PROP 4
PROPOSITION 4 — CHILDREN’S HOSPITALS
A YES vote sends $1.5B to fund grants for children’s hospitals, everything from new construction to renovations. Specific hospitals serving large numbers of children would directly benefit: 72% would go to seven nonprofit hospitals (see below), and 18% would go to five UC hospitals.
A list of the hospitals: Loma Linda, Lucile Packard (Palo Alto), Rady (San Diego), Children’s Hospital in Oakland, Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, Children’s Hospital of Orange County, Valley (Madera), and Miller (Long Beach); in the UC system it’s the hospitals at UCLA, UC Irvine, UC Davis, UC San Diego, and UC San Francisco.
This proposition was placed on the ballot by petition signatures.
If authorized, the money will come from bonds.
A bond is a loan from investors to the State of California that the taxpayers pay back with interest. A bond such as this is a good way for investors to park some cash with little to no risk. Since 1993 bonds exceeding $300M must be approved by the voters. Since 1993, 31/39 have been approved.
If this proposition passes, California is borrowing $1.5B and will end up paying back, over 35 years, a total of $2.9B (around $84M per year).
Unlike some of the others, this seems fairly straightforward. The Children’s Hospital Association says the money is needed, in part simply because hospitals struggle to keep up with new technology. Gary Wesley, some dude in Mountain View, California, says no because debt. And property taxes (wtf is he talking about??? is he mentally ill???)
The YES camp includes the California Teachers Association. As of the end of July YES raised an eye-popping $10M, most of it from the hospitals who would benefit.
Gary Wesley has raised $0 in opposition.
My take, if you care:
As a public school teacher I’m not influenced in this particular case by the endorsement of the CTA.
One serious reservation I have about spending tax money on health care is the fact that big pharma and other health care corporations are bleeding us dry and enriching themselves, and all we do is say, “Thank you!” and throw more money at them. Europe and Canada have LAWS and do not get similarly bled. It pisses me off.
But opposing this proposition is not how we fix that.
#YesOn4 #Prop4
