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The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) is California's leading nonprofit and nonpartisan consumer advocacy organization. FTCR will not disclose your personal information without your permission.

We the People of California declare that health insurance companies, PPOs and HMOs are out of control. For example, profiteering recently uncovered at Blue Cross of California and its parent company, WellPoint, is simply unacceptable:

• Blue Cross takes more than 20% of premium dollars for profit and overhead;
• Top executives will receive at least $265 million in cash bonuses following a recent merger. Including stock options, CEO Leonard Schaeffer will receive $250 million;
• While Blue Cross has raised premiums as much as 75% this year, the insurer is holding in "reserve" four times more money than the state requires.

As a result of skyrocketing health insurance costs, already more than 6.5 million Californians are uninsured. Many more of us are underinsured. By 2010 employers will no longer provide health insurance for nearly half of California’s working adults.

We call on you to restrict profiteering in healthcare and take the following steps to make health coverage more affordable:

• Require health insurers to justify premium increases to regulators like auto and homeowner insurers already do under Prop 103;
• Give all Californians access to the same lower cost healthcare policies that state employees and legislators receive through the California Public Employee Retirement System;
• Establish an independent commission to eliminate profiteering and waste across the healthcare system.

If the legislature and policymakers do not make these changes, voters like me are prepared to do so at the ballot box.