Pending a legal challenge, San Francisco could be the first American city to provide access to healthcare for all of its residents.

In a lopsided 11-0 vote, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted to implement the $200 million-dollar “San Francisco Health Access Plan,” which is the brainchild of the city’s iconoclastic mayor, Gavin Newsom. (He last made news when he flouted state law and issued marriage licenses to gay couples.)

In a departure from other universal healthcare concepts, San Francisco’s plan doesn’t provide insurance to the uninsured. Instead, it will provide access to essential medical services to tens of thousands of residents that they previously couldn’t afford care.

According to the AP, the ambitious plan will be paid for through individual premiums, taxes, and business contributions. The latter funding source is a sticking point, and businesses, who say they’ll have to foot a disproportionate amount of the bill, are likely to file a legal challenge to the initiative. In fact, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, the city’s private sector has displayed “unmitigated opposition” to the plan.

Proponents say that if people have access to routine care they will be less likely to require later emergency room care, which is prohibitively expensive for most patients.

Medical care would be limited to residents of the city.

Businesses opposed to the plan (most of which make up the 15 percent who currently don’t provide covereage for their workers) threaten to either leave the city or simply pass on the costs to their consumers, a move that would raise the cost of living in this already expensive city. (It typically makes the list of top three most expensive cities in America.) Methinks this fact will likely prevent a “gold rush” for the city’s cheap(er) medical care.

Will the plan work? Let us know what you think.