Why is health care reform a priority for the Obama administration now?
I think the president summed it up best when he described health care reform as being part of the solution to the economic crisis. Immediate change to health care is part of the long-term economic solution. The number one reason people fall into bankruptcy is because of high health care costs. Health care reform, energy, all of these things are related and all these are priorities and part of the solution. How will that impact the states? We tried to tackle it a few years ago in California and it failed. California is still one of the states with the highest uninsured [rate] so universal health care reform on the federal level will benefit everybody. What have been your biggest priorities since you took office? I have had one main priority: that is to help California get out of the budget crisis. We have 80 members and we all have priorities, but we also share some. The water infrastructure is extremely fragile. If we have a major earthquake we could have serious destruction to our wat
