Will the Supremes take Healthy SF challenge?

Pub date March 10, 2009
WriterSarah Phelan
SectionPolitics Blog

By Sarah Phelan

Next stop the Supreme Court?

That at least is where Kevin Westley, executive director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, said his group would take its challenge of San Francisco’s Universal Health Care Program, after the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided this week not to grant GGRA a rehearing request.

But does this threat have any teeth and why is GGRA making it?

GGRA’s threat came even as Mayor Gavin Newsom was expressing his hope, by way of a press release, natch, that GGRA, “will work for, not against, the City and County’s efforts to expand health care access.”

“With an estimated 60,000 uninsured adults, it is time for all of us to collectively focus our efforts on providing health care to our uninsured residents,” Newsom said, after the Ninth Circuit upheld the city’s employer spending mandate.

That mandate requires companies with 20 to 99 employees to spend $1.23 per worker per hour, and companies with 100 employees or more to spend $1.85 per worker per hour.

Newsom called the court’s decision, “a significant victory for the thousands of San Francisco workers who now have access to health care.”

Deputy City Attorney Vince Chhabria said he found GGRA’s insistence on taking the case to the Supreme Court, “very disappointing.”

“26,000 San Francisco workers have become eligible for coverage in San Francisco’s program,as a result of the court’s ruling,” Chhabria told the Guardian. “One can understand why GGRA filed the suit, but now to continue and try to get this ruling overturned is to take away health coverage from thousands of workers.”

So, what are the chances of the Supreme Court taking the case?

“The Supreme Court will take the request seriously, probably, because there was dissent by a handful of the Ninth Circuit’s most conservative judges,” Chhabria said, as he listed the top three reasons why he believes the Supreme Court probably won’t take this case.