Bernie disappointed by state single-payer demise

Tribune Content Agency | Ventura

Sen. Bernie Sanders is not happy with California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, who on Friday called a proposed California universal health bill “woefully incomplete” and killed it for the year.

“I am extremely disappointed that the speaker of the California Assembly is refusing to allow S.B 562, the single-payer health care bill passed by the state Senate, to come to the Assembly floor for a vote,” Sanders said in a statement issued Saturday.

Having recently urged California to be the nation’s leader in instituting universal health care policy, Sanders has been a strong supporter of Senate Bill 562, which would create a universal, publicly funded health care system for the state.

“If the great state of California has the courage to take on the greed of the insurance companies and the drug companies, the rest of the country will follow,” Sanders continued in Saturday’s statement.

In parking the bill, Rendon called the legislation fatally flawed, noting “serious issues, such as financing, delivery of care, cost controls, or the realities of needed action by the Trump administration and voters to make SB 562 a genuine piece of legislation.”

Rendon acknowledged that universal health care initiatives are advancing on other fronts and could find their way onto the 2018 ballot.