City Endorses Single-Payer Health Plan
The Salinas City Council this week voted 6-0 with one abstention to endorse state legislation that would create a single-payer health system in California, the Monterey County Herald reports (Sanchez, Monterey County Herald, 8/17).
SB 840 by Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Los Angeles) would establish a system that provides health insurance to all state residents. The system would be funded by an 8% payroll tax on businesses and a 3% personal income tax increase, with such taxes replacing premiums that businesses and individuals currently pay to insurance companies.
State voters or lawmakers would have to approve the system's costs in a separate measure because the bill does not allocate funding for the program (California Healthline, 8/10).
The Salinas Action League, a local advocacy group, presented the resolution of support to the city council and plans to seek a similar resolution from the Monterey County Board of Supervisors and other cities in Monterey County.
Berkeley, Santa Cruz and Watsonville have approved resolutions supporting SB 840, as have Alameda, Marin and Los Angeles counties (Monterey County Herald, 8/17).
"The best resolution to" the single-payer health system bill and other legislation "would be for them to get held up and not passed before the Legislature finally leaves the surreal world of the state capitol for the real world back home," an Orange County Register editorial states. Measures dealing with issues including universal health care "are non-starters," the editorial concludes (Orange County Register, 8/14).
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