Californians vote on billionaire tax to replace federal cuts in healthcare funding

In the U.S. midterm elections, Californians will vote on 14 statewide propositions. One of them is Prop 40, a first-of-its-kind state tax on billionaires to offset looming health care funding cuts. This is a one-time tax on just 250 billionaires in the state of California to make sure we have access to health care. That means our hospitals, our clinics, our ERs. Prop 40 will ask billionaires to contribute 5% of their wealth payable over five years. The measure would raise roughly $100 billion, with 90% to be directed towards a healthcare system that's been defunded by the Trump administration. Among the proponents are NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, who would be subject to around $8 billion of tax under Prop 40. Opponents, on the other hand, include Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose net worth is estimated at over $200 billion. Meanwhile, the California Medical Association says the measure lacks sufficient safeguards on how the revenue would be spent. Photos themselves remain divided. To see it on a state measure is really a breath of fresh air. Once it gets implemented here in California and the benefits that it produces here on a statewide level, to see that on a national level is going to be beautiful to see. I think it could be a good idea, but I think ultimately it's probably going to be something that when the billionaires move or they go to better tax-friendly states. At least one prominent billionaire has already fled California, Google's co-founder Sergey Brin, who moved across the border to Nevada. Some 250 billionaires currently reside in the Golden State. To avoid the failures of exodus of past wealth taxes elsewhere such as in France, Prop 40's designers have tried to plug potential leaks by proposing to tax only business holdings.