Gavin Newsom told California nurses in 2017 he had a "firm and absolute commitment" to deliver on one socialist healthcare promise.
He then signed a law requiring himself to follow through.
What a journalist found when he filed records requests to see what Newsom actually did is something else entirely.
The Promise He Made to Get Elected
In 2018, Newsom looked California voters in the eye and said the words that put him in the governor's mansion: "I'm tired of politicians saying they support single-payer but that it's too soon, too expensive, or someone else's problem."
He won. Then he became exactly that politician.
Once in office, Newsom did what every ambitious Democrat does when a promise gets inconvenient – he appointed a commission to study it.
The commission eventually endorsed a "unified financing" approach.
Newsom signed SB 770 in October 2023, requiring his own California Health and Human Services Agency to produce three reports: an interim framework by January 2025, a draft waiver by June 2025, and a finalized plan by November 2025.
Not one deadline was met.
He Broke the Law He Signed
When a journalist filed public records requests this past March – more than a year after the first statutory deadline – CalHHS didn't produce any reports from its own agency.
They sent a link to a document written by UCLA professors.
That document can't be found anywhere on the CalHHS website.
More importantly, it doesn't do what the law Newsom signed actually required.
SB 770 demanded the finalized waiver framework "set forth the specific elements to be included in a formal waiver application."
The UCLA document states that the specific federal waiver details required to implement the plan are "beyond the scope of this report."
Newsom signed a law mandating specific policy decisions – then commissioned a university research paper that explicitly punts on making those decisions.
That's not a delay. That's a deliberate burial.
The $6.2 Billion Disaster He's Running From
The healthcare incompetence doesn't end with the single-payer dodge.
Newsom's expansion of Medi-Cal to low-income illegal immigrants – the policy he celebrated as a sign of California's generosity – blew up by $6.2 billion more than his own administration projected.
His response? Freeze enrollment. Start charging premiums to people already enrolled.
The California Nurses Association – the union that backed him in 2018 specifically because of his single-payer pledge – said his failure to advance a single-payer bill was a betrayal of every nurse who campaigned for him.
The Legislative Analyst's Office now projects the number of uninsured Californians could double by 2030.
That's the "universal health care" Newsom delivered.
Now He's Running for President
With his gubernatorial term ending in 2027, Newsom is already positioning for a White House run.
He's hosting Trump allies on his podcast.
He's pushing crackdowns on homeless encampments.
He's quietly dropping the Medi-Cal expansion he spent years bragging about.
And he's hoping no one remembers the single-payer promise.
The California Nurses Association remembers. Progressive groups remember. His own party's candidates for governor – Katie Porter, Tom Steyer, and others – are now running on the same single-payer promise Newsom abandoned.
His former health secretary, Mark Ghaly, told KFF Health News that Newsom "isn't afraid to fail" and that "by failing you learn how to make it successful."
Eight years. Zero deliverables. And now he wants to run the country.
Democrats have spent years telling Americans that Republicans were the ones who would take their health care away.
Gavin Newsom promised his own voters health care, signed a law requiring himself to pursue it, blew past every deadline, buried the required reports, watched his alternative program explode the state budget – and now he's calling himself a presidential candidate.
The nurses who trusted him called it "a complete betrayal."
They're right.
Sources:
- Christopher Jacobs, "Newsom Memoryholes Support For Single-Payer As He Jockeys For The White House," The Federalist, June 17, 2026.
- Dan Walters, "Gavin Newsom Slow-Rolled Single-Payer Healthcare, Leaving It to a Successor," CalMatters, May 5, 2026.
- "Gavin Newsom, Early Champion of Single-Payer, Moderates in the Face of Fiscal Limits," KFF Health News, April 29, 2026.
- "California Gov. Gavin Newsom Tries to Rebrand Himself Ahead of a Potential Presidential Run," Associated Press, May 2026.
- "Gov. Newsom Flip-Flops on Enrolling Illegal Migrants in Taxpayer-Funded Health Care Program," New York Post, 2025.
