California Healthcare Association Withdraws Support for Ballot Measure To Fund Emergency Services

CAL/AAEM News Service calaaem_news@yahoo.com
Sat, 10 Apr 2004 14:50:27 -0700 (PDT) 

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California Healthcare Association Withdraws Support for Ballot Measure To Fund Emergency Services

 

April 8, 2004 



 

Officials from California Healthcare Association on Wednesday withdrew their support for a proposed measure to raise the tax on telephone services to fund emergency care because results from a recent poll found that "voters would not support anything on the ballot they believed to be a tax," the Sacramento Bee reports (Rapaport, Sacramento Bee, 4/8). The initiative proposes adding a 3% surcharge to residents' telephone bills and is projected to generate $550 million to fund emergency department services. Opponents of the initiative said the money raised would boost hospital profits instead of helping low-income state residents obtain care (California Healthline, 3/29). CHA, along with the California Medical Association, was a "critical funding source," providing much of the measure's funding to date, the Bee reports. Members of the Coalition to Preserve Emergency Care, which is sponsoring the ballot initiative, say they still plan on Monday to submit more than 900,000 signat!
 ures to
 qualify the measure for the Nov. 2 ballot. Kelly Hayes-Raitt, spokesperson for CPEC, says the group has enough money to "raise a formidable campaign" but added that CPEC has "considerably less" than the $5 million raised by telecommunications company SBC Communications in opposition to the proposal. Todd Harris, spokesperson for Californians to Stop the Phone Tax, said that telecommunications providers view the measure as a tax imposed on one private industry by another private industry. Lo! ren Johnson, president of the California Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians, said that Cal-ACEP "remained committed" to placing the measure on the ballot, even if other groups withdraw their support, the Bee reports (Sacramento Bee, 4/8).

 

Source: California Healthline



Cyrus Shahpar & Brian Potts 
Managing Editors, CAL/AAEM News Service 
UC-Irvine


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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Officials from <A href="http://www.calhealth.org/" target=_blank>California Healthcare Association</A> on Wednesday withdrew their support for a proposed measure to raise the tax on telephone services to fund emergency care because results from a recent poll found that "voters would not support anything on the ballot they believed to be a tax," the <A href="http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/8809327p-9736166c.html" target=_blank><CITE><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; TEXT-DECORATION: none; text-underline: none">Sacramento Bee</SPAN></CITE></A><CITE><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial"> </SPAN></CITE>reports (Rapaport, <CITE><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Sacramento Bee</SPAN></CITE>, 4/8). The initiative proposes adding a 3% surcharge to residents' telephone bills and is projected to generate $550 million to fund emergency department services. Opponents of the initiative said the money ra!
 ised
 would boost hospital profits instead of helping low-income state residents obtain care (<A href="http://www.californiahealthline.org/index.cfm?action=itemPrint&amp;itemID=101539" target=_blank><CITE><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; TEXT-DECORATION: none; text-underline: none">California</SPAN></CITE> <CITE><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; TEXT-DECORATION: none; text-underline: none">Healthline</SPAN></CITE></A>, 3/29). CHA, along with the <A href="http://www.cmanet.org/" target=_blank>California Medical Association</A>, was a "critical funding source," providing much of the measure's funding to date, the <CITE><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Bee</SPAN></CITE> reports. Members of the Coalition to Preserve Emergency Care, which is sponsoring the ballot initiative, say they still plan on Monday to submit more than 900,000 signatures to qualify the measure for the Nov. 2 ballot. Kelly Hayes-Raitt, spokesperson for CPEC, says the group has enough money to "raise a formidable ca!
 mpaign"
 but added that CPEC has "considerably less" than the $5 million raised by telecommunications company <A href="http://www.sbc.com/gen/landing-pages?pid=3308" target=_blank>SBC Communications</A> in opposition to the proposal. Todd Harris, spokesperson for Californians to Stop the Phone Tax, said that telecommunications providers view the measure as a tax imposed on one private industry by another private industry. Lo! ren Johnson, president of the <A href="http://www.calacep.org/" target=_blank>California Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians</A>, said that Cal-ACEP "remained committed" to placing the measure on the ballot, even if other groups withdraw their support, the <CITE><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Bee</SPAN></CITE> reports (<CITE><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Sacramento Bee</SPAN></CITE>, 4/8).<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P></TD></TR>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Source: </SPAN><st1:State><st1:place><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">California</SPAN></st1:place></st1:State><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial"> Healthline<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></DIV><BR><BR><DIV><FONT face=arial><FONT size=3><STRONG>Cyrus Shahpar &amp; Brian Potts</STRONG> <BR>Managing Editors, CAL/AAEM News Service <BR>UC-Irvine</FONT></FONT></DIV><p><hr size=1><font face=arial size=-1>Do you Yahoo!?<br>
Yahoo! Tax Center - <a href="http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html">File online by April 15th</a>
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