Will California Fail Financially Without Single-Payer Health Care? Candidates for Governor Disagree

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the frontrunner for California governor says he “doesn’t see an alternative” to a taxpayer-financed single-payer health care system run by state government.

If California doesn’t drastically reshape the way health care is financed and delivered, he said, soaring health care costs will create a fiscal emergency that could bankrupt the nation’s wealthiest and most populous state.

“We’re on a path to insolvency,” Newsom said in an interview with The Sacramento Bee’s Editorial Board this month. “This is the budget. It’s not a gross overstatement to say what I just said – insolvency.”

Though he’s characterized it as imperfect, Newsom has praised the single-payer bill currently held up in an Assembly committee, Senate Bill 562, and said it provides the framework for a taxpayer-financed, single-payer system for California. (Read more)