Posted on 01/31/2010 7:33:29 AM PST by Libloather
The real 'socialists' are not in D.C., but Sacramento
Posted January 31, 2010 at midnight
For a year, the Democratic-led U.S. Congress has debated health care reform. And for a year, conservatives have denounced the plans as a socialist government takeover of American health care.
They're not. Want proof? Just look at the California Legislature, where the state Senate just last week passed a true government takeover of the health care system - and not even for the first time.
Senate Bill 810 is the latest version of a single-payer health care plan to emerge in Sacramento. In 2006 and again in 2008, the liberal-dominated Legislature passed bills to create single-payer health care in California. Gov. Arnold Schwarzengegger vetoed them both times, and he'll surely do the same if SB 810 passes through the Assembly.
The bill deserves the governor's veto, even though Schwarzenegger has said he supports health care reform in general. The California Democrats' model is dramatically more radical than anything the U.S. Congress has seriously considered.
In brief, a single-payer plan would put health insurance companies like Blue Cross and Blue Shield out of business. In their place, the state government would act as the health insurer for all residents. It wouldn't employ doctors or own hospitals, but it would pay all medical bills.
In contrast, both the House and the Senate bills in Washington - and a similar reform that Gov. Schwarzenegger pushed in 2007 and 2008 - use a mix of subsidies and mandates to cover the uninsured while piggybacking on the existing health care system.
There's a lot to disagree with in the details of the Washington plans, but fundamentally they aim to extend what's already working to more of the popuation.
Sacramento's liberals, meanwhile, really do aim to topple the entire health insurance apparatus, put massive companies - both for-profit and nonprofit - out of business, and directly hand massive new powers to the poster state for government dysfunction.
Grant this to our leaders in Sacramento: They make Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid look like models of caution and prudence.
NONE of those legislators expect this to become law because they know Arnold will veto it. That is the only reason they feel free to vote for it. This is strictly cynical feel-good posturing, not serious legislation.
This guy needs to study the Washington plan. It will destroy the insurance companies slowly by forcing people into the federal plan. Companies will be paying for their employees private plans while paying exhorbitant taxes to pay for Zerocare. Why pay both? As an employer who pays for his employees health insurance, I sure won’t.
If that’s what Californians want, I have no problem with it.
It would be a good experiment.
The only stipulation I would make is that the US Federal Government not backstop this venture.
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