Mr. Newsom said he would seek a waiver from the federal government to begin overhauling the state’s health system when he took office in 2019, but he has yet to procure one. Previous attempts to implement a single-payer system have stalled in the state’s legislature.
A bill introduced by California Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat from San Francisco, would give the state legislature greater oversight of the process of securing a federal waiver. The bill would also require Mr. Newsom’s administration to produce a report on the administration’s progress toward securing a waiver and its plans for the health system by June 2024.
The bill would also give the legislature authority to appoint a group to advise the administration’s work.
Mr. Wiener’s bill does not explicitly call for a single-payer system, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Instead, it calls for “unified financing,” which could still include private insurers, according to a report from a state commission studying the possibility of a single-payer system.
The report, published in April 2022, did call for distinctions between private and public payers to be removed.
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