The nation rarely waits with bated breath to see what laws California is passing, but health care reform might just be an exception. Yesterday, California’s Assembly voted along party lines to create a mandate requiring all Californians to purchase health insurance through government programs, employers, or on their own. The plan closely resembles those already in existence in Massachusetts, Vermont, and Maine as well as the proposals put forth by presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. However, to become law the bill still has to pass the Senate and be approved by voters next November, which seems uncertain given public anxieties about the state’s looming budget gap that has been aggravated by the housing crisis.

More interestingly, the debates that have emerged from this process likely presage what we can expect to see on a national level as the issue of health care reform gains momentum. As any exhausted Sacramento lobbyist or policymaker will tell you, the California bill took a year to hammer out, and although it had the support of Governor Schwarzenegger, a Republican, none of the Republicans in the Assembly voted for the bill, which they criticized as putting an undue burden on employers and lacking the guarantee of controlling costs. Some liberals have also questioned the financial impact of the plan on families, and have shunned the bill as a victory for the insurance industry. Our presidential candidates would do well to learn from how the issue plays out over the coming year. Hopefully the spirit of bipartisanism that paved the way for the bill’s victory will not be undermined by bipartisanism in reverse—a joint effort to tank what may be the state’s best shot of providing health care to the large number of uninsured Californians.