How We Roll In California

I've written recently about California's proposal for government-run health care--how just health care would cost twice our current state budget. The California Nurses Association, an unbiased group if ever there were one, has figured out how we can pay for it. Guess how.

Go on, guess. I'll give you a hint: it's two words.

Give up yet?  Higher taxes!

The high cost of paying for Canadian-style health care for all Californians has for more than two decades killed proposals by politicians to adopt such a system.

But advocates of the model have some ideas for two Democratic state senators trying to remake California’s health care market into a taxpayer funded model that gets rid of the need for insurance companies and covers everyone regardless of immigration status or ability to pay.

A report by economists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, released Wednesday, found that overall health care spending in California would fall 18 percent under the proposal from state Sens. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, and Toni Atkins, D-San Diego.

Accounting for savings achieved with their Senate Bill 562, it would cost $331 billion per year to run a universal coverage system in which state government, with taxpayer dollars, pays for medical services and procedures – down from more than $404 billion in spending under today’s system, according to the economic analysis. It was paid for by the California Nurses Association, the bill’s lead sponsor, which also endorsed Lara in his 2018 run for state insurance commissioner...

Under the nurses’ proposal, the state would need to come up with an additional $106.9 billion. Most of that would come from taxes on businesses ($92.6 billion), with $14.3 billion from increasing sales taxes.

Genius! Why hasn't anyone else thought of raising taxes?