Single-Payer Bill Likely Will Be Vetoed, Columnist Writes

The chances of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) signing legislation (SB 840) to create a single-payer health system "are virtually zero," Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters writes, noting that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides "has embraced, conceptually, universal health care, and the governor's campaign apparatus has cited that as one example of Angelides' alleged intention to saddle California's with billions of dollars in new mandates and taxes."

Universal coverage "is, as much as anything, an ideological question that's affected by the simple fact that the vast majority of Californians who vote ... already have health care coverage, while the vast majority of those lacking coverage do not vote," Walters writes.

Walters adds that "it appears inevitable that a California single-payer system that envisions freezing or even reducing total expenditures would shrink the insured medical services that many enjoy" with the intended result being the expansion of coverage to uninsured state residents (Walters, Sacramento Bee, 8/25).