SACRAMENTO—Bolstered by a broad coalition of health care workers, union members, insurance representatives and the Governor, Speaker Fabian Núñez (D-Los Angeles) today vowed to continue working with California’s leaders and stakeholders to bring health care reform to all Californians.

“We are not going to give up,” Speaker Núñez said during an afternoon news conference with the Governor. “We are going to take this roadmap and we’re going to continue to move forward until such a time when every one of those 800,000 children who don’t have health care have access to it. And I got to tell you, we’re going to be looking at other plans.”

In the wake of the Senate Health Committee’s rejection of AB 1X, co-authored by Speaker Núñez and Senate President pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland), Núñez plans to begin examining additional health care reform proposals including a single-payer  plan.

“The challenge of leadership for us and for others is to ask, are we going to continue with this fight?  We may have lost the first round in this fight, but there’s still eleven more to go,” Núñez said.

Here are the audio links.

Speaker Fabian Núñez promises to continue the battle for comprehensive health care reform.

Speaker Fabian Núñez says he won’t point fingers of blame at anyone because AB1X was not approved by the Senate Health Committee.

Speaker Fabian Núñez says what matters to him is there are millions of Californians who don’t have health care.

Speaker Fabian Núñez says AB1X is the road map to comprehensive health care reform.

Speaker Fabian Núñez’s entire statement during today’s late afternoon news conference with the Governor regarding the future of health care reform. (runs 8 minutes)