California’s recent budget deficits will look bush league relative to the fiscal hurricane that federal health reform will unleash on California and many other states. I made that prediction in this space on December 2, but as we approach 2010 Californians should know that things are actually worse than I anticipated.
Politicians who want to increase the federal government’s control of Americans’ access to medical services under the banner of “reform” describe the status quo as some kind of Wild West, where nobody has protection against greedy insurers, incompetent doctors, or dangerous hospitals. The facts show otherwise.
Last June California politicians claimed to have “fixed” the budget but according to a November 18 report from the non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) California now faces a budget deficit of $20.7 billion from the present until 2010-2011.
