Schwarzenegger dismisses single-payer healthcare


Dismissing the idea of a single payer health care system in his state, via the specter of an imagined inefficient government bureaucracy, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke of a health care system where all citizens were “insured.” His vision seemed to keep firmly in place a private layer of industry between citizens and health care services that one might think could be obsoleted or diminished by an state mandated system.

As he left for his car, The Washington Stakeout’s Sam Husseini asked the governor if he believed there was “such a thing as a business bureaucracy,” to which Schwarzenegger responded “oh yeah” — but there was no opportunity to further explore the governor’s thoughts, or see what he knew about the examples and lessons learned in Canada.

Transcript

Arnold Schwarzenegger: Any questions you have?

Sam Husseini: How about single-payer? Have you considered single-payer health care in California to really get the insurance companies out of the business to get a Canadian-style model?

AS: We have considered everything. When you get into the subject of fixing a broken health care system you think about everything. And its something that people have proposed, but we have put a good proposal together we believe very strongly that we want to do it through he private sector and not have government run bureaucracy in creating another big bureaucracy. I think the important thing in health care is that everyone is insured, number one. That everyone participates and is responsible. And that the insurance companies cover everyone and don’t pick and choose. …

SH: Is their such a thing as a business bureaucracy, governor?

AS: Oh yea.

SH: Ok. So have you met with Canadian officials?

[originally published on Washington Stakeout on Feb. 25, 2007; posted on posthaven Nov. 13, 2015]