In light of attempts by Trump’s administration to do away with Obamacare, the liberal states in our country are preparing to thumb their noses at him, and create their own socialist healthcare systems. We’re seeing the state legislatures in California and New York working on these single-payer healthcare plans, which the liberals in these states are quite giddy about. This is the kind of medical care that they’ve always wanted, not the watered down socialist medicine provided by Obamacare, which still offers a few token choices. No, they want full blown socialist healthcare, and they’re about to get it.
That is, if they can afford it.
Last month, California’s universal healthcare bill passed a major hurtle, despite the concerns of both Republicans and Democrats in the legislature.
The Senate Health Committee approved the measure on a 5-2 vote after a nearly three-hour hearing, but Democrats and Republicans alike signaled unease with the major question still unanswered in the legislation: how the program would be paid for.
The bill, SB 562, would establish a publicly run healthcare plan that would cover everyone living in California, including those without legal immigration status. The proposal would drastically reduce the role of insurance companies: The state would pay for all medical expenses, including inpatient, outpatient, emergency services, dental, vision, mental health and nursing home care.
But a recent analysis of the bill suggests that it’s going to cost a lot more than most supporters could have ever imagined.
The analysis, released in advance of the proposal’s hearing in a key fiscal committee, fills in what has so far been the biggest unanswered question concerning the plan to dramatically overhaul California’s healthcare coverage.
The analysis found that the proposal would require:
- A total cost of $400 billion per year to cover all healthcare and administrative costs.
- Of that, $200 billion of existing federal, state and local funds could be repurposed to go toward the single-payer system.
- The additional $200 billion would need to be raised from new taxes.
In case you’re not familiar with California’s annual budget, it currently rests at $170.9 billion, and is expected to rise another $9 billion later this year. So this bill would more than double California’s budget. If the money that employers currently spend on health insurance were siphoned off to pay for this healthcare monstrosity, the state would still need to increase taxes to cover an additional $100 billion.
And California isn’t alone. In every state where this has been attempted, the potential costs have been mind boggling.
If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Just last week, we reported on a similar single-payer proposal in New York State, which would require doubling (and possibly quadrupling, depending on which projection you believe) the state’s tax burden. Vermont’s attempt to implement a single-payer health care system collapsed in 2014 because the costs were too high. Colorado voters rejected a proposed single-payer system in 2016 when faced with the prospect of increasing payroll taxes by 10 percent to meet the estimated $25 billion annual price tag.
Ever since Trump was elected, liberals have been braying on about how awful Republicans are for wanting to get rid of Obamacare, even though so far they’re still trying to replace it with something comparable, much to the dismay of their supporters. They act like conservatives are evil monsters, worthy of punishment, for wanting to abandon socialized healthcare. But when they try to pull off socialized medicine in their own states, they’re gobsmacked by the costs.
I’d suggest that these Bernie supporting burnouts think things through before they waste our time with these proposals. But then again, if they were capable of foresight and critical thinking, they wouldn’t be socialists.
Read More:
California Governor Jerry Brown Slams Taxpayers As “Freeloaders” For Opposing Higher Taxes
Newsweek Writer Wishes Sickness and Death on Family Members of Republicans Who Voted For “Trumpcare”
Obamacare Crumbling Before Our Very Eyes: “Excuse For Fully Socialized Healthcare”
