AB 99 Emerges
The legislature eventually adopted AB 99, which authorized expenditures from the Health Education, Physician Services, Medical Services, and Unallocated Accounts until 1994. The final version of the bill diverted increasing amounts of Health Education Account money into medical services. The Legislature took $27 million out of the Health Education Account for the AIM program, and CHDP's budget went from $20 million to $35 million a year. In an action that was to have a major impact at the local level, the LLAs were required to spend one-third of
The voluntaries supported using some of the LLA money for outreach to pregnant women “in exchange for the provision of anti-tobacco education.”[32] But CPO did not provide anti-tobacco education; it took LLA money that had been used to deliver tobacco programs and shifted it to an outreach effort (like AIM) that would bring women into medical services. The immediate result was fewer tobacco programs because of the redirection of LLA funds; there would be fewer still if AIM needed more money, because AIM had “protected status.”
The protected status stemmed from another move that would have a major impact on the anti-tobacco education programs. A clause known as Section 43 was added to AB 99 to guarantee funding for five medical services programs—MediCal Perinatal Programs, AIM, the Major Risk Medical Insurance Program (MRMIP), CHDP, and the County Medical Services Program. Thus, these programs were guaranteed money “off the top” to fund them in the face of declining revenues; the other Proposition 99 programs were cut to support the “protected” ones. This provision, combined with the overall decline in Proposition 99 revenues because of its success in reducing tobacco consumption, promised to wipe out the anti-tobacco education programs over a period of a few years.
Neither the voluntaries nor Miller noticed the Section 43 language when it was added. When they were later interviewed about AB 99, Miller and Najera both expressed bitterness about Section 43. According to Miller, “The Section 43 crap…we all come to agreement, we divide the money up, we settle it all. The bill goes out to print, and it's before the Legislature, it goes most of the way through the system and Department of Finance said, `Oh, oh, one little thing more. We need to stick in this provision to protect it or the Governor doesn't go along with this deal.' We look at it and it says, `We need to tinker with the numbers to make it come out right. We need to protect some programs.' Okay, do it.”[35] Najera added, “We didn't understand what Section 43 was until
The voluntaries were at a significant disadvantage in staying abreast of important technical details like Section 43, especially compared with the medical care groups, because of the size and depth of their lobbying staffs. Proposition 99 was generating around $500 million a year, making the voluntary health agencies major stakeholders, but they had not expanded their policy analysis capabilities or lobbying presence in Sacramento since the passage of Proposition 99. The devastating long-term effects of Section 43 emerged from policy research and analysis at UC San Francisco.[4]
After the governor signed AB 99, ALA's newsletter announced, “We are pleased to communicate that all the Health Education Programs are in place, functioning and authorized for three more years.”[32] The main virtues of AB 99 were that the sunset date was three years away, and, according to the Los Angeles Times, the Wilson administration had promised Najera that it would not try to divert any more funds for at least the next three years in exchange for the deal.[36] The ALA's optimistic statement, however, masked a different reality. Rather than the status quo that the voluntaries expected when they allowed AB 99 to be handled through the Conference Committee process, AB 99 represented significant damage to Proposition 99 anti-tobacco education programs. In 1991-1992, of the $151 million available in the Health Education Account, only about half ($78 million) was actually going to tobacco prevention programs. The voluntary health agencies had completely capitulated to the medical interests. In doing so, they abandoned their strongest argument: that the Legislature had an obligation to appropriate Proposition 99 Health Education funds for anti-tobacco education efforts as directed by the voters. Instead, they accepted the reality of insider horse-trading over the budget.