Dude, I don't have health insurance, and there are too many people in my boat. This is good news in every respect.

As for all your extremist RightWing rhetoric, well, all I can say is that if free enterprise hadn't so thoroughly screwed up healthcare delivery in America, this wouldn't be necessary. C'mon, Tom, try and convince me that healthcare in America is working just fine, thankyew very much...

You'll find defensible tradition is rather thin in this area--having business be "responsible" for providing health care is a relatively newfangled invention, dating to the post WWII era. It's certainly not in the Constitution, and the practice arose only because in a market in which skilled workers were scarce businesses saw it as a negotiating point. The downside leaves a gaping hole in coverage, as less-valued employees don't receive health care and significant numbers of people like us self-employed find obtaining health insurance an expensive burden.

Where I'm going is to question the fundamental assumption that health insurance is an employee benefit, and whether it makes sense overall to consider business to be responsible for our health care. I would think that there are considerable upsides for business to universal health coverage, not least becuse it removes the need to make the expenditure for competitive reasons--it levels the playing field for businesses that choose not to provide employee health coverage.

Speaking of which, I thought your assertion that "Private health insurance will be illegal." was way over the top, until I read the bill and found:

140000.6. No health care service plan contract or health insurance policy, except for the California Health Insurance System plan, may be sold in California for services provided by the system.

Hmmm...that does seem oddly draconian. And likely to be struck down in the courts, possibly on the grounds that it's unConstitutional. I wonder if a Republican slipped that in to tie it up in the courts for years?

Yeah, I have to admit that I'm a little bothered by this clause. I wouldn't object if a potential employer wanted to give me coverage better than the state's. But on balance I think we're much better off to get health care to millions more people than to cater to a few prima donnas who're compensated at the top of the heap anyway. I know it galls a monochrome Conservative to admit it, but in democratic politics compromise is the norm. You can't always get all you want, but democracy lets you get a big chunk of it.