☆ SVTA: It’s a “joke” to promise oversight for a general sales tax that can be spent on anything
Even if there were oversight for Measure A, it should be set up before election day, not after, says SVTA’s Elizabeth Brierly. But such a committee would likely be packed with insiders, she says, and provide no real accountability. In Part 2 of this Opportunity Now exclusive rebuttal to Silicon Vallely Leadership Group's (SVLG) endorsement, Brierly calls out the false choice about trauma care: there’s no reason a private hospital wouldn’t do just as good a job.
Silicon Valley Leadership Group statement: Measure A…would…provide…funding to protect healthcare access for one in four county residents.
Elizabeth Brierly responds: You know that 94 percent of the hospitals in California are private, right? And guess what: private hospitals also serve people that have Medi-Cal. The county is overstretched and running an operation that’s losing money. That’s their own fault. The vast majority of healthcare in this country is still private, and the private market always reaches its customers.
SVLG statement: The measure will prevent severe disruptions to essential services at Santa Clara Valley Healthcare (SCVH), which serves one in four county residents, nearly half of all emergency department visits, and two-thirds of trauma care in the region.
EB responds: Hospitals in California are regulated by the state and must provide a certain number of services. The county is the provider of trauma centers because they are serving the population that is part of the social welfare system, like the homeless and people who are drug-addicted. That’s the population driving most of those trauma visits. But that doesn’t mean private hospitals couldn’t handle those needs. The state already requires them to provide emergency and trauma care. The county’s decision to buy up hospitals just distorts the picture and makes it look like everyone depends on the county, when in reality, they don’t.
SVLG: As part of its endorsement, SVLG is calling for robust Measure A oversight with industry involvement. Including healthcare executives and business leaders in oversight committee efforts will help to ensure revenues are directed most effectively toward preserving essential healthcare services.
EB: It’s a joke to float the idea of specific, directed oversight on the general fund, which by definition is available to be spent on literally anything or everything the county does. But setting that aside for the sake of argument, the county has established no oversight structure. Any oversight mechanism for a potential tax increase should be done prior to, not after the fact. And if you look at the county’s track record, their oversight committees have been packed with political insiders, friends of the county supervisors or staff, not ordinary residents, small business owners, CPAs, and the like.
Even when there’s public reporting of the funding, it’s still a general tax, so all these funds are fungible. New money comes in, which allows you to redirect existing money to other projects, and you can get away with claiming this new money was spent on what was marketed. But the fact is: it subsidized the county’s other, non-core programs, services, and wasteful spending.
SVLG: SVLG is calling for Transparent Public Reporting.
EB: Does it say they’re going to retract the funds when the reporting reveals they didn’t spend it correctly? No, because there’s no accountability and we will have already handed them over the money. And they should have formed an oversight group already. They should have said, ‘This is what we’re going to do; this is how we’re going to report.’ That is how you build trust with the community.
SVLG: Measure A is about…maintaining our region’s competitiveness, on a global scale, for innovation and the AI economy.
EB: That’s just throwing out a lot of fluffy words that mean nothing to ordinary small businesses, seniors, and the working families who will have to shoulder the burden of this tax hike.
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