SACRAMENTO – Today, Assemblyman Gallagher (R-Yuba City), along with his Assembly Republican colleagues, called for an independent analysis of the cost and potential impacts of Democrats’ proposed takeover of California’s health care system.
In a letter to Assembly Rules Committee Chair Ken Cooley (D-Rancho Cordova), Gallagher and others called for the Legislative Analyst Office to conduct a Citizen Cost Impact Analysis of AB 1400 to determine the true expense of the proposal and the impact it will have on California’s budget, workers, health care delivery system and patients.
“A proposal of this magnitude should not even be considered for vote without an independent cost impact analysis. Lawmakers cannot spend hundreds of billions of dollars, raise taxes, and uproot the lives of every Californian without making the public fully aware of the impacts. We need answers,” said Gallagher.
Costs for previous single-payer proposals were estimated at $400 billion per year (significantly more than the entire state budget), however there has been no impartial analysis of AB 1400’s price tag. A companion measure, ACA 11, is projected to increase taxes by more than $160 billion per year. It also allows the Legislature to raise taxes further with a simple majority vote, eliminating Prop. 13’s two-thirds vote requirement and calling into question Democrats’ ability to pay for their proposal. Additionally, ACA 11 skirts education funding requirements that were approved by voters in Prop. 98.
The full letter requesting the cost analysis is available here.