A proposal to tax California’s billionaires has fractured Democratic politics, repelled some of the state’s richest residents and exploded into a costly battle that’s overshadowing even the gubernatorial election.
Known as Proposition 40, the ballot measure is also dividing the very industry it’s supposed to help. The healthcare-workers union behind the initiative, which would authorize a wealth tax on billionaires, says the levy would raise sorely needed funds to shore up health coverage.
Kirsty Chartier, an RN clinical supervisor in labor & delivery shares an anecdote with Dr. Elaine Batchlor about a recent event in the maternity care unit at Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in Los Angeles.
Photographer: Anna Sophia Moltke/Bloomberg
By contrast, leading California hospital and doctor groups are opposing the measure ahead of the November vote. They say the one-time 5% levy on the …