speaker John Perez (D-Los Angeles) said the new health reform law "will have a strong and positive impact on our state's economy" and "remove a major obstacle to our work to turn the economy around and sustain real growth for the future."
Poizner is one of many Republican state lawmakers who have called on California Attorney General Jerry Brown (D) to join other attorneys general in challenging the constitutionality of the law. Brown is the presumptive Democratic gubernatorial nominee (Los Angeles Daily News, 3/24).
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