California Often Leads Change, but Not for Single-Payer Health Care

Assemblymembers Ash Kalra and Mia Bonta pose with attendees of a CalCare town hall in Oakland on September 27, 2023. Photo courtesy California Nurses Association.

In 2022, a proposal to create the first single-payer health care system in California’s history so fractured the Democratic supermajority in the State Assembly that it never even came to a vote.

The powerful health industry lobby, along with Republicans and the state Chamber of Commerce, lined up to oppose it. The governor checked out of the conversation. Groups who had supported and pushed for the idea were left bitterly disappointed — and in some cases, feeling betrayed.