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IN SUMMARY
In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed and the Legislature approved a tax penalty on Californians without health insurance. That money was supposed to be used to lower costs for those insured through Covered California, but that has only happened once.
Article
The adage “get it in writing” applies to politics as much as anything else, and it would seem the California Legislature could learn a lesson or two.
Legislators and advocates have been pushing Gov. Gavin Newsom since last year to make good on a longtime promise to funnel money from a controversial tax penalty into the Covered California marketplace, making health insurance cheaper for nearly 1 million enrollees. The problem — or at least the argument Newsom has always made — is that state statute doesn’t require the penalty money to be used on health care. It goes directly into the general fund — where it has stayed for most of the past four years.
But legislators say that’s not what they intended when they voted on the measure in 2019. Senate leadership signaled its intent last week to ensure in writing that the money will “further lower the costs of health coverage for lower- and middle-income Californians” moving forward. The Senate budget proposal rejects Newsom’s plan to temporarily move $333.4 million in penalty money from an affordability reserve to the general fund, calling it a “rip-off” of Covered California funds.
