California’s disappearing health care reform

California’s disappearing health care reform

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 California single payer health care bill this year. It disappeared.

This disappearance was no small thing. Single payer has actually passed both California legislative branches — twice — before being vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The bill hasn’t exactly been obscure, if only because its initial sponsor was Senator Sheila Kuehl, famous long ago as Zelda on the television show The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Yet, where Vermont begins the year progressing toward its version of a single payer system and Pennsylvania unveils a study of how much money a similar system might save its people, the largest state in the union has no such legislative vehicle, despite the millions who will remain uncovered by “Obamacare” and reports of drastic health insurance rate increases to come.

The first indication of this astounding turn of events came when Senator Mark Leno, the bill’s sponsor since term limits ended Kuehl’s legislative career, informed supporters of his intention not to refile. As Don Bechler of the San Francisco-based Single Payer Now group recalls, “He said his colleagues had asked him, ‘What part of “No” don’t you understand?’”
The bill had failed the last two times Leno offered it in the Senate, and he suggested maybe it would be better if someone filed it in the Assembly instead.