Study: Taxes could fund health care
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A longshot California proposal to replace insurance companies with government-funded health care for all of the state’s residents could be paid for with a sales tax hike and a new tax on business revenue, according to a report released Wednesday.
The report said those taxes would generate $106 billion annually. It was made public by the influential California Nurses Association as the state Senate faces a Friday deadline to vote on the bill, which outlines how a single-payer health care system would function but does not say how it would be funded.
In a study commissioned by the nursing union, researchers at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst suggested a 2.3 percent sales tax and a 2.3 percent gross receipts tax, which would apply to all corporate revenue. Poor residents would get a tax credit to offset the higher sales tax.
Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and Gov. Jerry Brown, both Democrats, have expressed skepticism about the proposal. If it were to clear the Legislature and be signed into law by Brown, it would need cooperation from President Donald Trump’s administration to waive rules about federal Medicare and Medicaid dollars.
Charles Bacchi, the president and CEO of the California Association of Health Plans representing 48 health plans, said its 28 million health care insurance participants would have their coverage disrupted and slammed projected cost savings outlined in the study as “overly optimistic.”
