Why California dialysis clinics are spending $111 million to defeat a modest ballot proposition

It feels like a scene from a science fiction dystopia: massive corporations pocketing huge profits via a service that literally sucks clients' blood, and which patients will literally die without. “Prop 8 sets lower limits on what insurance companies will be required to pay to dialysis clinics for treatment,” Kathy Fairbanks, a spokeswoman for the opposition campaign, told Salon. “These lower payments won’t be enough for dialysis facilities to cover their costs.” That seems like a stretch, particularly given that two dialysis care companies have spent a record-breaking sum — over $100 million — to oppose this minor regulation. “Prop 8 bans managerial costs and doesn’t allow things that you absolutely must have in order to have business in California, such as insurance, as a healthcare facility you must have medical malpractice insurance.” Yet patients' experiences reveal that many clinics are already spending barely more than the minimum on their patients and facilities — and indeed, Proposition 8 would raise that minimum. “They make $150,000 a year on me they can’t afford a package of chicken broth soup.” Sean Wherley, a spokesperson for the Service Employees International Union–United Healthcare Workers, the organization that “Two years ago dialysis workers approached the union with concerns about poor patient care,” he said.