Public Comment
⚙
CaliforniaHealthcare

Proposition 38 authorizes $8.4 billion in California general-obligation bonds for immunology and immunotherapy research. Half would go to a UC-affiliated nonprofit research institute chosen under specified criteria and half to grants for public or nonprofit universities and institutions. Half of research funding must support cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s research. Recipients would also face a California pricing requirement for resulting technologies and drugs. State analysts estimate about $500 million annually for 25 years in debt-service costs, with uncertain potential future revenue from discoveries. Public research can fund ideas private investors neglect, especially when discoveries have broad social value. But billions in bonded debt should have a clear reason to outperform ordinary competitive research grants funded through annual budgets.

How much state debt should California take on to finance immunology and immunotherapy research?

Overall results

1
51% support · excluded by 6%
7

Scientific research is valuable, but borrowing for decades exposes taxpayers to repayment even when the funded projects do not produce successful treatments.

1
51% support · excluded by 6%
7

Public investment is more defensible when resulting therapies are meaningfully accessible to Californians rather than producing discoveries they cannot afford.

7

Large research funding should be released against scientific milestones and evaluated by experts insulated from institutions competing for the money.

3
49% support · excluded by 10%
7

Annual appropriations let lawmakers adjust priorities as science changes instead of locking a large portfolio into a voter-created bond program.

7

Smaller grants can still attract matching private and philanthropic money without committing the state to decades of debt service.

4
48% support · excluded by 12%
7

If taxpayers finance the research and repay the bonds, the public should receive more than a discounted price on successful products.

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