The vote was: 19 YES, 15 NO (including Dem. Calderon and Dem. Correa) and 6 ABSTAIN (which is actually a NO vote and included Dems. Padilla, Vargas, Wright and Rubio).

We have two immediate tasks: first, thank our author of SB 810, Sen. Leno, for his efforts (the legislation was not supposed to pass the Appropriations Committee!) and thank Sen. Steinberg for his assistance in getting the bill to the Senate Floor; and, second, call the 6 Senators who voted against SB 810 and give them a piece of your mind.

Lastly, California OneCare will be recommending “next steps” for the campaign in the very near future.  We are meeting with our coalition partners on Friday and will communicate to you a united strategy in the following days.

Thank you for all your help.  Without your help, the legislation would have never gone as far as the Senate Floor.  Again, wait for our suggestions for future advocacy plans.  I think you’ll be surprised because we are getting real tired of the Democrats In Name Only stopping life saving legislation:  it’s now time to take it to a new level.  Stay tuned!

Andrew McGuire
Executive Director

for Single-Payer SB 810 In Tuesday’s

Senate Appropriations Committee Hearing

PLEASE CALL, FAX AND WRITE YOUR SENATOR — BEFORE NEXT TUESDAY!

California’s landmark single payer bill, SB 810, authored by Senator Mark Leno, is now scheduled to be heard in the Senate Appropriations committee on January 17th in Sacramento. The bill must pass this committee and pass a Senate floor vote before the end of January in order to then be considered in the Assembly. Your help is urgently needed to write and call your State Senator and urge him/her to vote for SB 810.

If SB 810 fails to pass Appropriations committee and the Senate floor, it can’t be heard again until it is re-introduced in 2013!

PLEASE TAKE THE FOLLOWING ACTION:

Call AND send a fax AND a written letter (emails don’t usually get through) to your State Senator’s Sacramento office, urging his/her support of SB 810. If you do not know who your Senator is, find your district here.

It is especially important to call and write your Senator if he or she is a member of the Senate Appropriations committee:

District 6      Darrell Steinberg    (916) 651-4006    Fax: (916) 323-2263
District 13    Elaine Alquist         (916) 651-4013    Fax: (916) 324-0283
District 17    Sharon Runner       (916) 651-4017    Fax: (916) 445-4662
District 23    Fran Pavley             (916) 651-4023    Fax: (916) 324-4823
District 26    Curren Price            (916) 651-4026    Fax: (916) 445-8899
District 28    Ted Lieu                   (916) 651-4028    Fax: (916) 323-6056
District 33    Mimi Walters           (916) 651-4033    Fax: (916) 445-9754
District 37    Bill Emmerson        (916) 651-4037    Fax: (916) 327-2187
District 39    Christine Kehoe      (916) 651-4039    Fax: (916) 327-2188

Andrew McGuire, COC Executive Director

Last month’s Summer Conference on universal health care was a huge success, with activists from a variety of backgrounds convening at the University of Southern California to hear about the state of the single payer movement and where we go from here. The second annual, all-day event was organized by Physicians for a National Health Program.

Event highlights included a moving presentation by artist Teresa Brown-Gold about her project, Art As Social Inquiry, featuring portraits of Americans affected by our broken healthcare system; a highly informative and astonishing presentation by Dr. Jeoffry Gordon of U.C. San Diego about the effect economic inequality has on societal health; and a closing address by the original sponsor of SB 810, former State Sen. Sheila Kuehl. These and the other conference presentations are available to view at http://pnhpcalifornia.org/summer-conference-2011-speaker-presentations/.

One of the conference’s breakout sessions featured members of our California OneCare team: Executive Director Andrew McGuire, board member and blogger Al Saavedra, and board member Walter Heath. They each spoke about how universal healthcare activists can effectively use social networking sites and blogging to educate more citizens about single payer and help advance the cause. At the end of the long day, I’m sure everyone who attended felt re-energized to continue to fight for national, public health insurance!

Sylvia@californiaonecare.org

Al Saavedra, COC Board Member

Walter Heath, COC Board Member

Intro by Eve Gittelson

Dr. Giuseppe Del Priore

Wendell Potter

Jay Angoff

Andrew McGuire

Jay Angoff takes a question about Vermont’s recent passage of single payer health care.

Jay Angoff talks about the six-month waiting period for bridge insurance for people with preexisting conditions.

Wendell Potter talks about regulation of health insurers.

Angoff takes a question about dialysis.

Question about the impact of the federal reform law on retail workers.

Sylvia@californiaonecare.org

The Affordable Healthcare Act of 2009 was (at best IMHO) a step in the right direction.

