Single-payer health care in California dormant, but not for long

Source: Laurel Rosenhall (San Francisco Chronicle)

SACRAMENTO — By many measures, the rambunctious campaign for a single-payer health care system in California appears to be floundering.

A bill that would replace the existing health care system with a new one run by a single payer — specifically, the state government — and paid for with taxpayer money remains parked in the Assembly, with no sign of moving ahead. An effort by activists to recall Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Los Angeles, for shelving the bill has gone dormant. And an initiative that would lay the financial groundwork for a future single-payer system has little funding, undercutting its chances to qualify for the ballot.

Link to full article

But even if single-payer is a lost cause in the short term, advocates are playing a long game. For now, it may well be less a realistic policy blueprint than an organizing tool.

And by that metric, advocates are making gains. Riding a wave of enthusiasm from progressive Democrats, supporters of single-payer have effectively made it a front-and-center issue in California’s 2018 elections. It’s been discussed in virtually every forum with the candidates running for governor, emerged as a point of contention in some legislative races, and probably will be a rallying cry at the upcoming California Democratic Party convention.

“This issue is not going away,” said Garry South, a Democratic political consultant who has worked with the California Nurses Association, which sponsored the stalled single-payer bill.

“The progressive elements who are supportive of the single-payer concept know that it’s not going to happen now, it’s not going to happen tomorrow,” South said. “It’s a long-term process, and Jerry Brown is gone as of January 2019.”

The governor has not had to stake out a position on the bill, because it skidded to a stop in the Assembly last summer without reaching his desk.

But state Sen. Toni Atkins, a San Diego Democrat who co-wrote SB562, said Brown was not receptive. Analyses peg the cost of a statewide single-payer system at between $330 billion and $400 billion — far exceeding the state’s entire budget.

“When the governor saw that we introduced that bill ... all he could look at me and do is shake his head and say, ‘$400 billion.’ And I kept trying to say, ‘Can we back up and talk about what you’ve got to do’” to get there? Atkins said. “He wasn’t letting it go.”

Atkins, who will take over as Senate leader next month, said she’s not giving up on the goal of single-payer but does not expect it to happen this year.

“People are polarized on this issue in a way that’s not good for coming together to get it done,” she said.

Led by the nurses association — a union that embraces activism — supporters of single-payer have targeted Rendon after he shelved the bill last summer because it didn’t specify how the overhaul would be funded. They peppered social media with images that not only portrayed the bill fight as a boxing match between Rendon and the nurses, but also depicted a knife labeled “Rendon” back-stabbing the bear symbol of California.

The nurses were not involved in the effort to recall Rendon, said campaign organizer Stephen Elzie. He has abandoned the attempt and is now helping Democrat Maria Estrada challenge Rendon’s re-election bid.

But the nurses union leaped into the governor’s race as one of the first unions to endorse Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom. Single-payer has emerged as one of few issues on which the Democratic candidates disagree.

Newsom and Delaine Eastin, the former state superintendent of schools, have both said they support the nurses’ single-payer bill. Fellow Democrats Antonio Villaraigosa, former mayor of Los Angeles, and John Chiang, the state treasurer, say they want to expand health care so that everyone is covered, but not necessarily with the single-payer model that would abolish private health insurers and replace them with a government-run system.

A coalition of medical groups is lobbying against the single-payer bill, arguing that it makes more sense to expand the federal Affordable Care Act, which has increased the number of Californians who have health insurance.

The Assembly just wrapped up a series of hearings on what it would take to create a health care system that covers all Californians. It exposed many obstacles — in both federal and state law — to swiftly enacting single-payer. For one, the state would need permission from the federal government — and perhaps an act of Congress — to shift billions of dollars from Medi-Cal and Medicare into a state-run single-payer plan.

Assemblyman Jim Wood, a Healdsburg Democrat who led the hearings, called the single-payer bill “aspirational” and said he’s instead considering legislation that could help more Californians get health care without requiring permission from the federal government. One idea: extending subsidized health plans to adults who are undocumented immigrants.

“I believe we can actually get to single-payer, once we go through a lot of study and a lot of work,” Wood said. “But this feels, at times, more like a litmus test.”

Laurel Rosenhall writes for CALmatters.org, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.