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Hollywood celebrity Halle Berry brought her microphone and moral outrage to the New York Times’ DealBook Summit this week and publicly rebuked California Governor Gavin Newsom for vetoing the Menopause Care Equity Act not once but twice, even saying he “probably should not be our next president.” The spectacle was pure elite theater: a wealthy actress scolding an elected governor on a business stage while millions of working Americans pay the price for Washington and Hollywood grandstanding.
The bill at the center of this drama, AB 432, would have forced health plans to expand coverage for perimenopause and menopause treatments and required extra continuing medical education for physicians, among other mandates. Supporters pitched it as “closing the care gap” for women, and lawmakers hyped sweeping bipartisan votes to build a narrative that this was a no-brainer policy win.
Governor Newsom said no, and for good reason: the legislation contained broad coverage mandates and restrictions on utilization management that, according to his veto message and budget advisers, risked driving up premiums and limiting insurers’ ability to control costs. This was not a cynical dodge but a fiscal reality check—mandating care without sober funding plans is how you saddle families and employers with sticker shock.
Miss Berry rushed to the cameras and op-eds arguing the cost hit would be “negligible,” and she used her platform to attack Newsom’s presidential prospects, while promoting the menopause company she launched to monetize the very crisis she says the state must solve. Celebrities selling their own solutions while scolding elected officials is a familiar pattern: outrage plus product placement wrapped in sanctimony.
Let’s be blunt: Washington and Sacramento already churn out expensive mandates masquerading as compassion, then blame the private sector when costs rise. If you care about real women—mothers, teachers, small-business owners—you care about affordability and access, not about virtue-signaling speeches from celebrity suites that ignore actuarial math.
Instead of grandstanding, conservatives and fiscal-minded Democrats should insist on practical solutions: targeted pilot programs, private-public partnerships to expand clinician training, and refundable tax credits or subsidies that don’t blow up premiums. Voters deserve real fixes that respect both the dignity of women and the wallets of working families, not theatrical condemnations set to applause in Manhattan ballrooms.
Halle Berry’s performance was a reminder of a bigger truth—left-wing elites love to lecture about “care” until the bill arrives with a price tag. If conservatives have learned anything, it’s that governing responsibly means saying no to feel-good mandates that hurt ordinary Americans, and pushing instead for realistic, sustainable reforms that keep healthcare effective and affordable.