The final destination?  Universal and affordable health care as a right and NOT a privilege (single payer is the ultimate logical consequence, also IMHO).

So what are the next steps, milestones, events, causes, laws to be passed?  What can we do as individuals to help us get there?  Who will lead us through the next phases?

Can we defeat the HMOs and Big Pharma? Should we go slow or should we step on the gas? Should we wait until after 2012?  Should we just fight to save Medicare?

Should we focus at the state level?

If you think healthcare reform is very unfinished business, there is only one place to be this Saturday, June 18, at 1:30 PM Central (11:30 AM Pacific): nyceve’s Netroots Nation panel Healthcare Reform 2.0: Americans Confront a Brave New World

If you think all this does not matter, you’re completely wrong.

According to the latest CNN poll, when asked about a variety of critical issues, 96% of respondents answered that healthcare was extremely important or very important as an issue for the 2012 Presidential Election.

Much more below and a chance to ask questions which Eve and I will present to the panelists.

You all know the irreplaceable and irrepressible nyceve, the most effective and dedicated healthcare blogger.  She got me going as a healthcare reform activist right here in these pages when she covered the Natalie Sarkissian tragedy.

Now meet the rest of the very distinguished panel:

Jay Angoff, senior Advisor to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary. He reports directly to Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Giuseppe Del Priore,M.D. of the Indiana University School of Medicine who may become the first surgeon to carry out a womb transplant. He knows what is going on in the front lines.

Andrew McGuire, Executive Director of California OneCare.  (I now disclose that I am on the California OneCare Board of Directors with nyceve, and single payer is my cause.) California OneCare is the pivotal non-profit organization supporting Single Payer legislation in California.

And last but certainly not least, Wendell Potter, the ultimate healthcare whistleblower.  Wendell Potter has seen the inner workings of our adversaries from the highest levels as a senior executive at CIGNA.

Nyceve will open the proceedings by covering the main points of the current situation. She has spent weeks preparing a comprehensive PowerPoint which she will cover quickly but deserves your attention.

As far as I am concerned it is THE tour de force of where we are regarding healthcare.  It is our entire tragic debacle as only nyceve could present it.  It will set the stage for the lively discussion to follow.

The following is part of Eve’s very dismal, but very true Netroots Nation slide show. It is a heartbreaking presentation about our collapsed health care system.

President Obama to the American Medical Association in 2009:
“Today, we are spending over $2 trillion a year on health care — almost 50 percent more per person than the next most costly nation. And yet, as I think many of you are aware, for all of this spending, more of our citizens are uninsured, the quality of our care is often lower, and we aren’t any healthier. In fact, citizens in some countries that spend substantially less than we do are actually living longer than we do.”

HEALTH CARE SPENDING IS LITERALLY OFF THE CHARTS

WE ARE NOT THE ENVY OF THE WORLD – THIS IS THE MONEY SLIDE

GOD HELP YOU IF YOU ARE UNINSURED!

More than 44,000 Americans die every year – 122 every day – due to lack of health insurance.
This data is from Harvard-based research that found that uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their insured counterparts, up from a 25 percent excess death rate found in 1993.

FOR-PROFIT INSURANCE COMPANIES TAKE A HUGE BITE OF OUR HEALTH CARE DOLLARS

GOD HELP YOU EVEN IF YOU ARE INSURED

The US spends more than any other industrialized nation on health care, yet over 50 million americans are without health insurance.
Over 60% of individual bankruptcies are filed by insured Americans and are due to medical bills.

A just released report from the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers entitled,The New Gold Rush predicts that healthcare is expected to reach nearly 20% of U.S. GDP by 2019.

Life expectancy in the U.S. is lower when compared with Japan, Switzerland, Canada and Australia.

Infant morality rates in the U.S. are higher than most OECD countries. In 2006, it was 6.7 per live births relative to OECD average of 4.7

Low health care utilization was a major reason behind health insurers posting record first-quarter 2010 profits, well above analyst forecasts.

IS HELP ON THE WAY? THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, TIMELINE FOR IMPLEMENTATION

Kossacks, do take advantage of this diary to bring up questions and themes for the panel.

###

Originally posted in the Daily Kos on June 12, 2011. Shockwave (aka, Alberto Saavedra) is a member of the California OneCare board.

Can’t make it to Netroots Nation? Live streaming and video archives of the healthcare and other panels are available by clicking here.

We need to hear from you.

Please tell us how and whether your life has improved, and your costs have decreased, due to the initial implementation of the Affordable Care Act. I will use some of your stories at the Netroots Nation health policy panel.

