Asthma News

California Governor Keynotes at International Asthma Conference

DR. BURKE: My comments will be very brief, because I know we want to hear our next guest. But I do want to say that our ambitions as residents of southern California are reflected in the issues to do something about. At this conference on asthma and air quality, I believe we are finding some common ground on issues where we can share our strength, pool our energies, and come together to do the right thing to build better future. The numerous supporting organizations represented here today have long demonstrated the power of commitment to a cause.

I hope these two days have helped to highlight some of the ways we can work together toward the cause of clean air as the right thing to do for our families and loved ones. Only teamwork can help us make the crucial transition toward cleaner cities and towns. Our teamwork is exactly how this conference came about. It has been proof that together we can achieve progress that none of us could manage to do alone. Let’s together remember that the health benefits of the clean air act are only paper promises so far to many people in this country, including the 16.5 million residents of southern California. It’s up to us to make that promise a reality and a benchmark for the rest of the world.

With that, I’d like to bring Jonah back up on stage to help me introduce our special guest. And I must acknowledge and give special thanks to his wife, the First Lady of California, Maria Shriver. It was very generous of her to allow her husband to be here with us today. You see, joining us shortened the Governor’s wedding anniversary, which was yesterday.

And before I invited our special guest to speak to you, I’d like to share with you a short film clip that was brought to our attention by our distinguished speaker from Australia, Dr. Shaw, that I think the Governor will enjoy, and so will you. If we could get that clip running, please?

DR. BURKE: Now please join Jonah and myself in giving a warm welcome to our very special speaker today, the 38th Governor of the State of California, the Honorable Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Applause)

GOVERNOR: Thank you very much, Dr. Burke, for your kind introduction; it’s exactly the way I wrote it. Thank you. And also, Jonah, thank you very much for your introduction, for being part of this. It’s great to be here today with all of you. A big thank you also to the South Coast Air Quality Management District for hosting this fantastic event and bringing people together, not only from all over California, but all over the United States and all over the world. It’s always great when we in California here host a world conference on anything, but especially on asthma. This is really terrific. And I want to thank also the person that is really responsible for inviting me here today and putting the pressure on me very early on, and that is Maria Robles Núñez, for doing that. Where is Maria? Right over here, exactly. (Applause)

She’s an extraordinary woman. As a matter of fact, she reminds me so much of my wife, because her husband, Fabian, and I, we talk about it many times when we think about that we rule our house, but in the meantime we know better, that our wives rule our houses, you know? So they are tough, they are visionaries, both of them. And of course Maria has been really terrific in her whole life, always thinking about how can she organize and do things for people that need help. So I just wanted to say thank you, Maria, for the great work that you are doing for our state. (Applause)
It’s great to be here today at this international conference, the asthma conference, and of course it’s heartening to see so many people that are working on ways to end asthma, the asthma epidemic in this country. And I think it needs a lot of work, and I think there are so many people that are working on that, which is really terrific. So I think that you can give all of yourselves a big hand for the great work and your dedication that you have, and that you bring to this very important cause. (Applause)

Now, I love being in the middle of the action, and this is why I love being here today, and I think this is very important action that you are creating. And I think that in the introduction we have heard about talking about the environment, and about health care. And I think those are two very important issues, and I want to address those also here today. I think that the rest of the world, I can guarantee you, will take notice of what’s going on here at this conference, and this is why this conference is so important.

But when we talk about the environment, I think that the fight against global warming and the fight to really straighten out our environment and to clean our environment is progressing really well. I think, as you all know, we have passed some tough laws here in California. As a matter of fact, we are the leader in the world in fighting global warming and cleaning our environment, and I think that we have become a model for the rest of the nation.

When I just recently was back in Washington to give a speech at Georgetown University on global warming, and then later on in New York, I went that afternoon to a newspaper stand, to a newsstand, and there I saw 9 covers — 9 covers — on that subject of global warming, or green-clean technology, or if it is on air pollution, alternative fuel vehicles, greenhouse gases and all of those things. So you can see the kind of attention that this subject is getting right now. And this, I think, is absolutely crucial, because it spreads. That’s how it will spread across this country and all around the world.

And I think that you are today here at a place, Disneyland, that is also a perfect example on running things green. As a matter of fact, we can see here trains running on biofuel, submarines with zero emission engines, and recycling everything that they work on here. It’s really an extraordinary place that is a perfect example for the rest of the state, and this is why it’s great that you have this summit here today.
Initiatives like this are very, very important, I think, and very good for the rest of the world. They will reduce pollution and that is, of course, something that has a tremendous affect also on asthma. I think that we can have some of the great successes in fighting pollution, but also we need the same success also in creating a reform of our broken health care system. I think it is very important. Health care is like the environment in one very important area, and that is the decisions that we make today have a tremendous affect on our future and on the lives of our children.

