Sacramento Bee– California Democratic lawmakers are quietly working on a package of up to 20 health care bills that would soften the political blow from the all-but-certain death of a single-payer universal care bill this year.

Senate Bill 562 cleared the Senate last year but stalled in the Assembly when Speaker Anthony Rendon blasted it as “woefully incomplete.” The legislation still lacks a plan to cover its $400 billion price tag, a way to control rising health care costs and a strategy to secure federal waivers needed from the Trump administration.

Rendon has not formally killed the bill, but he told The Sacramento Bee earlier this month that a fresh health care package is in the works – the clearest sign yet that Senate Bill 562 is dead.

Democratic Assemblymen Jim Wood of Healdsburg and Joaquin Arambula of Fresno, who chair a special health committee formed by Rendon last year after the single-payer bill passed the Senate, said Tuesday they are eying legislation this year that seeks to improve quality, expand access and lower rising health care costs.

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