California Democrats Kill CalCare Again
Summer Miller
The California Nurses Association is “outraged” after running the same failed strategy for the third time and getting exactly the same result. Its outrage is aimed at California’s Democratic-controlled Assembly, which has once again killed CalCare, in a development CNA leadership is determined to find surprising.
This time it was AB 1900. Before that, AB 2200. Before that, AB 1400. Three CNA-backed CalCare campaigns, three defeats. AB 1400 was pulled in 2022 after Ash Kalra said he didn’t have the votes. AB 2200 died in 2024 amid budget-deficit arguments, with Appropriations Chair Buffy Wicks saying California had to “balance the budget” and make “tough choices.” AB 1900 was blocked in 2026 under the familiar excuse of cost concerns and shelved without a hearing.
This is the predictable outcome of trying to win universal healthcare from within a party loyal to the corporations profiting from the healthcare system. Since 2003, at least nine single-payer healthcare bills have been introduced in the California Legislature. Seven were killed inside the Legislature before reaching the governor’s desk.
California has a Democratic governor, a Democratic supermajority, a $4 trillion economy, and more than 180 billionaires. California can afford universal healthcare. But Democrats are tied to insurance companies, pharmaceutical corporations, and wealthy interests that profit from the current system. Nothing will change unless an organized, independent working-class movement becomes strong enough to make continued Democratic opposition politically costly.
CNA leadership already knows how this strategy ends. Democratic politicians posture as supporters of universal healthcare, Assembly leadership quietly kills the bill, and workers are told to come back and repeat the same process a few years later. Each defeat is treated as a temporary setback instead of proof that the strategy has failed.
Working people don’t have time for this.
A majority of California voters support a Medicare for All-style system, and a 2026 poll found majority support for extending Medi-Cal to all residents regardless of immigration status. But CNA leadership continues channeling that support back into the Democratic Party.
CNA members have been among the most serious and consistent fighters for single-payer healthcare in California. CNA says it will “never stop fighting for CalCare.” But if “fighting” means introducing the same bill every two years into the same Democratic-controlled legislature while refusing to build a serious threat against the Democrats who kill it, then CNA leadership is not preparing nurses to win CalCare. It is preparing them to spend the rest of their lives “fighting” for it while millions lose coverage and die.
And the right wing is on the attack. A statewide measure on the November 2026 ballot would cap compensation for nurses, physicians, and healthcare workers in hospitals and medical groups. Trump and congressional Republicans are escalating attacks on Medicaid and threatening to withhold $1.3 billion in federal Medicaid payments from California.
Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom has “fought back” in true Democratic Party fashion: by proposing cuts to Medi-Cal coverage and In-Home Supportive Services.
CNA members should demand a clean break from the Democratic Party and a statewide strategy to win CalCare. That means building an independent movement capable of threatening the political establishment, launching a statewide ballot initiative for CalCare funded by taxing the rich. If the state unions won’t do it, workers should organize ballot initiatives for free healthcare in major cities like LA.
Workers need a fighting labor movement and a party of our own. And we need to be ready to take strike action if necessary to stop the horrors of for-profit healthcare and take the whole system into worker control.