Kuehl's Single Payer Bill Would Leave California $40 Billion in the Hole

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

State Senator Sheila Kuehl's single payer health care bill would cost California more than $210 billion and leave the state saddled with more than $40 billion more in debt in one year, according to a report by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst noted in an article today by the Sacramento Bee's Dan Weintraub.

That compares to the LAO's projection of a $1.5 billion deficit from legislation passed by Assembly Democrats and favored by Gov. Schwarzenegger. That legislation died in Senator Kuehl's Health Committee, with several senators expressing concerns about that cost.

To put that in perspective, the state is currently wrestling with a $17 billion operating deficit. And no one seems to know how that gap will be closed. Kuehl's single-payer bill would more than double that debt.

Weintraub notes that "Kuehl's current bill does specify a financing scheme," and the Senator admits the financing would be impossible to get through the legislature.

There's more...