The single payer health care bill, the Healthy California Act (SB 562), successfully made it through the State Senate but Speaker Anthony Rendon has prevented it from going to a floor vote in the Assembly. Rendon has called the bill “woefully inadequate,” even though here has not been one hearing on it in the Assembly, nor a chance to offer amendments. Redon’s move to scuttle the bill has been a blow, but the bill’s backers, particularly the California Nurses Association, have vowed to keep fighting, and are calling for the bill before the end of the legislative session in mid-September.
In a July 14 blog, National Nurses United Executive Director, RoseAnn DeMoro, wrote:
Despite efforts by the political establishment to shut it down, the quest for a state based, Medicare for all type system in California, based on patient need, not corporate profits, rolls on.
DeMoro cited an economic study led by Robert Pollin, which concluded that the Act "could deliver decent health care to all 39 million California residents while also lowering overall costs of health care by about 8 percent relative to the existing system." Under Pollin’s recommended approach virtually every California household and business would spend less on health care than they do today.
She also highlighted a point that Lydia O’Neil and David Sirota made: that "donors from the health services sector and major health insurers gave more than $16 million to Democratic candidates and the California Democratic Party in the 2014 election cycle." To read DeMoro’s full blog, see the NNU website.