One-time payers fail at the State Capitol – Orange County Register

The single-payer healthcare system died without a vote this week in Sacramento, with Rep. Ash Kalra, D-San Jose, failing to put Congressional Bill 1400 to a vote.

Kalra determined that many Democrats in Congress were unprepared to vote in favor of what would be a landmark piece of legislation for the California Democrats.

This is not an entirely surprising development.

One would think that something as serious as creating a giant single-payer health system would be the product of months, even years, of hard work publicly proposing and building. public support.

But this is so flawed that it becomes a legislative farce.

The half-baked proposal is being rushed through legislative committees before the January 31 deadline for no apparent reason.

It passed the Council’s Appropriations Committee without discussion, which is odd since the committee’s role is to review bills with fiscal impact and the proposal would require setting up a system larger than the state budget.

It’s just another grueling display of legislators who prefer to pull off legislative stunts rather than put in the effort to develop their ideas.

The bad aspects of the government in pushing this latest single payer aside, there are very practical reasons to be wary of a Sacramento takeover of health care.

If someone is in need of an extra reason to second guess the wisdom of this incredibly bad idea, look no further than the failures at the state’s Bureau of Employment Development.

EDD, which has been plagued by years of incompetence and dilemmas, has just lost another director and is slated for a third within two years.

The problems started with a backlog of claims the department was unable to pay in a timely manner, then were overshadowed by the payment of at least $20 billion worth of fraudulent claims. Governor Gavin Newsom even created a “strike team” to fix the problem, which didn’t seem to help.

How can people look at EDD and think government-run healthcare is a good idea?

At the heart of the argument in favor of the single payer is the claim that it will be cheaper and more efficient because costs and red tape will decrease when there is one central point of contact: the government. Aside from the fact that independent studies show it will cost about twice the size of the state budget and raise taxes on millions of Californians – not just the rich – the last two years at the EDD give an argument that points to the limits of the good people in Sacramento.

If the government cannot handle the wave of unemployment claims in time and do so without losing tens of billions of dollars to fraud, then why would anyone think that the state can handle insurance claims? for nearly 40 million residents?

There are no perfect solutions to healthcare problems, and the current system is certainly not perfect either. But to think that the single-payer system was brought to you by the very people who can’t understand the basics of government rights is a brilliant idea just pure fantasy.

Politicians like Kalra should focus their efforts on getting the basics right, before attempting to dramatically expand the scope of government carelessly. We really don’t think that’s too much to ask for.