Arnold-Care Is A Bad Deal

Rose Ann DeMoro
January 16, 2007



Rose Ann DeMoro is executive director of the California Nurses Association .

Sparked by the embarrassment of nearly 47 million uninsured Americans and, more notably, the growing agony of even large business that are staggering under intolerable premium costs, our long national health care scandal is finally beginning to prod our political leaders into action.

Unfortunately, many of the proposals being promoted with such fanfare may well exacerbate the crisis and simply prolong the disgrace.

The latest example comes from California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has pledged to achieve “universal” coverage for all the state’s residents with a smorgasbord of every scheme floating around the national policy debate—with the exception of the only one that would actually work: some form of a national health care program or single-payer system, the course taken by every other industrialized country.