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November 03, 2004 at 07:00 PM
Fate Of Universal Health Measure In California Hinges On Absentee Ballots
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California employers may have been successful in defeating Proposition 72, a ballot measure supporting implementation of a universal health coverage program in the state.
At press time, Proposition 72 was losing by a narrow margin. The official vote tally showed the measure had won only 4.56 million, or 49.1%, of the 9.3 million votes cast.
But opponents of Proposition 72 had an edge of just over 167,000 votes, and state officials were not sure how many provisional ballots and absentee ballots were left to be counted, according to a spokeswoman for California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley.
California mailed 4.5 million absentee ballots to voters. California county election officials have 28 days to certify the election results for their counties.
Passage of Proposition 72 would allow the implementation of a law based on S.B. 2, which was signed in October 2003 by outgoing Gov. Gray Davis. It called for all employers with more than 49 employees to choose between providing health coverage for their employees or contributing to a new state health coverage system for uninsured employees.
Opponents put Proposition 72 on the fall ballot to give voters a chance to block the universal health program before it goes into operation.
Universal health program supporters, including AARP, Washington, and the California Teachers Association, Burlingame, Calif., argue that it would help hold down the cost of private health coverage by improving the overall health of the population and reducing the need for doctors, hospitals and government agencies to make insured patients subsidize the cost of providing essential care for the uninsured.
The California Chamber of Commerce, Sacramento, Calif., and other critics of the S.B. 2 universal health program say it would impose the equivalent of a $7 billion tax on employers and destroy jobs by sharply increasing employee benefits costs.
