The Patriot Post® · Newsom's Plan for Universal Healthcare Includes Illegals

California Governor Gavin Newsom is proving that his survival in last fall’s recall election has only made him more strident in his promotion of a hard-leftist ideology. Newsom recently released his budget plan for the Golden State, and headlining his spending agenda is a proposal for creating universal healthcare via expanding the state’s Medi-Cal to cover all low-income individuals — including illegal aliens. Essentially, this is the latest step in the plan Newsom initiated in 2019, when he originally offered healthcare coverage for illegal aliens age 26 and under. Last year, he expanded coverage to low-income illegals age 55 and older, and now he wants to expand it to include all illegals.

“Gov. Gavin Newsom campaigned on single-payer in 2018, and it passed the state Senate in 2017,” The Wall Street Journal reports. “But it collapsed in the more conservative Assembly because it didn’t include funding to pay for its estimated $400 billion annual cost. It also would have required Medicare and Medicaid waivers from the Trump Health and Human Services Department. Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon called the bill ‘woefully incomplete.’”

Newsom’s own breakdown of the budget plan celebrates his “generosity”: “Governor Newsom’s Blueprint will make California the first state in the nation to offer universal access to healthcare coverage for all state residents, regardless of immigration status.” However, in order to control costs, the plan includes a board of bureaucrats who will make decisions on rationing care, which is never a positive proposition. In fact, it kind of reminds us of those “death panels” for which the Left relentlessly mocked Sarah Palin. Perhaps California’s version wouldn’t be so dire, focusing instead on less “necessary” care. For example, the board would have the authority to decide whether an individual would receive a knee replacement, limiting costly surgeries based on such factors as a patient’s age. Too old? No new knee.

Besides, Pedro — that guy who illegally crossed the border, maybe with some fentanyl in tow — is sick and needs to visit the ER on the taxpayer dime, so California’s citizens get the shaft and the bill.

Of course, to implement this plan, Newsom and company will be raising taxes in a state where residents are already paying through the nose. A 2.3% excise tax will be levied on businesses with over $2 million in gross receipts for “the privilege of doing business in this state." Business with more than 50 employees will be saddled with a 1.25% payroll tax, which of course will trickle down to employees in the form of lower wages. Not only in reduced wages, though — employees making $49,900 or more will pay an extra 1% in payroll taxes. That’s hardly taxing "the rich.”

Newsom’s budget also includes a state-funded gun buyback program and more spending on “climate change.” Is it any wonder people are abandoning California like a sinking ship?

Then again, as we often note, people get the government they deserve. Not only did Newsom survive a recall, but the state went for Joe Biden by a margin of five million votes. For their insightful political decisions, the remaining citizens of California are going to get a really big bill for Biden’s open border.