I need to hear from you because I’m honored to once again be the moderator and organizer of the health policy panel at Netroots Nation this year (it’s been scheduled for Saturday, June 18 from 1:30 – 2:45).

One of our esteemed panelists is Jay Angoff,  Jay is senior adviser to U.S. Department of Health and Senior Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.  He is one of the handful of key administration players responsible for the implementation of the ACA. If you’re going to be at Netroots Nation, this is our opportunity to let the most senior administration official tasked with the implementation of the ACA, hear our concerns.

The entire all-star lineup of panelists at the Netroots Nation health policy panel also includes Wendell Potter, Giuseppe Del Priore, MD and Andrew McGuire, the executive director of California OneCare.

Truthfully, the healthcare news for most Americans is not particularly encouraging. Not a day goes by that I don’t receive an email from someone pleading for help.  The subject line of the latest was: Need Help for a Very Sick Baby

I’ve removed identifying information, but for how many more years will I be receiving these tragic messages?

I am in awe of the work that you do for people who need health care.  There is a man who works where I do who has a new baby who is very sick.  They have no health insurance and he is trying to figure out a way to pay her medical bills.  She was born on 4/22/11.  Before she was born, they found a problem with one of her kidneys on an ultrasound.  She seemed OK when she was born, but last Sunday she was running a temp of 103, so they rushed her to emergency.  She has since been transported by ambulance to a hospital in XXXXX.  I am not sure of all of her diagnoses, but she has a Double Ureter, E-Coli in her blood and a UTI.  They did a spinal tap yesterday to see of the E-Coli is in her spine-no results on that yet.
Anyway, I was wishing that I could help in some way, and I thought of you, since you are involved in the fight for single payer here.  He makes too much to qualify for XXXX.  They are trying to get coverage through Healthy Families, but if that doesn’t work, they are facing huge medical bills with no way to pay them.  Ultimately, of course, they can run up the bills and go bankrupt, but it would be nice to find another way. If you have any ideas of alternative resources for them, please email me back at XXXX

This morning, The New York Times is reporting that Americans are forgoing healthcare as insurers rake in record profits. Greed, greed and more greed is what this industry is all about, and for-profit corporations remain by law, at the very heart of our new and ‘reformed’ healthcare system.

The nation’s major health insurers are barreling into a third year of record profits, enriched in recent months by a lingering recessionary mind-set among Americans who are postponing or forgoing medical care.
. . .Yet the companies continue to press for higher premiums, even though their reserve coffers are flush with profits and shareholders have been rewarded with new dividends. Many defend proposed double-digit increases in the rates they charge, citing a need for protection against any sudden uptick in demand once people have more money to spend on their health, as well as the rising price of care.

As Paul Krugman recently wrote, accessing healthcare has become a ‘commercial transaction’, this is not a sustainable way to run a First World healthcare system.

How did it become normal, or for that matter even acceptable, to refer to medical patients as “consumers”? The relationship between patient and doctor used to be considered something special, almost sacred. Now politicians and supposed reformers talk about the act of receiving care as if it were no different from a commercial transaction, like buying a car — and their only complaint is that it isn’t commercial enough.

The cost of healthcare continues its relentless assault on American families. The annual Milliman Medical Index (MMI) measures the total cost of healthcare for a typical family of four covered by a preferred provider plan (PPO). The 2011 MMI cost is $19,393, an increase of $1,319, or 7.3% over 2010. Even though the rate of increase is slowing from prior years, it has taken fewer than nine years for such costs to more than double. In 2002, the cost of healthcare for the typical family of four was $9,235.

The problem plaguing countless millions of Americans is that skyrocketing premiums are a) causing so many to simply give up and drop insurance and b) the skyrocketing premiums coupled with the cost shifting–higher co-pays, deductibles, and all manner of additional hidden costs, is more than canceling out the small benefits some of us have experienced from the ACA.

Let me tell you what I’ve experienced from the implementation of the ACA.  I’m dealing with my own aggravating health issue right now, this is a major reason I haven’t been writing more lately.  When I went to the doctor (I am blessed to still be able to afford the egregious costs of insurance in New York State over $500.00 a month), I was not charged any co-pay. I asked the secretary if this was a new benefit of the ACA, she was, of course, clueless.

Yes, no co-pay for a preventive visit is in fact a new benefit, but in reality because my my premium is up, there doesn’t seem to be any real cost saving.  If the premium stayed the same for even one year, and there were new ACA mandated benefits, then there would be some small financial relief–but this isn’t happening.  Every year we all pay a lot more for a lot less.

