BY DAVE PRICE
Daily Post Editor
Slow down.
Somebody needs to tell that to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, which appears hell-bent to beat a Friday (Aug. 8) deadline to put a sales tax on the November ballot.
Normally, a proposal for a tax increase is released far in advance so the public can scrutinize it and provide feedback.
The supervisors are apparently considering a five-eighths of a cent tax, which would raise the countywide sales tax rate to 9.75%. I use the word “apparently” because nothing — I mean nothing — official has come out about this tax. We only know that they’re cooking this up based on a leak to the San Jose news website Spotlight.
Surprise, taxpayers!
Where will the money go? It looks like they’re going to call it a health care tax, and that the money will help fill the gaps caused by cuts in Medicaid (Medi-Cal in California), the health care program for the poor.
But those cuts, for the most part, call for tightening eligibility requirements. For instance, recipients who are able-bodied will have to work at least 20 hours a week to qualify. And the cuts will be phased in over a number of years. So why the mad rush to get this on the ballot?
County’s hospitals are bleeding money
The real reason is that the county has a money-losing hospital system, which includes Valley Medical Center on Bascom Avenue in San Jose. In the previous fiscal year, it lost $600 million, a deficit that was made up by the county’s general fund. County officials would like a new tax to take care of that deficit so they can free up $600 million for their pet projects in San Jose.
It’s going to be a “general tax,” which means the money can be used for any purpose, not necessarily health care. If it’s “general tax,” it only requires a majority vote to pass. If the tax were dedicated for a specific purpose, then it would need two-thirds to pass.
Before any tax hits the ballot, county residents, hospital employees and others involved in the system ought to be debating how to fill that $600 million gap. Are there budget cuts that can be made?
Million-dollar-a-year salaries
For instance, the government salary website, Transparent California, shows that in 2023 the top 10 county employees made over $1 million a year in salaries and benefits (see table below). All 10 were doctors for the county health care system. I’m not saying these highly-skilled doctors don’t deserve to be well compensated, but $1 million each?
This is the sort of thing that ought to be considered. But given the rush to get this on the ballot by Friday’s deadline, there will be no time for thoughtful discussions.
And ironically, a regressive sales tax will hit the poor and middle income residents the hardest — the very people who use Medi-Cal. That’s because people on the low end of the income spectrum spend more of their money on merchandise that is subject to the sales tax than the wealthy.
So when politicians go on and on about how they want to help the poor, it’s a bunch of baloney. They’re perfectly willing to hit them with a regressive tax. Wait and see.
Looking at the calendar, it looks like the Board of Supervisors will only be able to hold one hearing — probably sometime on Thursday — to consider all of the factors that are involved in health care finance, and then make a decision about putting this on the ballot. I’d urge them to hold off and engage the community on what’s necessary to run a complex county health care system. That simply can’t be done in one rushed hearing.
Editor Dave Price’s column appears on Mondays.
Santa Clara County’s Top 10 highest-paid employees in 2023
From Transparent California, total pay and benefits
| Mahesh Patel M.D. | Physician VMC | $1,286,784.28 |
| Don Hoang M.D. | Physician VMC | $1,225,796.32 |
| Long N. Trinh M.D. | Physician VMC | $1,202,424.60 |
| Yvonne Karanas M.D. | Physician VMC | $1,196,619.61 |
| Peter Phan M.D. | Physician VMC | $1,111,939.77 |
| Justin F. Lucas M.D. | Physician VMC | $1,100,166.10 |
| Young S. Kang M.D. | Physician VMC | $1,099,139.50 |
| Snehal Andorra M.D. | Physician VMC | $1,087,498.58 |
| Carla Shnler M.D. | Physician VMC | $1,077,076.55 |
| Deepak Gupta M.D. | Physician VMC | $1,065,024.37 |
It’s been more than a month since the Trump budget was passed, which included the Medicaid cuts, so there’s no excuse for the county supervisors to try and sneak this by the public. Why weren’t they holding hearings on this back in July? This is the kind of back-door trickery that creates divisiveness in our society. Uphold Democracy by doing the process the right way.
No other county in the state is proposing such a tax (5/8% general tax) despite the fact that all are subject to any changes in federal contribution to MediCal.This suggests that the budget challenges facing Santa Clara County are unique, and due to the county’s traditional unwillingness to make hard decisions on spending and not due to anything at the federal or state level.
1. Declare Santa Clara County a sanctuary county
2. Thousands of people who can’t support themselves move here and sign up for welfare
3. The county runs out of money to provide health care to these people
4. The county raises my taxes in a special election where passage requires a simple majority, not 2/3rds
5. People like me get tired of paying taxes for freeloaders so we do the only thing we can — we pack up and move
I have voted for many county taxes over time, including for health care. This is definitely one too many. By my view, the hospitals have been taken over by monolithic private equity conglomarations, with labyrinth rules around what insurers they take and don’t take, what is in and out of provider networks. To replace the damage of the BBB, we have to invest and expand Covered California, which is an incredibly gem in this nation, against the ravages of the lost funding to Medicaid. With two neighbors and several elderly relatives greatly benifitting from MediCal coverage allowing them to age in home, THIS is where I want counties and the state to fill the gap. We don’t need to publicly subsidize overly fancy hospitals in the richest county in the United States constantly expanding with unneeded specialist tests and equipment, billing us endlessly, when federal funding will no longer be available for people who are no longer working age, and needing end of life care. This is a NO for me.