<story><title>Healthy California Act: proposal to make findings about single-payer healthcare</title><url>http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB562</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>df3</author><text>A well-executed single-payer system would make California even more attractive for entrepreneurship and increase labor mobility for everyone. Life would be much easier if we could start companies or switch jobs without worrying about healthcare.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>neltnerb</author><text>Completely agree. The trick is making sure it&amp;#x27;s well-executed so that other states can use it as a template. Once one state proves that single-payer can be done well, I suspect it will cascade inevitably.&lt;p&gt;With 100% seriousness, if the ACA is repealed I will likely be choosing between Massachusetts (where Romneycare would hopefully take priority again) or another country. It&amp;#x27;s too risky to do otherwise.&lt;p&gt;My extended and immediate family members have too many horror stories about being denied coverage or it being prohibitively expensive. Like a cousin who had to choose working over being a stay-at-home mom to take care of her kids, since her husband&amp;#x27;s policy as an entrepreneur wouldn&amp;#x27;t cover her. She didn&amp;#x27;t even have any ongoing health problems, just a technical pre-existing condition.&lt;p&gt;I am unwilling to be stuck in a job or forced to accept unreasonable compensation or a nasty work environment because I have to have health coverage. Which is a decision too many in my family have been forced to make. Many family members (including myself) have far worse chronic illnesses, so it&amp;#x27;s utterly involuntary -- work or die. And thankfully I have a choice in where to live by virtue of my education and credentials.&lt;p&gt;I have been blessed so far to not have to deal with it because I&amp;#x27;ve only lived in MA as an adult prior to Obamacare -- where Romneycare was in place by the time I finished undergrad. But I&amp;#x27;ve heard enough first hand accounts and seen the suffering that kind of horrible choice creates. And the absolutely perverse incentives it puts onto the job market, and onto individuals. Health care is not a voluntary market, and treating it like one is bonkers.&lt;p&gt;Now I&amp;#x27;m in California. I seriously doubt I will be able to stay without a guarantee that I can manage medical expenses, and I&amp;#x27;m definitively privileged economically compared to the majority of the US population.</text></comment>
<story><title>Healthy California Act: proposal to make findings about single-payer healthcare</title><url>http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB562</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>df3</author><text>A well-executed single-payer system would make California even more attractive for entrepreneurship and increase labor mobility for everyone. Life would be much easier if we could start companies or switch jobs without worrying about healthcare.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>genericpseudo</author><text>This is the point where America discovers European liberal political theory and praxis! This is one of their key points; universal healthcare is a hard-L liberal position because only the state can insure certain classes of catastrophic risk, and by doing so you increase individual freedom of action.&lt;p&gt;(European liberalism is clearly culturally distinct from social democratic thought; where it comes to the same positions it&amp;#x27;s typically by other means – not that there&amp;#x27;s anything wrong with social democracy or democratic Socialism, for that matter.)&lt;p&gt;A good starting point would be, at pan-Europe level, the ALDE; &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Alliance_of_Liberals_and_Democrats_for_Europe_Party&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Alliance_of_Liberals_and_Democ...&lt;/a&gt;. National-level parties you might have heard of are the Liberal Democrats (UK) and Democraten 66 (Netherlands).</text></comment>