California must go its own way on health care

Re: “Policyholders brace for price increases” (Page A1, Nov. 22).

The recent story harkens back to a pre-ACA time when people went without insurance because of the high costs of insurance premiums.

What we need for California is a Cal-Care for all solution.

However, this year, a Cal-Care bill was sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom, and he vetoed it.

The main reason is that the federal government is not willing to give money that is due to us, which messes with the state budget.

Staying in the United States is not beneficial to California. In 2022, we gave $83 billion to the federal government, which ends up getting redistributed to other states.

The California National Party is the only party that recognizes this and has universal health care (Cal-Care, or Medi-Cal for all) as part of its platform.

— Maya Ram, Union City

Don’t cancel comic; just move it

Re: “Don’t cancel comic for having an opinion” (Page A8, Nov. 23).

I am one of the people who have written to request that “Mallard Fillmore” be moved to the Opinion Page, since it is clearly political in nature. I’m not asking that it be censored or removed from the paper, just that it be recognized as political opinion.

In the past few days, “Mallard Fillmore” has implied that the media only looks for bad things about Donald Trump and twists the truth, that liberals are stealing our tax dollars to support their own political party, and only care about disease in an election year, and the media is hypocritically misleading us about the destruction of the White House East Wing. Meanwhile, “Pickles” taught Nelson to say I love you to his grandma, and “Luann” adopted a puppy. Which of these is not like the other?

Incidentally, “Doonesbury” is offering more-than-20-year-old strips.

That’s not a fair balance.

— Sampson Van Zandt Walnut Creek

Rather than hike salestax, fix Prop. 13

Let’s be honest, we’ve all been tired of the rising sales taxes here in California.

With this, Oakland leaders are scrambling to figure out a new tax to fund public services.

However, what leaders haven’t considered yet is taxing the ultra-wealthy. Proposition 13, passed back in 1978, froze property tax rates for homeowners and corporations.

While this is a good thing for homeowners, major corporations have been pocketing billions of dollars every year because they are simply not paying their fair share in property taxes.

If we want to have stable revenue in this state and not pay soaring taxes on everything, we must reform the commercial side of Proposition 13.

— Jules Pizano, Berkeley