A One-Pager on What’s Wrong with U.S. Health Care
By California Nurses Association
April 20, 2026
California Nurses Association (CNA) members condemn the California State Assembly’s failure to advance A.B. 1900, the California Guaranteed Health Care for All Act, also known as CalCare, at a time when health care is needed more urgently than ever before. The failure to advance A.B. 1900 shows a lack of leadership and a capitulation to corporate health care interests. CalCare is a comprehensive, high-quality single-payer program that would be many Californians’ only lifeline for care. Nurses remain relentless in their pursuit to guarantee health care as a human right in the state.
“We condemn this disgraceful decision by the California State Assembly to stop CalCare from moving forward in the legislature,” said CNA Executive Director Puneet Maharaj. “Nurses know that Californians desperately need guaranteed health care. We have fought for decades to ensure that health care is a human right, regardless of patients’ ability to pay.
CalCare was reintroduced in the Assembly on Feb. 12, 2026. A recent poll conducted by David Binder Research found that nearly two-thirds of California voters want to see transformational changes, not minor reforms, to California’s broken health care system. Uncertainty and anxiety about health care costs have been rising – exacerbated by unprecedented trillion-dollar cuts at the federal level – with more than 40 percent of voters saying it’s become harder to afford health care in the past several years. The poll also shows that more than three-quarters of Democrats are more likely to support a candidate for governor if they were to run on creating a single-payer system.
California’s union nurses, represented by CNA, remain committed to continuing to lead the organizing to build the grassroots movement necessary to win support for and pass CalCare. More than 300 organizations have endorsed CalCare, including the California Federation of Labor Unions, ACLU California Action, California Faculty Association, California Federation of Teachers, California School Employees Association, California Teachers Association,, California Working Families Party, The Arc of California, University Professional and Technical Employees, and United Auto Workers (Region 6). Hundreds of patients and community activists have already filled four town halls earlier this year to learn about CalCare. Supporters have held drop-in actions at nearly 100 district offices in support of CalCare and dialed some 20,000 Californians to drive more than 750 calls to the Capitol. At the California Democratic Party’s Convention in February, several hundred people rallied for the passage of CalCare.
Nurses are grateful to…
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