In abstract
Prop. 34 is about healthcare spending. However it additionally would doubtless quash the controversial AIDS Healthcare Basis’s battle for hire management.
Voters immediately resolve on one of many extra complicated statewide measures on the poll: Proposition 34, which has to do with well being care spending, but in addition might have implications for hire management and different housing points.
Prop. 34 would create new guidelines concerning how some California well being care suppliers spend income they make promoting prescription drugs by way of a specific federal program. What’s not explicitly talked about within the measure’s textual content is that it seems just one group can be affected by the change: The AIDS Healthcare Basis.
The muse, which gives well being care in California and past for sufferers with HIV and AIDS, is led by the controversial Michael Weinstein. Beneath his watch, the inspiration has develop into an enormous participant in state and native housing politics. It additionally owns inexpensive housing developments in Los Angeles’ Skid Row, the place tenants have complained about habitability and well being points.
If Prop. 34 passes, it might power the AIDS Healthcare Basis out of housing advocacy. That doubtless would depart a noticeable gap in a minimum of one enviornment: the battle for statewide hire management reform.
The AIDS Healthcare Basis to date has sponsored three poll measures to permit for the enlargement of hire management in California (the primary two failed, and the third is that this yr’s Proposition 33). If the inspiration backed out of that battle, it’s unlikely anybody else would take its place, mentioned Sharon Rapport, director of California state coverage for the Company for Supportive Housing. Sponsoring a hire management poll initiative is each costly and politically fraught, because it’s assured to alienate the highly effective landlord foyer.
“I don’t know if too many organizations have the will and the funding to be able to put it on the ballot,” Rapport mentioned. Her group hasn’t taken a place on the proposition.
Meaning if Prop. 34 passes and Prop. 33 fails there’s little likelihood of statewide hire management reform taking place within the close to future, Rapport mentioned. The state Legislature might reform hire management with no poll measure, nevertheless it’s a political scorching potato that many legislators are unwilling to the touch, she mentioned.
The AIDS Healthcare Basis additionally has thrown its weight (and cash) round in different housing-related fights — it campaigned towards laws requiring native governments to approve denser housing and backed a failed two-year moratorium on sure constructing initiatives in Los Angeles.
The AIDS Healthcare Basis wouldn’t reply when requested by CalMatters whether or not it could cease its housing advocacy work if Prop. 34 passes. But when the inspiration is discovered to be spending its pharmaceutical income on issues like hire management poll measures in violation of Prop. 34’s tips, it might lose its license to function its medical clinics, which serve 16,000 sufferers in California.
That’s as a result of the inspiration participates in a federal program that offers well being care suppliers a reduction on prescription drugs in trade for serving low-income and at-risk sufferers. The suppliers can then flip round and promote these medicine at retail charges, raking in a revenue. Prop. 34 would require the inspiration to spend 98% of the income it makes by way of these drug gross sales on “direct patient care.”
So far as the Sure on 34 marketing campaign is worried, that cash ought to go to sufferers, to not again political gambits within the housing sector.
“That’s obviously not what this program was designed for,” mentioned Nathan Click on, spokesperson for Sure on 34.
The opposite facet considers the measure an try to silence a nonprofit’s advocacy work.
“I think it’s very dangerous to set a precedent where organizations can be targeted like this just for helping communities,” mentioned Susie Shannon, marketing campaign supervisor for No on 34. “It would be similar to a tobacco company putting an initiative on the ballot to silence anti-smoking groups.”
Backers of Prop. 34 embody the California Condominium Affiliation, which additionally opposes hire management measure Prop. 33.
“I don’t know if too many organizations have the will and the funding to be able to put it on the ballot.”
Sharon Rapport, director of California state coverage, Company for Supportive Housing
Technically, Prop. 34 applies to any well being care supplier that participates within the federal drug program and likewise spends a minimum of $100 million on bills aside from direct affected person care, owns and operates condominium buildings, and has amassed a minimum of 500 extreme well being and security violations within the final decade.
The AIDS Healthcare Basis seems to be the one entity that matches all of that standards.
As a result of Prop. 34’s scope is so restricted, if the measure passes, its subsequent cease would be the courthouse.
“Because we don’t believe that it’s legal,” Shannon mentioned.
The measure is unconstitutional, The AIDS Healthcare Basis argues, as a result of it singles out one group. The muse already has been to court docket as soon as over this measure, when it tried with out success to get the California Supreme Court docket besides it off the poll. If voters approve the measure, the inspiration has promised to problem it once more.
The opposite facet insists the proposition might apply extra broadly.
“We just have to wait and see what the Attorney General says,” Click on mentioned. “There are a number of entities that could be covered.”
