We can prevent a patient care crisis by passing one-time tax on billionaires | Opinion
California hospitals are understaffed and essential health care workers like me are pushed to the limits every shift. Now, with $100 billion set to be stripped from California’s health care system, we’re headed off a cliff.
I’m a licensed vocational nurse at Kaiser Permanente in Modesto. During the COVID pandemic, I worked in the emergency room, sometimes caring for 40 patients at a time. It wasn’t uncommon for me to have to make life or death decisions about who to treat — the patient who might be having a heart attack, or the patient who might be suffering from a stroke.
It’s an impossible choice that no health care worker should be forced to make, but I worry we soon will.
Massive federal budget cuts will strip $100 billion from California’s health care system over the next five years. The cuts, part of President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” covers tax cuts for the ultrawealthy while causing unimaginable pain to California families and patients.
From rural areas to large cities, hospitals, emergency rooms and clinics are already beginning to close, and many more are expected to follow as the cuts take hold. Soon, patients will need to drive twice as far and wait twice as long to receive medical care, as their local hospitals and ERs close their doors forever.
The facilities that are able to remain open will almost certainly need to reduce services and staff. For those of us already dealing with health care worker shortages, any further reduction will almost certainly put patient care in crisis.
All that is on top of the literal price Californians are set to pay. Because no matter which facilities close and which face cutbacks, one thing is certain: when the federal cuts kick in, the difference will be made up by patients paying higher premiums.
California’s hospitals and ERs are on the brink of a crisis unlike anything we’ve seen since COVID. That’s why health care workers like me are supporting a commonsense, one-time tax on billionaires.
The California Billionaire Tax Act would create a one-time emergency 5% tax on the wealth of roughly 200 billionaires in our state. The revenues generated by the tax will be specifically allocated to fill the budget gaps created by the deep federal cuts. The measure will appear on the ballot this November.
Billionaires are uniquely positioned to help stop a total collapse of the California health care system and patient care crisis in our hospitals and emergency rooms. These are people who have gained tremendous wealth thanks to the unique opportunities our state has afforded them. Now, in a time of extraordinary hardship, our state is calling on them to return the favor.
No one wants a future that resembles the dark days of the pandemic. By passing the California Billionaire Tax Act, we can prevent that nightmare and keep our state’s health care system working for us all.
Adriana Rugeles is a licensed vocational nurse at Kaiser Permanente in Modesto.