SB 810 (Single Payer Healthcare) Killed on the California Senate Floor [View all]

[yurbud]

Today SB 810, “Medicare for All” single payer legislation, was killed on the California Senate Floor.

The vote was: 19 YES, 15 NO (including Dem. Calderon and Dem. Correa) and 6 ABSTAIN (which is actually a NO vote and included Dems. Padilla, Vargas, Wright and Rubio).

We have two immediate tasks: first, thank our author of SB 810, Sen. Leno, for his efforts (the legislation was not supposed to pass the Appropriations Committee!) and thank Sen. Steinberg for his assistance in getting the bill to the Senate Floor; and, second, call the 6 Senators who voted against SB 810 and give them a piece of your mind.

Lastly, California OneCare will be recommending “next steps” for the campaign in the very near future. We are meeting with our coalition partners on Friday and will communicate to you a united strategy in the following days.

http://californiaonecare.org/sb-810-killed-on-the-california-senate-floor

Sadly, California Democratic legislators did exactly what I predicted in my letter to them:

As you know, previous bills passed both chambers only to be vetoed by Gov. Schwarzenegger, but with a Democrat as governor, there is a real chance that this could become law.

If a handful of Democratic senators block this historic opportunity, it will make a lot of us wonder if you guys actually care about average people or only do bold legislation when you know you have a business owned governor who can be depended on to veto it.

Our government has become so corrupt at all levels even state legislators can't do what would be wildly popular and make them national heroes for fear of losing campaign donations and likely high paying jobs when they leave office as lobbyists, CEO's, and do-nothing board members.

The state party needs to do something about this, and it needs to get on the governor's desk before he leaves office.

Maybe instead of punishing the bad guys, we need to reward the good: donate to the state senators who voted for it and especially to the author of the bill, Mark Leno.