WI: Earl Warren's 1945 plan for single-payer healthcare in California was implemented?

whall15

Warren's proposal (denoted AB 800 in the state Assembly and SB 500 in the Senate) was to be financed by a 3 percent payroll tax. Half the tax (1 .5 percent) was to paid by employers and the other half was to be paid by employees. Employees and their dependents would be covered. A new state authority would be created to administer the program. It would be run by a ten-member board with the director of public health as an ex-officio participant. On the board would be three employer representatives (with one farmer), two from organized labor (presumably AFL and CIO representatives), one from government employees, three doctors, and a dentist. Insurance coverage would be extended to wage earners with annual pay between $300 and $4,000. Routine doctor visits would be included as would a variety of related services such as hospitalization and X-rays. Doctors could join or not join the plan; there would be no compulsory membership on the supply side. Those physicians that did join would- as noted above- be paid on a fee- for-service basis.
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https://www.jstor.org/stable/41172162?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Warren's plan was defeated following pushback from industry and some reticence from organised labour but what if it succeeded?

Would California have started a trend similar to Canada of state-based single-payer approaches giving rise to a nation-wide program? Would the Republicans become the party of single-payer healthcare?
 

Catspoke

The tricky part about this is that health care expenses have risen way more than pay since 1945, that 3 percent, might be something like 30% now.

The other tricky part about single payer is that I believe the individual getting service gets no bill, so no motivation by the individual to reduce costs, so costs could rise higher than OTL increases.

Would that cover people such low wage people as migrant farmers??? It certainly would get social justice points if it did. But high wage earners are paying the most for this, subsidizing low wage earners.
 
galileo-034

galileo-034

Well, on the cost thing, currently the US spent about 17% of their GDP on healthcare to Canada's 10.5% and France's 11.5% for a per capita cost (purchasing power adjusted) about twice (US $10,224 to Canada $4,826 and France $4,902), so it can be actually less costly (I don't know for Canada, but France's system also covers foreigners and migrants).
PS: That's just for the cost argument without minding anything else of that often contentious debate.
 
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