If you thought energy deregulation was a hoot.. Stand by!
You ain't seen nothin' yet!
Gubby: I'm so happy, I could kiss you.
Fabian: But what would Maria say?
Posted on 12/18/2007 12:23:42 AM PST by goldstategop
Philosopher George Santayana said it best: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
A bit of political history was repeated Monday when the state Assembly voted 46-31 along party lines for an immense new health care scheme without knowing whether it would work, or even how it would work – very much like the Legislature enacted a far-reaching energy "deregulation" scheme in 1996 that turned out to be a humongous disaster.
The Assembly Appropriations Committee conducted a pro forma hearing and gave party-line approval, even though, as one critic, Donna Gerber of the California Nurses Association, observed, "You don't know what's in the bill."
For one thing, the all-important financing component of what Núñez described as a $14.4 billion expansion of health care for millions of Californians who now lack it is completely missing.
Núñez and Schwarzenegger say it will be financed by levies on employers and hospitals, a new cigarette tax, payments from consumers under a new mandatory insurance section and federal funds, but details would be written later and placed before voters next year. And it's highly likely that requiring employers to pay 1 percent to 6.5 percent of their payroll into health care violates long-standing federal law, as courts have held in other states.
For another, the details on how the health insurance mandate would affect employers, consumers and others would be left to an obscure bureaucracy.
So why, one wonders, would the Governor and the Speaker push an incomplete, unclear and legally questionable health plan, especially when they face an immense deficit in the state budget that Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata rightly says should be addressed first?
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Don’t you wish that if you were too stupid for too long you’d just suddenly stop breathing??
The California State Legislature would consist of about two dozen Republicans.
The number of Californians leaving for other states is why I made so much money on my first house here.
Its a beautiful state with great weather but I would not live there for three times the money I make now.
They can’t afford this which means Uncle Sam will bail Ahnold out which means we all pay as usual.
Amerika! What a country!
If they go bankrupt, we wouldn't have to bail them out.
Can you imagine being required to buy something that you don't need so someone else who does need it, can use your money to have theirs cheaper?
...Oh ...Wait a minute... so can I.
“the all-important financing component ...is completely missing.”
Your typical liberal. California’s legislative fools need to make this mistake in order to serve as a warning to all those who might try to do the same on the federal level.
This will fail too. And then California will ask for a federal bailout.
“If they go bankrupt, we wouldn’t have to bail them out.”
We would most likely give them foreign aid and this would be without receiving any tax revenue for the Fed. coffers.
What’s crazier: California’s unfunded healthcare mandate or California AB 32, which is being used by environmental groups and the California Attorney General to stifle private and public real estate development in the name of CO2 emission mitigation?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I foresee healthcare professionals leaving California and providing service to their customers just across the border.
Kind of like Canada.
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