HispanicVista Columnists
Who will Rescue California from Schwarzenegger?
By
Joe Armendariz
Governor Schwarzenegger has prescribed a new health care proposal that will require everyone living in California, including those who came in through the back door, to have health insurance, at an estimated cost of $12 billion. What ever happened to "rescuing California"?
If this proposal becomes law, someone will need to rescue California from Arnold. The Democrats love this plan and so does Barbara Streisand and Sean Penn.
In addition to covering illegal aliens, Schwarzeneggers proposal requires employers with 10 or more employees, provide full medical coverage for their full time employees. However, this aspect of the Governor's plan begs this question: if you are an employer in California with 9 employees, why hire a tenth employee? Or, conversely, if you already have ten employees, why not downsize to, oh, I dont know, 9 employees?
This big-government proposal, if adopted by a Democrat Legislature, who must think they've died and gone to heaven, would without a doubt increase the cost of health care in California and the cost of doing business as well. And if you doubt this statement consider the feature in the Governor's proposal that calls for a special 2% tax on the GROSS income of doctors and a special 4% tax on the GROSS revenues of all hospitals in California.
Oh yeah, it also calls for a "significant" increase in Medi-Cal reimbursement rates. This part of the plan comes under the section titled robbing Peter to pay Peter.
If the cost of health care goes up in California, the cost of doing business in California goes up as well. This is especially troubling in light of the obnoxious fact that operating costs in the state's manufacturing sector already exceed the operating costs, for the same sector, in every other state in the nation by roughly 24%.
Somebody really needs to rescue California...
We can all agree that our state's health care system is sick. Indeed, it is borderline terminal. However, Schwarzenegger's proposal attempts to turn economic reality on its head. After all, unless we think what is ailing the state's health care system is not enough government regulations, price controls and other politically motivated mandates, then the Governor's medicine, no matter how well intentioned the doctor might be, will only end up making the patient sicker.
The
author is a member of the Carpinteria City Council, Carpinteria is
a coastal city located in
Santa Barbara County,
California.
Contact at:
jaarmendariz@cox.net