SACRAMENTO, Calif. _ California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said Tuesday that he supports a proposal for California to adopt a single-payer health plan and believes it will eventually be enacted because consumers will become "fed up" with the current system that he said is unaffordable to many.
The state Senate approved a bill two weeks ago that would create a system where the state government would replace private insurance companies, paying doctors and hospitals for health care. The measure, pending in the Assembly, does not yet include a way to cover the $400-billion annual cost.
Becerra supported single-payer legislation when he was in the Assembly in the early 1990s and for the last 24 years in Congress, he said Tuesday during an event in Sacramento hosted by the nonprofit Public Policy Institute of California.
"I think it's the way to go because it takes away the inefficiencies in a system that has turned healthcare for people into a commodity," Becerra said in a public conversation with PPIC President Mark Baldassare. Becerra said he sees health care as a "universally required obligation of our government."
The attorney general wasn't sure whether single-payer will happen this year, saying, "We need to figure out a pragmatic way to implement it," but added, "It's where the will of the people will take you."
Becerra also said he would support legislation making California a so-called "sanctuary state" for immigrants in the country illegally "so long as we allow public safety to be done." He said state law enforcement should work with federal authorities to fight crime, but should not help enforce immigration laws.
