{"id":315324,"date":"2026-05-14T12:19:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T12:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/315324\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T12:19:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T12:19:07","slug":"letters-to-the-editor-the-journey-to-single-payer-healthcare-in-california-requires-patience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/315324\/","title":{"rendered":"Letters to the Editor: The journey to single-payer healthcare in California requires patience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>To the editor: Christine Mai-Duc\u2019s article on the governor\u2019s race and single-payer healthcare was an excellent update (<a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/science\/story\/2026-05-08\/in-california-governor-race-single-payer-is-litmus-test\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cIn California governor race, single-payer healthcare is a litmus test. There\u2019s still no way to pay for it,\u201d<\/a> May 8).<\/p>\n<p>I agree with Jennifer Easton\u2019s observation that any upcoming governor wouldn\u2019t be able to implement such a change during a four-year term, but I would give a 10-year timeline to single-payer in California, not 20-25 years as she suggests.<\/p>\n<p>I am a physician who has been advocating for Medicare for All for more than 50 years. Public support continues to build slowly but steadily. But we have yet to make the case effectively to both business and organized labor for a universal unified system of public financing. Winning over a critical mass of these two strategic constituencies is a necessary step to Medicare for All.<\/p>\n<p>Xavier Becerra is correct when he says we would need a federal waiver for single-payer in one state \u2014 which isn\u2019t coming until at least Jan. 20, 2029. Becerra\u2019s reasonable goal to mitigate current devastating federal and state Medi-Cal cuts (threatening more than <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.chcf.org\/resource\/how-many-congressional-district-get-medi-cal-premium-subsidy-through-covered-california\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">one-third of Californians<\/a>) and achieving other winnable incremental steps toward single-payer in California makes the most sense right now. It is not the big prize, but this is the reality of the political moment in which we now find ourselves. Slow but steady wins the race.<\/p>\n<p>Steve Tarzynski, Santa Monica<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To the editor: Christine Mai-Duc\u2019s article on the governor\u2019s race and single-payer healthcare was an excellent update (\u201cIn&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[72412,7,9,8,2072,943,20262,1838,63,15768,132034,132035,55286,2211,14040,3707,72],"class_list":["post-315324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-all","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-editor","tag-governor","tag-journey","tag-letter","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-medicare","tag-necessary-step","tag-other-winnable-incremental-step","tag-patience","tag-race","tag-single-payer-healthcare","tag-xavier-becerra","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}