National Union of Healthcare Workers

Did you know that? It's Proposition 40, a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of anyone in the state worth more than a billion dollars.

Written largely by the Healthcare Workers Union out there, SEIU, UHW, it would be the first tax of its kind in the country.

And it has split the state in ways you might not expect, like the Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, is against it.

But let's see what it is and what the arguments are and what's going on.

You have pledged to co-sponsor single payer Medicare for all within your first 100 days in office.

and have earned the endorsement of the National Union of Healthcare Workers.

How do you overcome the intense corporate lobbying of private insurance giants and big pharma to guarantee universal healthcare as an absolute human right?

Well, the first part is that I'm not bought by these big corporations.

[laughs] You know? Therapists of the future might join...

Well, I hope they join Cyan, but I, I, I, and National Union of Healthcare Workers, which rocks as a trades union.

[laughs]

But they also might join the App Drive, App and Courier Drivers Union of the UK, you know? They might have-

Don't even care which one it is.

We do have a little trade union here in the UK.

But also Linda and I work very closely with the National Union of Healthcare Workers who are really-

Mm-hmm

We thought it was a great idea.

Um, NUHW, one of our unions, uh, worked with, um, Senator Padilla to put it forward, Se- State Senator Padilla.

Um, and you know, it got very little because we have so many examples of like the kids who unfortunately have been convinced to kill themselves-

Yeah

almost entirely to health care, specifically to Medi-Cal, which is the name of the state's Medicaid program, which offers subsidized health insurance to lower-income Californians.

And this is being proposed by the proponents, SEIU, UHW, which is a health care union, a union which represents health care workers, as a way to backfill the losses to the Medi-Cal program as a result of recent federal changes, the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, that that that is slated to reduce Medicaid spending pretty significantly over the next couple of decades.

Yeah.

I mean, what's also interesting about this prop is that you have leading Democrats who are opposed to the wealth tax.

So, you know, in that process here, the state of California has decided to put a proposition forward, which has been supported by Senator Bernie Sanders, SEIU, which is Service Employees International Union, and a lot of other unions that want to have...

UHW.

UHW as well, United

Healthcare.

SEIU, UHW.

Oh, thank you.

I think

So those are the two.

It's not gonna be an easy fight for the state to enforce this against, to your point, some of the most rich and powerful folks in the world.

Um, I think this is why, you know, if you talk to Dave Regan, who's the head of SEIU UHW, which is this healthcare union that wrote it, he really crafted this, uh, in partnership with some kind of more liberal economist at UC Berkeley.

And they say, like, "We made this in part to avoid some of those pitfalls." So first of all, it's a one-time tax, so it's not an ongoing thing, and I think that's part of the political messaging, but also part of the idea that, like, you couldn't move out of state just to avoid this now.

So if you lived here as of January 1st, ostensibly this tax would affect you.

It would go in a special account.

Um, and so I think that there's a lot of labor unions who see this as not beneficial to their members, potentially damaging to the state's larger budget.

And then in general, Dave Reagan and SEIU UHW have just used ballot measures, like they've written ballot measures again and again to try to leverage other agreements.

So for example, this year we're also voting on a ballot measure that says 90% of all spending at health clinics has to go to essentially patient care, not overhead.

And so where does Prop 40 come into all this?

SEIU-UHW, it's, it's a healthcare union that represents a lot of rank and file healthcare workers here in California.

They saw these cuts coming and decided they wanted to try to backfill them.

And so they came up with this idea to impose a one-time tax on the billionaires in California.

So I will get to why I think Medicare for all is so critically important.

I do want to say it like I've actually passed a law to move California towards single-payer after years and years of failures We got something passed and signed into law and then Donald Trump of course came in and screwed it all up that law that the supervisor is referring to it was supported by a massive progressive labor coalition, including the National Union of Healthcare Workers, Unite Here, Teamsters, SEIU, Courage California, which is a statewide progressive umbrella organization.

They were all behind this bill, and my lead witness was Mike Casey, the head of the San Francisco Labor Council.

So that was an important step forward for single payer, and I'm proud to have authored it.