CHIRA is an acronym. You probably guessed that. However, it’s also California’s best hope for a bright future.

Recently, a number of trends in our society may have come to your attention:

• Lots of people are unemployed, probably many more than the government figures show, since they probably don’t count those who have given up looking for work.
• Most of the new jobs that are created are low-pay, service sector jobs with no health care benefits.
• Even people who are employed in jobs that used to qualify them for "middle class" status, find that their purchasing power has been eroded to the point where they can’t afford to pay ever-increasing health insurance premiums.
• Families are finding it difficult to finance their children’s education as tuitions increase while wages stagnate, and young couples are losing hope of ever being able to afford to buy a home.
• Meanwhile, politicians vote to spend billions on "pork-barrel" boondoggles and continue to enrich the greedy, at our cost and at the cost of our nation.
• And the war goes on, with more than 1,500 U.S. deaths and thousands maimed, while funds are cut for health care, even for veterans’ health care.
• The entire health care system is rapidly disintegrating, while the costs of insurance premiums and medicines soar out of the reach of many people, and while the profits of insurance and pharmaceutical companies soar as high as the profits of Haliburton.

Do these trends depress you? Well, cheer up! Things could get better!

Now for the good news. There are some Sacramento politicians who are ready, willing and able to do something to make life better for California residents. CHIRA stands for SB 840, "California Health Insurance Reliability Act." Currently passing through the legislature, Senate Bill 840 is this year’s version of last year’s SB 921, the "Health Care for all Californians Act," and is again authored by State Senator Sheila Kuehl.

This bill has the support of more than 500 organizations, including the Health Care Council, and will be opposed (with lots of our money) by the insurance and drug industries. The bill will provide affordable, reliable health insurance coverage for all Californians, and will enable us do away with the waste and confusion of the present, failing system.

With a single funding source, Californians will have the power to negotiate lower drug prices, as the Canadians do. We will be able to improve the quality of care and reduce errors and episodic "emergency room" care, as well as unnecessary, ineffectual procedures, paperwork and fraud.

Best of all, we will still be able to choose our own doctors and hospital, and the hospitals will no longer be in danger of closing because of the costs of having to treat increasing numbers of uninsured patients.

This is not just a good idea. It’s essential, if employers are to compete in the global market place and if we are to keep California golden!

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