3 ms·
If you live in California, consider writing or calling your State Assemblymember in support of the Healthy California Act (http://www.healthycaliforniaact.org h
by panic 9y ago
If you live in California, consider writing or calling your State Assemblymember in support of the Healthy California Act (http://www.healthycaliforniaact.org http://www.healthycaliforniaact.org), which is stuck in the State Assembly right now. It would establish a single payer system for the state and let people get emergency care without these outrageous bills.
- refurb 9y agoWasn't that tried before and the estimated cost was more than the entire State of California budget? The chance of that bill ever going anywhere is effectively zero.
- epmaybe 9y agoI think I'd be in favor of introducing a public option and seeing how it competes with other commercial insurance options. Going completely single payer seems very risky, and could upset a large percentage of californians due to the subsequently necessary rise in taxes.
- redblacktree 9y agoI wonder just how big those increases would be though. I've seen several informal surveys of my Facebook friends with respect to the cost of their health insurance, and numbers range from $400-$1200/mo. And keep in mind that many of these are subsidized by their employer. That seems like a lot of money that could be taxed. (i.e. you'd pay the tax instead of a health insurance premium)
- epmaybe 9y agoThe rational thought process is that yes, tax what would have been spent on health insurance premiums. However, in practice I'm not so certain that it would interpreted as such by taxpayers.
- dv_dt 9y agoThe problem there (but not necessarily a show stopping problem), is that private insurance could then pick out and kick out groups of customers according to profitability. The public option would likely end up picking up the most costly cases.
- dv_dt 9y agoThe cost was higher than the budget, but more relevant, lower then the cost of Californian's getting the same care from the current healthcare market.
- bmm6o 9y agoI pay (more precisely, my employer pays for me) more in health insurance premiums than I do in income taxes, so this isn't really surprising. Unless you're commenting on the magnitude of the project, then yes, it's something usually attempted by nations.
- TheCoelacanth 9y ago> it's something usually attempted by nations. California has a larger economy than all but five nations in the world, so that doesn't seem like a major problem.