Insane Clown Posse

California's famously gerrymandered legislative districts have led not just to stifling incumbency and enervated partisanship; they have also diluted the gene pool of our state representatives. Only in-breeding could explain the revival of a proposal for a single-payer health care reform plan in Sacramento: California Democrats Revive Single-Payer Health Care

A key legislative committee in California revived a bill Thursday to create a government-run health care system in the nation's most populous state, two days after Massachusetts elected a senator who opposes the president's national health care plan.

The Senate Appropriations Committee released the bill for a vote by the full Senate next week. The legislation had been held over from last year because of the state's ongoing budget crisis.

Creating a single-payer system would cost California an estimated $210 billion in its first year. That's roughly double the size of the total state budget, but about what the state and federal government and residents cumulatively spend now on California health care, said Sen. Mark Leno.

Leno, D-San Francisco, introduced the bill after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger twice vetoed similar legislation.

Full implementation of this "brilliant" idea would literally raise CA's annual budget from $100 billion to $300 billion. Leno proposes to pay for this with a "payroll tax." How much money does he think we're making out here? And has anyone suggested to him that there may be fewer payrolls in the state if such a monstrosity is passed? Doubtful. Very doubtful.

When Republicans persist with expensive unpopular initiatives, they are "arrogant" and "out of touch." When Democrats persist, they are "idealistic" and "pursuing social justice." We can only hope that California voters remain engaged enough to beat this back. A lot of expensive mischief happens in Sacramento because state politics does not seem as compelling as national politics. But, as Leno has shown, the overweening statist dreams of progressive health care reform are universal and almost irrepressible.