California is a state that miscalculated costs for the state run Medicaid program by $1.9 billion. The state is reckoned to have a $1.6 billion deficit, and Governor Jerry Brown wants to reduce the state budget by $3 billion because of these problems. The inflow of tax money is down. Jobs are leaving. Costs for businesses are up. Costs for citizens are up. The state is the 4th highest in the nation for cost of living. Covered California, the name for the Obamacare plan for the state, has the same problems as everywhere else: ever increasing premiums and deductibles, people can’t afford to use the insurance, doctors aren’t taking it, there are long waits for those doctors that do, and the state is constantly having to give the program more and more money. And, remember this?
1 in 2 Californian children depend on Medicaid. This plan's cuts to Medicaid attacks those who need heath care most. https://t.co/GBRQkFO0st
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) February 24, 2017
Does 1 in 2 California children depending on Medicaid seem like some kind of California success story to you? https://t.co/NWzS27PrpR
— CLA (@ConservativeLA) February 25, 2017
Well, let’s make sure we double down on failure
With Obamacare in jeopardy, California considers going it alone with ‘single-payer’ system
With President Trump now vowing to put forward a replacement for the Affordable Care Act in March, some California politicians and healthcare advocates are once again promoting the idea of a state-run “single-payer†system that operates like Medicare.
Backers say the uncertainty surrounding Trump’s promise to repeal Obamacare presents California with a chance to rethink how healthcare is delivered to its 39 million residents.
“Why wouldn’t we take this as an opportunity to create what we want in California?†Dr. Mitch Katz, head of L.A. County’s health department, said at a conference in December. He mentioned a single-payer system as a possible solution.
Other suggestions for how California can capitalize on the threat to Obamacare include creating a public option, a state-run health plan to sell on the state’s insurance exchange, and mimicking how Massachusetts provided universal healthcare.
In fact
State Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) introduced a bill Friday that would make California the first state to adopt single-payer, also called “Medicare for all.†Canada has such a system.
What might this look like?
Previous proposals in California suggested financing the agency by pooling the state’s current funding for Medicaid, Medicare and other health programs and then taxing employees 4% of their income and employers 7% of payroll.
Hey, it’s their state, let them do what they want, if we believe in States Rights. It would be a great way to show just how much Leftism would fail. They should do it quickly. Just don’t expect the Republican Congress nor President Trump to bail them out.
Predictable consequences are predictable: Chronically sick people from other states move to California. Don’t get jobs. Pay nothing. Costs skyrocket. Act surprised.
Correct.
Why hasn’t everyone left the third-world hellhole that is California?
Businesses sure have.
But, hey, I love that Liberals are suddenly rediscovering this whole States Rights notion from the Constitution. Suddenly, you guys don’t like it when Centralized Government is doing things you do not agree with.
Perhaps it is high time we rolled back the power of the federal government to what is specified in the Constitution, and leave the rest to the States and the People. Wouldn’t you agree, Jeff?
California real GDP grew about 4% in 2014 and then again in 2015.
Our esteemed host concluded:
Well, who knows, maybe they’ll succeed! I very much doubt it, as California has the highest poverty rate in the nation, when using the Census Bureau’s new, more comprehensive accounting method. Poor Californians make more, dollarwise, than poor Kentuckians, but the higher costs of living eat up those additional dollars, leaving the poorest Pyrite Staters worse off than the poor in Appalachia.
Jeffrey asked:
Well, I did, but given that I was only seven at the time, it wasn’t my decision.
Of course, California’s population keeps on being replenished by illegal immigration from a third-world hellhole that’s even worse, Mexico. California has the 7th greatest income inequality in the nation:
The wealthy don’t (usually) leave, and the poorest people can’t leave. California has seen net out-migration in 22 of the last 25 years, much of it from the middle class.
So yes, Jeffrey, they are leaving.
The new poverty measure includes subsidies, which are based on the traditional measure of poverty. The net result is that California ends up subsidizing the poor in other states, lifting them out of poverty on the new measure.
Yet real median income increased by 4% in 2015.
Yet, with a top-to-bottom ratio of 28.9, California is not that far above the national average of 25.3.
Tuesday morning links
Photo via Starbucks Brand Takes Major Beating After Announcement It Would Hire Islamic Refugees Instead of Americans Immigrants college grads need those jobs Pediatricians Warn Against Pot Use: Not Your Dad’s Marijuana Climbing Mount