California’s Prop. 29 is a ballot initiative pushed by big labor to punish the dialysis industry for resisting unionization.
There’s a remarkable bit in the WSJ’s editorial this morning against Prop. 29, a ballot initiative pushed by big labor — mainly, the Service Employees International Union and United Healthcare Workers West — to punish the dialysis industry for resisting unionization.
As the Journal’s editors explain, it is estimated that the requirement to have a physician, nurse practitioner, or physician-assistant on-site during any hours when patients are being treated would drive up the cost for each clinic by somewhere between $376K and $731K per annum. Obviously, that would put many of them out of business.
The unions’ solution? Don’t let them go out of business!
Prop. 29 thus contains a provision that would bar “clinics from closing or substantially reducing services without state approval.” That is, the state of California would be claiming the authority to force a private business that decides to shut down to remain in operation unless the state allows it to close.
That is so obviously absurd there can be only one conclusion — the conclusion to which progressive governance invariably leads: The process is the penalty.
Sure, the clinics may win in the end, but it will cost them a fortune to litigate. Of course, that is the story of the ballot initiative in the first place. As the Journal notes, it will cost the dialysis industry about $86 million to fight the effort to get Prop. 29 on the ballot because the industry cannot risk its passage. The unions are using legal and political processes not to achieve the ostensible objectives of those processes but to extort their opponents by forcing them to endure the costs
When the dust of 2022 settles, the story of 2024 is likely to be: Is America’s future California or Florida? This is yet another indication that if the answer is California, then we won’t be America anymore.