Single-payer advocates in California scored a big win last week when a proposed law passed through the Assembly Health Committee on an 11-3 vote.
Now AB1400, introduced by Assemblymember Ash Kalra (D-27), will go to the lower chamber’s Appropriations Committee this Thursday. If it passes, the bill will make its way to the Assembly floor for a vote.
Fantastic news, right?
It would be, if Governor Gavin Newsom hadn’t started to show signs of buckling under the pressure from his millionaire friends in the insurance industry.
While Newsom ran his 2018 governor’s race on a single-payer platform, he suddenly has flip-flopped on the bill, claiming to reporters that he hasn’t read it or the accompanying ACA11, which would lay out the funding for single-payer in California.
All of this is happening in the backdrop of the state’s private health care system’s massive systemic failure to the latest surge in COVID-19. Emergency rooms throughout California are already reaching crisis-level capacity. Here in Sacramento County, positive results are coming back for an incredible 43% of tests.
If Californians learn nothing else from two years of systemic failure in the for-profit medical system, it’s that a single-payer future is the best bet for our collective health.
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