Santa Clara County supes voted last Thursday to ask voters to approve a sales tax hike. If a majority approves, half the county—specifically San Jose, Milpitas and Campbell—will pay double digit sales taxes, while the rest ring up in the high 9s. Vicente Vera was there to report.
The money is needed, county officials say, to protect county residents from catastrophic federal Medicare and Medicaid cuts that will nick the $13.7 billion county budget by more than $1 billion. The tax increase will recover about a third of that.
After buying four hospitals in the past six years, the county has basically become a health care system with smaller side hustles, like courts and sheriffs. Half the county budget goes to health services, more than all its other business units, combined.
The expansion decision, which doubled the public agency’s share of local hospital beds from around 20% to 40%, obviously didn’t anticipate Trump.
County supervisors called the 2pm special meeting the day before and didn’t advise most media until after the 5pm close of business.
Getting public buy-in will be important. Sales taxes disproportionately impact lower income residents, who may not want to pay a 10% tax on daily essentials to fund a system that in 2023 paid 15 doctors more than $1 million a year, and another 14 north of $900k.
Vote NO on Measure A — It costs too much, does too little, and solves nothing.
It’s time for the county to tighten its belt, not reach into your pocket.
Measure A is a regressive sales tax. This new tax hits low- and middle-income families the hardest during a time of crushing inflation. It’s an open-ended slush fund with no binding oversight, making ours one of the most heavily taxed counties in California.
Vote NO on Measure A because it’s:
A bailout for failure — The county’s recklessly expanded hospital system lost $600 million last year, is projected to lose $1 billion next year, and $1.4–$3 billion by 2030. Measure A’s $330 million per year won’t even scratch the surface, guaranteeing future tax hikes.
Proof the County can’t fix its problems — A Santa Clara County Grand Jury found the Valley Transportation Authority (bus and light rail) has lost billions over the years, covering only 7–10% of costs through fares. Yet county leaders refuse to fix these failing programs before demanding more money from taxpayers.
A legal loophole — The county has known about this deficit for years, yet rushed Measure A onto the ballot with just 24 hours’ notice as an “emergency” general tax. Not a dime will be dedicated to healthcare, and the funds can be spent on anything. It can pass with just 50% plus one vote (instead of the two-thirds required for a dedicated tax) and has no binding oversight to ensure promises are kept.
Measure A isn’t a plan — it’s a last-minute band-aid that hides decades of fiscal mismanagement and guarantees further taxes. Demand real reform, fiscal discipline, and leadership that lives within its means.
Vote NO on
Measure A.
Everyone who favors this tax should wear a face mask from now until the election in support of the Santa Clara County health department, which destroyed many local businesses that used to pay sales tax with abrupt and autocratic Covid lockdown orders.
Arguments for and against were posted after 5 pm Friday. Sara Cody is one of the signers in favor. She was never elected, but you can vote against her now.
To clarify, the measure would not be “a 10% tax on daily essentials” as the author claimed. It would be a 0.625% tax on essentials, excluding groceries.
We are facing a choice of whether we just complain about the actions coming out of DC or if we voters decide to avoid reducing medical care in our county for those in need by steping up and paying a little more than half a cent on the dollar in sales tax to preserve what we value.
Another regressive sales tax is a bad idea. All this nickel and diming contributes into making the
Bay Area a horribly expensive place to live; especially for people of modest means, who must pay
the greatest percentage of their income in these regressive taxes and fees.
Each increase by itself does not amount to much, but the cumulative effect is to add to the unaffordability of the region.
Over the last several elections, voters have passed regressive multiple tax and fee increases. No more.
See https://rishikumar.com/measurea/
“Those in need”- you mean the 70% or so who show up with zero insurance in our County? Those who might have 100% medical coverage in their countries of citizenship such via IMSSA in Mexico? Those who happily do every expensive test and procedure possible because “someone else” is paying for it? Those who never bother to make payment plans for what they can afford to pay?
Or those who pay by cash who can get 30-70% discounts if they pay a balance with no need to fund overheads for the obscenely expensive insurance companies and government administrative processes?
Let’s all stop and fix the underlying real mess. The County supervisors to get reelected in recent years rashly decided to buy 4 financially failing and horribly obsoletely hospitals and just last year set up that ghost-town Palo Alto County clinic. All are financially falling due to One Size Fits All Top Down US federal government mandates pushed hard down our throats in the plandemic which crashed our economy and has left a tidal wave of vaccine injured victims as countless big and small businesses went bankrupt and many smart business leaders have left the State due to the Big D supermajority Sacramento legislators’ ever worsening inane and costly micromanagement. Long before Trump 47, our County became a 100% bankrupt health care business with all its normal “government functions” a “side hustle” as this item’s author wrote so brilliantly.
Our County “healthcare business” needs a bankruptcy with all the top execs and legislators who let this happen be fired for cause, and a liquidation of those hospitals and clinics with a publicly transparent reorganization like any in a bankruptcy court of law. Not one cent more of new taxpayers’ cash to limp along with a stinky puss-y mess which is already gangrenous. NO on A.
County to Court (start at 4:30 to see their case in chief): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNAmVGpr6Pc
Counterpoints in favor of the sales tax:
– County bought regional medical center and is re-opening it’s trauma services. Before this, Valley Medical Center was overwhelmed. Regardless of your insurance, even those of us with fancy private insurance, if you get in a car accident or you get badly burned in San Jose you are coming to the county hospital. This sales tax helps pay for your safety.
– A huge chunk of MediCal is kids and pregnant women. This is poorly compensated in MediCal; so much so that regional medical center closed it’s labor and delivery services years before it closed its trauma services. County maintains services for children and pregnant women, even if it isn’t profitable because the supervisors have honor and are representing everyone in Santa Clara.
Nobody likes more taxes. It does hurt businesses. But does your business pay for the healthcare of all of your employees, or does your business rely on MediCal to cover your workers? What would you say when a friend or family member needs to be driven an extra hour in traffic after a rush hour car accident because the county had to close it’s trauma services?
A sales tax increase seems like a small price to pay. When federal Medicaid payments go back to normal, then we can all stand together in lowering the sales tax again.
Absolutely agree that the county has mismanaged their healthcare system buying 3 financially insolvent hospitals filled with obsolete equipment, adding large numbers of employees to the benefits and pension system, doing a massive cosmetic overhaul of the main hospital, and now spending millions building a new psychiatric hospital with fewer adult beds than their current hospital as well as a child psychiatric inpatient unit. No other county runs their own child psychiatric facility because the costs of running such a facility are prohibitive. Many of the 20 + psychiatrists in acute psychiatric services make over $500K annually. One of the three insolvent hospitals was purchased after Trump was elected although cuts to medicare and Medicaid were widely anticipated. Now the county is asking the lowest earning county residents to bail them out?
Measure A will solve nothing. The county hospital was already functional poorly when the Santa Clara County bought O’Connor, St. Louise, and Regional, all failing hospitals needing major overhauls. The system is overstretched, the hospital leadership is hapless, and this extra tax will do nothing to improve accountability. Nothing about the measure even requires the additional funds to go to the hospitals. Many of the patients go to the emergency room rather than to their primary care for even the most minor ailments, racking up costs. It’s not a hateful right-wing comment, it’s the truth.