$400 BILLION TO REMAKE CALIFORNIA’S MARKETPLACE

by Marty Carlson

5-23-2017

According to the Sacramento Bee and multiple other media outlets, the price tag for California proposed health insurance marketplace to create a publicly funded universal healthcare system was analyzed by a state financial analyst and the results were released Monday.

An additional $200 billion a year would have to be added to California’s budget, which would require new tax revenues to create a so-called single payer system. The analysis assumes the state would retain the existing $200 billion in local, state, and federal funding currently funk received to offset the total $400 billion price tag.

The cost analysis is seen as the biggest hurdle to creating a universal system, this system was proposed by Senators Ricardo Lara, D – Bell Gardens, and Tony Atkins, D – San Diego.

It obviously remains a longshot bid. Projected costs have derailed the efforts for over the last two decades in attempts to establish such a system in California.

Currently, $100 billion-$150 billion per year is being spent currently by employers. Which are numbers which could be available to help offset total cost, according to the analysis so new spending to implement the system would be between $50 billion and $100 billion per year.

Sen. Lara stated Monday at an appropriation hearing that “healthcare spending is growing faster than the overall economy…. Yet we do not have better health outcomes and we cover fewer people,” he went on to say is critical that California charts their own path.

The idea behind SB-562 is to overhaul California’s insurance marketplace’s, reduce overall healthcare costs and expand coverage to everyone in the state regardless of immigration status or ability to pay. Instead of private insurers, state government would be to single-payer for everyone’s health care throughout a new payroll taxing structure, similar to the way Medicare operates.

Dawg says:

Put aside the immigration issue for just a minute, and look at the tax burden alone that would be placed on what is the remaining workers in California. This states leaders have an opinion there is an unending supply of money through taxation, as a constantly increase the burden upon the working class, which includes the low-income class. In addition, past history has shown California has not been able to act responsibly with major influxes of cash through taxation, the most recent being the new road tax, these assessments, cash flow for the California where they have not acted responsibly or used those tax dollars for what was intended. The previous billions of dollars paid for the roads in taxes at the pump, car registrations, not to even mention the massive amount of money paid for out of state trucking pays to use the roads.

Now you throw in an added factor of illegal aliens being provide coverage how do you sustain that type of expense in today’s working environment in California, which is becoming very quickly a benefit and welfare state.

Also keep in mind we are not talking about health care with this issue, we are talking about health care insurance, which I think is a notable difference. Until we have a healthcare system that is patient orientated and not profit orientated there will be no good solution to any of this. Obama care was not a good solution, but I do think it was a start in the right direction but poorly implemented, and the so-called Trump care is not much different.