CA Organizers’ Proposal Would Tax Billionaires to Mitigate Medicaid Cut Harm

A coalition of frontline healthcare workers , unions , and economists launched an effort Thursday to build support for a proposed ballot measure in California that would impose a one-time tax on the state’s billionaires to avert a looming crisis spurred by national Republicans ‘ unprecedented Medicaid cuts.

The proposed ballot initiative, titled “ The 2026 Billionaire Tax Act ,” would levy a single 5% tax on the wealth of California’s roughly 200 billionaires to offset healthcare funding shortfalls caused by the roughly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts that US President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans approved over the summer.

Service Employees International Union–United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), one of the largest healthcare worker unions in the coun