Supporters cheer new L.A. County healthcare sales tax: 'It's a lifesaver'

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Supporters of a new Los Angeles County half-cent sales tax rallied Wednesday to celebrate what they framed as a historic win for the region’s cash-strapped healthcare system.After a rocky election night that showed the tax lagging, supporters claimed victory Tuesday after the latest vote tally pushed Measure ER further over the 50% margin needed to pass.The measure would impose a new half-cent sales tax countywide, with the proceeds going toward local hospitals and clinics hit by federal funding cuts.Jim Mangia, the chief executive of St.

John’s Community Health who helped craft the measure, summed up the campaign as “grueling and expensive.” “We had to ask an already overtaxed community — in the midst of runaway inflation and [an] affordability crisis — to tax themselves yet again,” he told a crowd of supporters Wednesday.California Supporters of Measure ER, a proposed L.A.

County half-cent healthcare sales tax, declared victory Tuesday after days of steadily gaining ground as more ballots were counted.L.A.County already has a sales tax of 9.75%, and some cities add their own on top.

Measure ER passing would raise the countywide sales tax to 10.25%, with some individual cities having a sales tax of more than 11%, according to the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration.Despite a recent winning streak for sales taxes in L.A.County, some political observers had forecast doom for the measure, which came at a time of skyrocketing gas prices and cost-weary voters.The largely informal opposition had consisted mainly of local cities that warned another sales tax would disproportionately burden the poorest residents and force shoppers across the county border in hopes of finding lower costs.

Some city leaders had also dinged the county for misusing homelessness money generated from a previous sales tax and argued this new pot of dollars would be handled no...