Single-Payer Health Care in California

The major Sacramento newspaper, never known for having a conservative bent, publishes this story about a proposed single-payer health care system in California:

The price tag is in: It would cost $400 billion to remake California’s health insurance marketplace and create a publicly funded universal heath care system, according to a state financial analysis released Monday.

California would have to find an additional $200 billion per year, including in new tax revenues, to create a so-called “single-payer” system, the analysis by the Senate Appropriations Committee found. The estimate assumes the state would retain the existing $200 billion in local, state and federal funding it currently receives to offset the total $400 billion price tag...

The cost is higher than the $180 billion in proposed general fund and special fund spending (budget is here, click on Summary Charts, then scroll to Figure SUM-03 --Darren) for the budget year beginning July 1.

Employers currently spend between $100 billion to $150 billion per year, which could be available to help offset total costs, according to the analysis. Under that scenario, total new spending to implement the system would be between $50 billion and $100 billion per year.

This is California.  We don’t let little things like reality stop us from doing what we know is right.

Read that last paragraph again; "could be available", when translated from California liberal to normal person language, means "huge extra tax on businesses", which is just what we need to make California businesses more competitive with the rest of the world, and to stop businesses from leaving the state.

Socialism is expensive.  How much are you willing to pay for "free" health care?

Update, 5/26/17:  In case you think I'm being too hard on, or too biased towards, our California legislators:

A California Senate committee tasked with reviewing bills that spend state money passed a $400 billion universal health care proposal Thursday with no funding plan.

Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, introduced SB 562, a sweeping overhaul of the state’s health insurance market. He’s also the chair of Senate Appropriations. The committee passed the bill with a 5-2 vote during a fast-paced suspense file hearing, clearing the way for it to be taken up on the Senate floor next week.

The vote came days after the committee revealed the Legislature’s first cost assessment of the bill, which turns out to be more than the entire state budget for the year beginning July 1.

Lara has yet to reveal a detailed plan about how the state would come up with the money to provide health care to the nearly 40 million people living in California. Opponents argued that the funding issue should have been addressed before the committee voted on the measure.

As you can see, I'm not being too hard on them at all.  They're even worse than I tell you they are.