As Yogi Berra once put in theory there’s no difference between practice and theory; in practice there is. At the Sacramento Bee Dan Walters looks at the bottom line on universal health care for California:
A Senate Appropriations Committee analysis pegs costs of universal coverage at $400 billion a year, but suggests that half could be covered by redirection of existing federal, state and local government health care spending.
It added that “about $200 billion in additional taxes would be needed to pay for the remainder,†but also noted that half or more of that burden could be offset by eliminating direct health care costs now borne by consumers and their employers.
To put that in perspective, even $100 billion in new taxes would be the equivalent of a one-third increase in the $300 billion a year now levied by state and local governments.
In theory – one advanced by advocates – the two-thirds “supermajorities†in the Legislature and the governor could levy new taxes of that magnitude.
In practice, however, even if the supermajorities survive the recent spate of sexual harassment resignations and next year’s elections, there’s virtually no chance of such a vote.
For California’s plan to be truly universal, as Mr. Walters goes on to point out, it must cover illegal immigrants. I think that California’s remaining a sanctuary state and having universal health care is a fantasy. There is no way such a system could ever be stable and there is no way for Californians to pay for a system in which the costs are completely out of control. Every parent everywhere in the world with a sick kid would be moving heaven and earth to get to California to avail themselves of free health care.
Meanwhile here in Illinois one of the Democrats seeking to replace Gov. Bruce Rauner after the next gubernatorial election is running on a platform of a single-payer plan for the state of Illinois. Even states much more solvent than Illinois have rejected the idea as unaffordable. Illinois is bankrupt in all but name. How in the heck can a state that can’t even afford to maintain its roads pay the pensions it’s promised going to implement a single-payer system?
And when did this ever bother Democrats? Call Bernie………..or Hugo Chavez.
I hate to break all your hearts, but after 40 years plus in California, I have to tell you all the great glamorous schemes for splitting the state into two (or three or four or six or sixteen) parts, the ideas for bestowing US citizenship and cradle-to-grave social benefits instantaneously on every illegal immigrant, the plans for teaching native-born English-speaking children only in Spanish, the requirements that local farmers sponsor cockfights and stake out livestock to feed coyotes …. All those things you folks see on the pathway to creating a Better California …. They aren’t going to happen.
California’s got a lot of residents — 40 million or so, and some of them have flamboyant dreams, but on the whole, we’re reasonable normal people who aren’t going to vote for radical changes. Seriously, I think you’d find what’s politically possible has changed more in the state of Ohio since I left it 50 years ago than here in California.
Sorry if that disappoints people.