Last month the Senate health committee dumped the Schwarzenegger/Núñez Model ABX1 1, California's trend-setting gadget for health-care repair. Senator Sheila Kuehl, who chairs that committee, tossed it for more personal reasons, other than the obvious $14-billion price tag and state budget deficit of similar size.
Suppose that American politicians decided that spending on roads and highways was “unsustainable.” How could they cut those costs? One tactic would be to pass laws banning automobile advertising.
Californians entered 2007 hopeful that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders would collaborate to find real solutions to overcome the “root causes” of rapidly increasing health costs, the growing number of uninsured, and the rise in small businesses increasingly unable to provide health benefits. Instead, they got a proposed tax increase.
