Newsom Adjusts his Position

I voted for Governor Gavin Newsom because he swore on the life of his designer jeans that he supported single payer health care for California. Six months after getting elected, he has switched to support for improvements in Covered California, aka the Affordable Care Act. That is not what he ran on.

Single payer will not help me. My wife and I were granted good health care when I retired. It's better than the ACA. But I'd like to see my neighbors covered, as they would be in a civilized nation. Canada, for example, has an economy about the size of California's, and Canada has long had universal health coverage. In Canada you don't have to die quickly if you're poor. 

I've never met Gov. Newsom, and I don't know his motivation. Maybe someone told him that single payer was complicated."Do something easier." Maybe key Democrats in the state senate and assembly told him to forget single payer. Many "liberal" politicians talk single payer but are careful not to let it out of committee. Maybe Newsom lied to us during his campaign. I don't know. What I do know is this: what people like me want ends up counting for nothing in Sacramento.