A health care agreement between Republican California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, a Democrat, was billed as a bipartisan effort, and would have inflicted massive costs on California taxpayers, including businesses, and the state’s economy.
In reality, there was significant bipartisan opposition to this plan.
It went down to defeat on Monday, January 29, in a Senate Health Committee led by the Democrats. The Sacramento Bee noted: “‘It's really a misnomer to term this as a bipartisan effort,’ Sen. President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, said after the Senate Health Committee voted to block the bill, AB X1 1.”
The Bee also noted: “During a yearlong campaign for his No. 1 priority, however, Schwarzenegger was unable to persuade even one Republican lawmaker to join him.” And a bit later: “Republicans … warned that requiring most employers to contribute to their workers' coverage would force many small businesses to close.”
The measure would have been a massive expansion of government into health care, with an annual tab estimated at $14.9 billion. The funding scheme included a play-or-pay tax on employers, higher taxes on hospitals, a $1.75 increase in the tax on a pack of cigarettes, and more money from federal taxpayers.
Will lawmakers in California learn a lesson and choose another path that makes economic sense, such as deregulation and mandate relief that would make insurance more affordable?
Well, the newspaper quoted Schwarzenegger declaring: “"If it were easy, California would have gotten universal coverage 60 years ago – that's when Governor Earl Warren's reform plan fell short by a single vote.” That’s not exactly encouraging.
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