Government
San Francisco access mandate again taken to U.S. Supreme Court
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted July 6, 2009
San Francisco's business community has not relented in its challenge to the city's universal health access program.
For the third time, the Golden Gate Restaurant Assn. is asking the full U.S. Supreme Court to accept its bid to overturn the local ordinance behind the program. It requires employers to spend a certain amount on health coverage or else pitch into the universal program's funding pool.
The trade group has argued that such regulations, if allowed to proliferate, would undermine employers' ability to offer widespread, uniform health coverage to workers.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals twice rejected that argument and upheld the spending mandate, first in 2008 and again earlier this year. Both times the GGRA, which challenged the ordinance, filed emergency requests asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block the ruling immediately. Both times justices denied the petitions.
The California Medical Assn. has said that the universal program so far has helped relieve the strain of the rising uninsured population and would like to see it given a chance, especially in the absence of federal reform.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2009/07/06/gvbf0706.htm.
