As California voters prepare to weigh in this fall on a package of dueling ballot measures over taxing the state’s billionaires, a Los Angeles nurse is urging residents to support a plan she says could be a lifeline for the state’s strained healthcare system.
Erica Olivo Reynoso, a licensed vocational nurse at Kaiser Permanente’s Los Angeles Medical Center and a member of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, said she has watched the toll of rising healthcare costs play out firsthand among her patients — from seniors who skip basic screenings to expectant mothers rushing to use up benefits before they disappear.
“The fear in the halls of our hospital is palpable,” Olivo Reynoso said, describing what she calls the early stages of a healthcare crisis in California.
She points to last year’s federal budget package under President Donald Trump, which cut roughly $100 billion in healthcare funding to the state. According to Olivo Reynoso, those reductions threaten coverage for more than a million Californians and could push insurance premiums to double for millions more. She said hospitals and clinics across the state are already responding with layoffs, service cuts and closures.
Her prescription for the problem is Proposition 40, known widely as the California Billionaire Tax, which would appear on this fall’s ballot. The measure would impose a one-time 5% tax on the wealth of the roughly 200 Californians worth more than $1 billion. Backers estimate it could generate about $100 billion for healthcare, in part to offset federal cuts, along with funding for public schools and food assistance programs.
Olivo Reynoso argues the tax targets a small slice of the population that collectively holds an estimated $2 trillion in assets — much of which, she says, currently escapes taxation because of loopholes benefiting the ultra-wealthy. Without the additional revenue, she warns, patients may struggle to afford medications, emergency rooms in some areas could close permanently, and remaining facilities could face even greater strain from staffing shortages.
“This isn’t about dollars and cents; it’s about life and death,” she said.
Complicating the picture are two competing measures, Propositions 41 and 42, placed on the same ballot by opponents of the billionaire tax. Olivo Reynoso contends both measures are designed specifically to unravel Proposition 40 rather than to accomplish their stated goals involving tax audits or retirement savings.
She noted that funding for the opposing measures includes significant contributions from Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who recently became the world’s third-richest person. Olivo Reynoso argues that spending underscores her point — that a handful of billionaires are working to protect their fortunes at the expense of the state’s healthcare safety net.
Having gathered signatures for the measure across Los Angeles, Olivo Reynoso said she frequently heard from residents anxious about their ability to afford care. Her message to them, and to voters generally, is that the ballot offers a chance to act: support Proposition 40, and reject Propositions 41 and 42.
Business groups and other opponents of Proposition 40 have offered a different perspective, warning that the tax could discourage investment and innovation in California, potentially undermining the very revenue streams that fund the state’s safety net programs.
Original source: CalMatters
