Lawmakers reject another attempt to create single-payer healthcare

Head of Assembly panel cites legislation’s cost and California’s huge budget deficit.

— The latest attempt to bring a single-payer healthcare system to California failed in the state Legislature last week, undercut by its steep price tag as lawmakers struggle with a mounting budget shortfall.

Assembly Bill 2200, the California Guaranteed Health Care for All Act, or CalCare, was designed to set up a universal, singlepayer healthcare system for all residents of the state. It died Thursday in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Assemblymember Ash Kalra (D-San José) said he was “deeply disappointed” that it died so early.

“I looked forward to preSACRAMENTO senting the bill on the Assembly Floor and was confident it would pass,” Kalra said in a statement. “Losing the opportunity to advance the bill this year means further unnecessary delays in healthcare reform, allowing needless suffering and economic injustice to continue harming Californians.”

But Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), chair of the committee, said: “We have an obligation to balance the budget in California. There were some tough choices to make.”

Wicks, who said she was a co-author of a previous single-payer healthcare bill, told reporters that lawmakers had to weigh the financial burdens that accompanied the sweeping proposal.

CalCare was projected to cost the state $392 billion annually. Meanwhile, California is grappling with a $45-billion deficit. Kalra said there is “significant cost-saving potential” with a single-payer model.

“I’m a big believer. But at the end of the day it’s a very expensive endeavor, one that is worthwhile that we should continue, as the years go on, to try to implement,” Wicks said. “But it was a difficult choice to make because of the current budget environment that we’re in.”

“During hard economic times, CalCare is needed more than ever. Today’s setback is frustrating, but only temporary in our long-term campaign to pass CalCare,” said Sandy Reding, a registered nurse and president of the California Nurses Assn, a staunch supporter of single payer. “CalCare is not a matter of if, it’s when. CalCare has to happen.”

Just a few days earlier, volunteers with the organization were calling lawmakers in hopes of a better outcome. Kalra joined the nurses and told them to “fight like hell” as a crowd of advocates cheered.

“There’s no one I’d rather fight with than the nurses,” he said.