CALPIRG Blog

Tomorrow is a big day for health care reform. For the first time this year, the Legislature is holding a hearing on the governor's health care proposal. We'll testify at the hearing that health care reform must contain costs, expand coverage, and make sure that consumers get a fair shake in the market. The good news is that the Governor and Legislative leadership already agree on many needed reforms - including requiring insurance companies to cover anyone who needs health insurance, and significant expansions to public programs. Unfortunately, the governor's proposal still caters too much to the insurance companies, and does not include enough consumer protections. Go to our health care webpage to find our detailed response to the Governor's proposal. 

We are looking forward to the hearing as the next important step to getting meaningful health care reform passed this year. While the Legislature isn't expected to adopt the Governor's proposal as is, we expect that the hearing will jumpstart a new round of conversations between the Governor and legislative leadership to reach agreement for health care reform. 

But to ensure negotiations don't falter, our coalition needs to send a BIG message that we need real health care reform this year. So we are putting up a giant screen outside the Capitol tomorrow to broadcast live text messages to the governor and lawmakers. It'll be like a giant billboard, with your words up in lights, impossible to miss! To get your own message on the big screen tomorrow, please take a moment right now to text "CALPIRG" (without the quotation marks) to 30644 on your cell phone. You'll get instructions from us on how to send in your message on Wednesday morning. Thanks for participating!