BILL NUMBER:  SB 981
  VETOED	DATE: 09/30/2008




To the Members of the California State Senate:

I am returning Senate Bill 981 without my signature.

This bill does not solve the problem facing California patients and
only serves to highlight one of the many reasons I introduced my
comprehensive health care reform proposal.  Californians are paying a
hidden tax on their health care which subsidizes care for the
uninsured and allows providers to shift costs when they are not fully
reimbursed by their payers.  The insured population bears the brunt
of this hidden tax and the larger it gets, fewer people are able to
afford coverage.

This bill, in essence, asks for California to embrace this
cost-shift, reward non-contracting physicians by assuring their
continued financial slice of the pie, and allow the status quo to
continue.  I cannot agree to a measure that is a piecemeal approach
to our broken health care system.

Our health care system relies on physicians, hospitals and health
plans to work together.  The patient that pays health insurance
premiums should not be part of a payment dispute between these
sophisticated market players.  It is unfortunate that this bill takes
sides in the dispute within the health care industry instead of
taking the side of patients.

Until the Legislature can send me legislation that removes that
patient from all disputes involving these parties, I direct my
Department of Managed Health Care to aggressively continue in its
efforts to identify unfair payment practices and keep patients from
being caught in the middle.

Sincerely,



Arnold Schwarzenegger