(Excerpt) By Steve Lawrence Associated Press
SACRAMENTO — Liza De La Torre works 25 hours a week for a Long Beach delivery service, takes classes at a community college and worries about not having health insurance. "It really does concern me. We work really hard. We go to school to better our lives. Every day I hope that nothing goes wrong," says De La Torre, who lives in South Gate with her husband and 6-month-old son.

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Clay Paschen runs 11 McDonald's restaurants in Ventura County with his two sons and helps pay for health insurance for his managers, but says he can't afford it for his rank-and-file employees.

"Our labor costs are going to go up over 50 percent," he says. "We estimate it will take about a 40 percent price increase to try to cover it, which economically will not do it. You will lose customers (and) see less people working in restaurants."

De La Torre and Paschen are on opposite sides in the battle over Proposition 72, the Nov. 2 ballot measure that will decide the fate of a new California law that would require large and medium-size employers to pay at least part of the cost of their workers' health coverage.

That mandate, signed last year by then-Gov. Gray Davis, was put on hold after employer groups gathered enough voter signatures to force a referendum on the issue. If voters support the proposition, the law will take effect. If not, it dies.

The law would implement a "pay or play' plan under which employers covered by the mandate would have the choice of buying insurance on their own or paying into a state fund that would buy it for their workers.

Employers would have to cover at least 80 percent of the cost of the coverage, which would go to employees who work at least 100 hours a month. Companies with at least 200 workers would also have to cover their dependents.

Businesses with fewer than 20 employees wouldn't be covered by the mandate. Those with 20 to 49 workers would only be covered if lawmakers adopted a tax credit to cover 20 percent of the amount the employers would pay into the state insurance fund.

The vote comes at a time when the number of uninsured Californians is growing and employers report they are likely to shift more of the cost of health insurance to their workers to make up for double-digit increases in medical expenses.

Supporters, who include Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, say the measure would provide health insurance for 1.1 million of the 6.5 million Californians who lack coverage while preventing large and medium-size companies from dropping health insurance or reducing their share of the cost below 80 percent.

"It's modest because it doesn't cover everyone," said state Sen. Jackie Speier, D-Daly City, one of the leading authors of the law. "But it builds on a system we have in place, which is an employer-based system of health care, and it focuses on that part of the employment sector that traditionally offers health insurance anyway."

Kenneth Burt, political director for the California Federation of Teachers, said the law would prevent employers from shifting health care costs to the public by forcing emergency rooms to pick up the cost of treating their uninsured employees.

Health care providers end up shifting the cost for treating uninsured, low-income workers to those with health insurance and force unions to choose in collective bargaining between pay raises and holding down health care premiums for their members, he said.

"We don't believe it's fair for people who work for large corporations like Wal-Mart to have health insurance paid for by taxpayers," he said. "An increasing percentage of our health care premiums is going for the uninsured..."

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Source: Press Telegram