Governor Schwarzenegger says he’ll veto the Democratic bill to ban health insurance and institute a “single payer” socialist medical care system. He even appears to get the reasons right, according to the AP:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Tuesday that he will veto a universal health care bill that is headed for his desk, claiming the measure would set up a “vast new bureaucracy” that would be too expensive.
The Republican governor said the single-payer system proposed by Sen. Sheila Kuehl would “cost the state billions and lead to significant new taxes on individuals and businesses, without solving the critical issue of affordability.
New taxes indeed. The line the Democrats have been trying to sell is that we’ll all pay the same amount we already pay. But when the system would end competition, end customer leverage, create a huge new government bureaucracy, and would become a magnet for money the way the school system is now, there’s no doubt that a steady stream of tax hikes would come about to fund the system.
Even if the Democrats had no chance to get the tax hikes through the legislature, thanks to the stalwarts of the Republican minority, all they would have to do is turn to Rob “Meathead” Reiner. He loves to have new initiatives written to put tax hikes directly on the ballot, and I’m sure he wouldn’t shy away from proposing a new one “for children’s health.”
And again as a side note, the AP shows just how radical this bill really was:
Schwarzenegger’s Democratic opponent, state Treasurer Phil Angelides, did not take a formal position on the measure. However, he has said that if he were elected governor, he would work with Kuehl to move toward universal coverage.
When the Democrat at the top of the ticket in California refuses to back you, you’ve veered so far left, you’re on the slow lane of the other side of the freeway.