Anthony Reardon, the speaker of the California Assembly, must be among the unhappiest people in American politics. He is a committed liberal in a state that is entirely dominated by the left. He, therefore, wields a remarkable amount of political power. Yet, his party, for which he has toiled for much of his life, has mounted a recall effort against him, all for the sin of knowing how to do the math.
With single payer health care, we must reject reality and substitute our own
Reardon, as the gentle reader recalled, received the hot mess of a single payer health care bill from the California state senate.
The purveyors of the proposed law forgot to determine how to pay for a state wide government run Health Care System and how to contain costs. The system would add $400 billion a year to a California state budget that spends a paltry $200 million per annum. The bill also does not have cost containment provisions. So Reardon, no doubt reluctantly, pulled the bill for the legislative calendar.
First, the death threats appeared by outraged zealots on the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party, the same sorts of people who took a weapon to a group of congresspeople and their aides at a baseball diamond recently. Now, a more serious recall effort has been mounted. Reardon may well lose his seat for the sin of being aware of objective reality.
What happens next?
Let us suppose that the Berniacs remove Reardon and substitute him with someone willing to ram single payer through as is. Then, California will have to find a way to pay for their new health care system. Raising $400 billion a year in extra taxes will be quite a challenge, even in a state that is infamous for taxing just about everything.
As for cost containment, look for California to try price controls on health care services.
The current exodus of the middle class and small business from California will accelerate, to be joined by doctors and other health care professionals. One can predict that the state will collapse and go into default by about 2020. California will be stretching out its hand for the mother of all bailouts.
One can imagine how President Donald Trump will react to that one. Trump fancies himself the master of the art of the deal and will surely drive a tough bargain. California could, for example, be split up into six or so smaller states or even converted back to a territory so that its finances could be reorganized and its government reformed. One can only ask oneself whether all of this could have been avoided if California had an effective opposition party.