More and more people are suffering from asthma every year. In the United States, asthma accounts for a quarter of all of the emergency visits. It causes children to miss a huge amount of time from their schools. As a matter of fact, I don’t know who did, but someone figured out the total time; it is 14 million days of school every year that children are missing because of asthma. And it is responsible for more children being hospitalized than any other chronic disease. Asthma also kills more than 4,000 children every year, and it is listed as a factor in 7,000 other deaths every year in the United States.

We know that many of these outcomes are avoidable with proper treatment and care, so when we talk about the future of health care here in California, we have to also talk about asthma. A study at UCLA said that timely access to comprehensive health care services is critical for both the diagnosis and improving control of asthma, and I agree with that 100 percent. And improving access to quality care is a cornerstone, of course, of my health care reform. And I think that one of the reasons why in my State of the State Address this last January I mentioned that we have to go and do everything to reform our broken health care system here in California this year is because here we are, one of the leading places in the world. If we would be a nation we would be the sixth largest economy in the world, and here we have 6.5 million people that are uninsured. That is inexcusable.

When they get sick, they end up in our emergency rooms, and this is, of course, the very expensive, or most expensive way to deliver care. We can do much better than that. Take, for example, a person that has asthma. If that person had insurance, he or she could go to a doctor and use a clinic, get an inhaler. It would be at reasonable cost. But because they have no coverage, that person waits and waits and waits until they have an asthma attack, and then they go to an emergency room, and then it costs thousands of dollars.

Statewide, the uninsured leave the rest of us with billions of dollars of unpaid bills. I know that I went to hospitals and emergency rooms in these last few months since I’ve announced our reform of our health care system, and I can tell you, I went to one hospital where they told me that they were stuck with 60 million dollars of unpaid bills in their emergency room. Now, you multiply that with the amount of hospitals that we have in this state, it goes into the billions and billions of dollars. So what it means is that we the insured people are paying for the uninsured through a hidden tax. We are paying that hidden tax through higher premiums, higher co-pays, higher deductibles, higher out of pocket expenses anytime we go to the hospital, anything we do, we pay a hidden tax. As a matter of fact, companies, the private sector, businesses in California, are paying 14.7 billion dollars in that hidden tax.

I’ve also seen the problems that we have that insurance companies are not insuring everyone, so people that have insurance are afraid that they will lose their policies because of some health reasons, or that those that are not insured are afraid of not getting health care coverage. I just met a family recently from the Central Valley. That family has the money, they want insurance, but they can’t get it because their two children are taking asthma medication. Now, they happen to live in the Central Valley where they have a lot of pollution, so it’s not their fault, but they can’t get insurance.

My plan, when we reform our health care system, will prohibit that from happening. It is very important that we let the insurance companies not turn anyone away because of age or because of some kind of a health history, or some kind of an illness that they had in the past. So under my policy that will not happen again. In the future, health care in California must begin to cover absolutely everyone.

Now, we all know that we need to promote also wellness and prevention so that people don’t get sick in the first place. I’m a big believer in prevention and in wellness. By offering incentives for healthy behaviors and encouraging early screenings for chronic diseases like asthma, we can reward actions and help manage our worst health care problems.

Now, the next question, of course, is who and how are we going to pay for all of this? Well, we all have heard about the skyrocketing costs of health care. Prices for care and insurance are rising twice as fast as the wages and inflation, and as I said earlier, it is enormous, the kind of costs that we see here, and how the costs are increasing. As a matter of fact, a lot of companies are dropping health insurance for their employees because they can’t afford it, and they can’t pass on those 20, 25 percent to their goods that they are selling. And that is why no single entity can afford to cover the costs. We all have to work together. No entity, if it is government, or if it is business, or if it is individuals, no one alone can afford this kind of cost. We all must work together and we all must share responsibility. That is absolutely crucial in order to make this work. We have committed ourselves to cooperation. We must commit ourselves by working together so that we can really go and help ourselves and help insure everyone.

Now, I ask, of course, all of you to use your influence, because the only way we get things done anywhere — if it is in California, or if it is in the United States, or anywhere else in the world — is if the people stick together, and if the people use their power of influence. And this is what I want to ask you. Put the pressure on the legislators. Let them know that you want to have health care reform this year. Let us all work together so that we have, in fact, a great health care system here in California. Call your legislators, let them know, let the stakeholders know to get involved in the future of our health care in our great state.
I think by working together we can create a health care system that really is something that we all can be proud of, and that can be the model for the rest of the nation. I always say that this is the Golden Dream by the Sea. That’s what I call California; it always has been, and it always will be. It’s the Golden State. I think that we should give this Golden State the golden health care system that it deserves. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening. (Applause)