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NORTH COAST JOURNAL • Thursday, Feb. 3, 2022 • northcoastjournal.com
DAILY ONLINE
Why Single Payer Died in the California Legislature, Again
D
espite, or perhaps because of, an aggressive last-minute push by progressive activists ahead of a crucial deadline, legislation to create a government-run universal health care system in California died Jan. 31 without coming up for a vote. The single-payer measure, Assembly Bill 1400, was the latest attempt to deliver on a longtime priority of Democratic Party faithful to get private insurers and profit margins out of health care. Because it was introduced last year, when it stalled without receiving a single hearing, it needed to pass the Assembly by Jan. 31 to continue through the legislative process. But even the threat of losing the party’s endorsement in the upcoming election cycle was not enough to persuade the Assembly’s Democratic supermajority to advance the bill for further consideration, effectively killing the effort for another year. After several tense hours the afternoon of Jan. 31, during which a scramble of meetings took place just off the Assembly floor, Assemblymember Ash Kalra, the San Jose Democrat carrying A.B. 1400, announced that he would not bring up the measure for a vote. Kalra declined multiple requests to discuss his decision and whether he would seek another path forward for his proposal. Following the floor session, he waited on a members-only balcony outside the chamber until a group of reporters was told to leave by a sergeant-at-arms. “I don’t believe it would have served the cause of getting single payer done by having the vote and having it go down in flames and further alienating members,” Kalra said on a Zoom call with disappointed supporters later in the evening, in which he shared that he believed the bill, which needed 41 votes to pass, was short by “double digits.”
tively liberal as California. The influential California Chamber of Commerce, which represents business interests in the state, labeled A.B. 1400 a “job killer” shortly after it was reintroduced in January, indicating it would be a top priority to defeat. Its lobbying campaign — joined by dozens of insurers, industry groups and the associations representing doctors and hospitals — included social media advertisements and a letter to members denouncing the “crippling tax increases” that would be needed to pay for the system. After the bill stalled Jan. 31, the chamber declared it would be ready if ideas from the “dangerous proposal” resurfaced. Republicans were eager to make it into an election issue this year. Though Kalra’s bill was largely conceptual, with a separate measure introduced to address the financing, they attacked it as a massive tax hike on Californians. (Kalra proposed a series of taxes on businesses and high-earning households to fund the single-payer system, estimated by legislative analysts to cost between $314 billion and $391 billion annually.) A 4,000-page petition signed by voters who opposed A.B. 1400 sat in the back of the chamber Jan. 31 for Assembly Republican Leader Marie Waldron of Escondido to use as a prop in a floor debate that never happened. Democrats also faced a squeeze from the left flank of their party. Activists with the California Democratic Party’s progressive caucus said last week they would push to withhold endorsements from members who did not vote for the bill. That ultimatum generated fierce anger in the Assembly caucus from members who felt cornered, though many refused to speak publicly about their frustration.
Stuck between powerful interests
The decision not to bring up A.B. 1400 for a vote Jan. 31 may have been about protecting members from having to take a position one way or the other on the bill, as Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon did with the last single-payer measure in 2017. Legislation to move the state toward
The political obstacles to such a radical restructuring of the health care system remain enormous, even in a state as puta-
Backlash from activists
