Laurel Rosenhall

The concept is that the supporters of this tax want to make up for the massive amount of funding that has been cut by the federal government through what Republicans called their big, beautiful bill.

The cuts that were in that bill that Trump signed last year

were related to Medicaid and Obamacare subsidies.

And those health insurance programs pumped a huge amount of money into the health care system writ large.

So for the supporters of this tax, they say this money is essential to keep hospitals open, to keep emergency rooms operating.

and to keep the health care system that Californians rely on operating at the same level that it has been before these cuts go into place.

Right.

And this is happening in a state that has more billionaires than any other state.

So the supporters of this tax say that it would affect about 200 people.

However, there are various wealth management kind of experts that I've interviewed over the last few months, and they've told me they think the number is probably higher.

But right now, no one has an exact count on how many people would have to pay this.

Well, you know, it got 1.5 million signatures.

So there were at least that many people who liked the idea enough to sign a petition.

You know, I've been out with different petition circulators watching this thing in public parks and in front of grocery stores.

And the idea of taxing billionaires, especially when you just kind of say it in one sentence like that, it's real easy for people to sign on the dotted line.

And polling shows that more than half of voters support it, more than 70 percent of Democrats support it in California.

But even though it has a lot of support seemingly from the public, there are a lot of high profile Democrats who have come out against it and a lot of unions who are just sitting on the sidelines.

And some of that has to do with how this whole thing came about.

This tax is being proposed by a specific union called the SEIU-UHW, stands for Service Employees International Union United Healthcare Workers West.

Kind of a mouthful.