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I'm glad that the Clinton Health Plan has been dumped. It started out with all the right ideas - single payer and universal coverage, your choice of health purveyor. But bit by bit and bite by bite the special interest groups slowly sliced the baloney until there wasn't any left.
But all is not lost at least here in Calif. Proposition 186 is on the ballot and it has most of the right ideas. Universal care for all California Citizens, your full choice on who you want to give you care, the single payer and a much fairer way of paying for it.
Both of our Governor candidates are not supporting it. One because she is chicken, doesn't think its going to pass so she decided to be safe and get more of the lobby money by apparently opposing it or at least not favoring it. She says it just not the right way to get health care.
Our current governor is more emphatic. He says its a budget buster and a job killer.
It ain't a budget buster because it brings its own budget with itself, transferring the cost from employers and regular state income taxes to (a) 2 and 1/2 percent tax to the income of everbody, (b) 4-8 percent tax to the employers (depending mainly on their size, 8 percent to the big employes and as little as 4 percent to the smallest). And here is where it gets fairer to all: all employers pay the tax, not just the socially responsible ones... No, it is not a budget buster.
"Job Killer" - more of the conservative and special interest scare sound bites. Since most of the health insurance is cut out, most of the money that they sent out of the state to pay dividends and a large part of it exempt from income taxes will now be spent on jobs directly related to giving health care like nurses, hospital attendants, general care Doctors. More money in California means more jobs in Calif. It means more jobs, not less jobs.
Needless to mention, I support Ca. prop 186, hope it passes in Ca. (it doesn't look likely) and then the nation may take the same prescription.
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