This may sound unbelievable, especially in light of what may be as high as a $15 billion shortfall in needed revenues to cover budgeted state expenditures, but this Monday liberal Democrat Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez is hauling 80 members of the State Assembly to Sacramento to vote on a plan that purports to somehow improve access to health care in California by expanding the size and scope of state government’s involvement in this sector.
 
There is no doubt that Nunez will get support from this proposal from his caucus, as raising taxes (did I mention this proposal includes MASSIVE tax increases?) and hoisting mandates and requirements on businesses and on people are what liberals love to do the most.
 
There is not enough room in this whole website to go over all of the inherent problems with this plan, going beyond the obvious abandonment of key American traditions — the notions of individual responsibility and freedom.  Once again, "big brother" is coming in to suck literally billions of dollars out of the private sector and into the coffers of the government so that politicians can then turn it around and graciously spend it in ways to "help" us all.
 
Putting aside the ideological reasons to oppose this plan, there are just too many functional reasons why it should be rejected – paramount of which is the tremendous economic burden of this plan.  While Nunez’ Deputy Chief of Staff asserts that there is a "firewall" between this government expansion for healthcare and the state’s fiscal crisis — we would assert that they are inextricably tied together.  I predict that if this plan is adopted, it will have a terrible impact on our state’s economy.  Besides adding a new mandate on state employers that will give many the reason they need to close their doors (perhaps to move to another, less burdensome state to do their business), the added government regulation into the health care sector will undoubtedly make the whole thing more expensive and less effective.  When the economy takes a hit, so does… the state budget!

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This entry was posted on Saturday, December 15th, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.