Hacker News Reader

Comment by SSJPython | Hacker News Reader

Why doesn't California actually do something productive with all its economic power? It now has the fourth largest economy in the world in terms of GDP. Why not experiment a little bit by providing public healthcare to California citizens free at the point of delivery/service? Or constructing high-speed rail to connect SoCal to the Bay Area?

View on HN

Not sure if this was intended as sly humor or not. Between Covered CA and Medi-Cal health care is already relatively cheap or even free to those with the lowest incomes. And contrary to what critics claim, progress is being made with the high speed rail link both in the Central Valley and close to both San Francisco and Los Angeles.

I am not talking about those with the lowest incomes. I am talking about a universal approach similar to most other OECD countries.

Pretty sure it effectively has. Doesn't the state have different regulations have an effect on the rest of the country?

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/09/1121952184/the-impact-of-cali...

> VOGEL: It's such a large market so that anything which California acquires for its own product sold in its state is going to resonate among national and global companies. If you don't want to have to make separate products for California and the rest of the country, you might as well just make them according to California's standards.

1. California is trying to construct rail. The project is the most expensive rail that has ever been built and basically no track has been laid. The company that was initially trying to do the build left to go build rail in Africa because it was less dysfunctional.

2. California has dramatic experiments in cheap/free healthcare and is facing a giant budget shortfall due to it. Right now it is asking the Fed to backstop it's healthcare spending but that seems extremely unlikely.

So even California can't run free healthcare it seems, and it has been unable to build any train track due to extreme bureaucratic paralysis.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com