Originally published late yesterday on public affairs website Flashreport, here are thoughts from GOP Assemblymember Anthony Adams (AD 59) on Democratic-authored health care legislation. According to Assemblymember Adams, the proposal would result in a new billion dollar bureaucracy and could plunge state government further into debt.

Adams pointed to the irony of a Democratic legislative committee passing the measure on the day the non-partisan Legislative Analyst's Office forecasts a $10 billion state budget shortfall.

Read Assemblyman Adams thoughts below:

Our State Budget is languishing in the I.C.U. and who do the Democrats call in to save the day?  Dr. Tax and Dr. Spend, of course. 

Demonstrating what can only be described as a complete lack of mental health, today, Democrats passed a $14 billion massive government-run health care plan out of the Assembly Health Committee.  Only hours before they passed their plan, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst, Liz Hill, released her annual revenue projection and forecast for our state’s finances.  The LAO projects an $8 billion budget deficit in 2008-2009.  That means California Government will attempt to spend $8 billion more than we have!

You’d think that being $8 billion in the hole would wake up my colleagues on the Left:  Now is not the time for more spending!  But the Democrats on the Assembly Health Committee ignored the LAO’s warning and voted to increase government spending for health care by billions of dollars anyway!  Their plan, Assembly Bill 1x (Nunez), does nothing to contain the rising costs of health care, but it does manage to impose a trio of tax increases - including a jobs tax on nearly every California employer.  Not only would the Democrat plan significantly increase the deficit and threaten jobs and the economy, it also violates federal law.

While real Californians struggle to find and obtain affordable health care, Democrats continue to rub salt in the wounds of the working poor by attempting to pacify them with slick sound-bites and meaningless, symbolic, phony legislative fixes.  Californians deserve better!

Meanwhile, Democrats once again voted down our fiscally-responsible Assembly Republican Health Care Reform Plan, a plan which was presented by my colleague Assemblyman Bill Emmerson.  Our plan would have let people make their own decisions about their health care, not government bureaucrats.  Our Republican plan would have given every Californian access to more affordable health care options, without growing the deficit or raising taxes. 

My colleagues in the Assembly Republican Caucus and I will continue to promote common-sense health care reforms, even as the Democrats try to run the state into the ground, one bloated bureaucracy at a time.