San Francisco's first-of-its-kind universal health care program and its mandate that employers provide health care has not resulted in feared job losses, according to a new study by a UC Berkeley researcher.

Crunching quarterly data from the U.S. Labor Department, the researcher found that since the inception of Healthy San Francisco's employer mandate in 2008, the city's growth rate across all employment sectors was similar to or better than other Bay Area counties. While San Francisco saw its employment rate shrink due to the struggling economy, it actually shrank less than other counties.

This held true in retail, food service, restaurants and hotels, the sectors most strongly impacted by the health care ordinance because they traditionally have a lot of low-income workers and aren't as likely to offer health insurance as higher-paying industries.

"The San Francisco experiment is working, and it's working well," said Ken Jacobs, chair of the university's Center for Labor Research and Education. "There's no evidence of any impact of the ordinance on employment in San Francisco."

The statistics were unveiled Thursday as part of a push by big-name labor leaders and Mayor Gavin Newsom to hype Healthy San Francisco as a public option that's working - and that could be a model for the rest of the country as it remains mired in a heated debate over health care reform.

"The sky has not fallen - the world as we know it did not come to an end," said Newsom, adding the controversial policy didn't prompt businesses to leave, bureaucracies to sprout up or the city's economy to crater.

Healthy San Francisco started in July 2007 to ensure the city's 60,000 uninsured residents had access to health care without regard for their pre-existing medical conditions, immigration status or employment status. It has now covered about 75 percent of the uninsured at a cost of roughly $120 million a year including city money, state grants, employer contributions and participants' fees.

The mandate to provide health care at all companies with at least 20 workers began in January 2008. Employers must either provide private insurance, pay into health care reimbursement accounts or contribute to the city's plan. The Golden Gate Restaurant Association has sued over the mandate and has appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has not said whether it will hear the case.

Newsom has made universal health care a centerpiece of his run for governor and said Thursday that Californians' health care costs have spiked 119 percent since 2000, and that a fifth of the state's residents remain uninsured - the fourth-highest percentage of any state.

"Health care reform without a public option is not real reform," the mayor said.

President Obama has recently backed away from saying any health care reform must include a public option - a government-run program akin to Medicare - which has angered his supporters on the left.

John Sweeney, president of the National AFL-CIO, said that "despite all the hot air in Washington right now," he's confident real reform will pass soon. He said 250,000 union workers nationwide are being trained to advocate for reform to combat the right-wing push to fight it.

"They're our best spokespeople," he said of union workers.

So does his appearance with Newsom Thursday foretell an endorsement in the governor's race?

"It's not my jurisdiction," Sweeney said with a laugh.

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