Killing Universal Health Care

by Steve Soto

Several months ago, Democrats in the California Senate killed Arnold Schwarzenegger's ambitious and balanced universal health care proposal. The official reason given was that with the state facing a large current deficit of $10 billion, Democrats were worried about the possibility of $1.5 billion in unfunded costs years from now in a General Fund budget of over $100 billion a year. The real reason Senate Democrats killed this bill is because a successful universal health care program would kill the single-payer pipe dreams of several key senators and advocates.

There will never be single-payer in this country until we have public financing of political campaigns. There is simply too much corporate and special interest money out there in our current system to prevent it. And yet Senate Democrats killed universal health care for something that will never materialize.

The sad thing about this political miscalculation is that 72% would have voted for Schwarzenegger's proposal, had Democrats allowed it to be put on the November 2008 ballot for voter approval of the tax increases. Several years from now, when we still will have neither single-payer or universal health care, Democrats need to look in the mirror and blame themselves for lagging behind public opinion and being the obstacle.