There is simply no way around it, despite the passage of the Affordable Care Act, healthcare in the United States remains a privilege not a right–by a long shot.

There is a solution. The system can be fixed simply, equitably, efficiently and transparently through the tax system (a tax-financed single payer system).  It’s called Medicare for All– we all hope that California and Vermont will lead the nation out of this tragic situation, but it won’t happen overnight.

The alternative is we can attempt to do it through a fragmented, inequitable, expensive, opaque, complex maze of private and public plans which is essentially what the ACA codifies into law, acknowledging that we’ll fall far short of covering everyone while threatening hard working, middle-income Americans with financial hardship, including bankruptcy, should they need health care.

Originally posted May 14, 2011, in the DailyKos. Nyceve is a board member of California OneCare.

After years of fighting for real health care reform, 2011 is going to be an exciting pivotal year for the California OneCare Campaign for single payer health care reform.

Senator Mark Leno reintroduced Senate Bill 810 with the same number! It is essentially the same bill that has passed twice before in the legislature. But this legislature is different. There are many new Democrats not familiar with SB 810 and they must be educated.

The winds of change are ablowing.

From Madison to Sacramento, political change is starting to take hold. People are fighting back against the savage assault by radical Governors and other leaders on proven, practical social programs in the U.S. Nevertheless, Medicaid funding has been reduced, Medicare has been placed on the chopping block, Social Security is threatened with cuts or privatization, and public servants–nurses, teachers, firefighters, police officers, government workers–are denigrated and blamed for “budget deficits.”

This historic health care fight is a golden opportunity for the future of the Golden State.

Our fight for true health care reform is a key push back against these forces and we have a golden opportunity for success in California. We can be the pioneers of a true health care reform revolution by bringing single payer, universal health care to our state. We know how to create a health care system that is accessible and affordable for everyone which will launch a new vision for practical social justice for the country.

We will eliminate the greed, the profiteering and the misery.

Our health care system is getting sicker every day. There should be no room for profiteering off of children or adults who are injured or ill. Contracting cancer should never be a cause of bankruptcy. Denying a claim for medical care should be a long-forgotten, freakish memory of the everyday practice of greedy insurance corporations and their shareholders. Being at the mercy of insurance corporations as they annually increase their rates and reduce their coverage is evil and must end.

We know about the task ahead and we have a plan.

Passing and funding SB 810 will not be easy but we know what we need to do and we have a campaign strategy for success which we’ll be revealing in stages in the weeks and months ahead.

You can take immediate actions that will help right now.

1) Ask, convince, cajole or demand your state Senator and Assembly member to become a co-sponsor of SB 810.*

2) If they don’t co-sponsor SB 810, pressure them, until you are sure of their vote for SB 810 in committees and on the floor of the Senate or Assembly.

3) Ask friends, businesses, local elected officials, people at your place of worship–in short, everyone–to support SB 810 by sending a “letter of support or email” to Senator Mark Leno’s office in Sacramento.

Stay tuned for new campaign news and actions.

Are you able to help our historic movement? Are you willing to volunteer an hour a week? Or donate $5 a month? Truly, every action and every penny will help. The day will come when Goliath falls and we can joyfully look each other in the eye and say that we did the impossible. We defeated the colossal insurance corporations, and finally—finally–we have California OneCare for everyone, forever.

Thank you for your continued support. We will win!

Andrew McGuire, Executive Director

*For a directory of Senate and Assembly members and their contact information, go to: http://www.sen.ca.gov/ or http://www.assembly.ca.gov/defaulttext.asp

Originally posted on the DailyKos on Mar. 15, 2011

The Japanese have an enviable healthcare system.  Everyone is covered and they spend about half of what we spend in the United States.

Here’s how things shape up when you compare healthcare costs and life expectancy in the OECD to the United States.

This Societe Generale chart from a recent article in The Economist tells you everything you need to know. The Japanese spend a fraction of what we do, cover all their citizens, and have a far better life expectancy than Americans.

Note, as usual, the U.S, and our free-market, profit driven healthcare system is the pathetic outlier. We spend way, way more and get miserable results. Our life expectancy is by no means the envy of the world.

When the next large scale disaster strikes in the United States, we’ll be in a bind. If it’s on the scale of what just happened in Japan, this country and its citizens would be in a world of hurt. Since we have abdicated our collective societal healthcare needs to the insatiable profit greed of Wall Street, we have 60 million with no access to healthcare.

What would happen to all these Americans at the mercy of our capricious,  dysfunctional and depraved American healthcare system in a large disaster is unfathomable?

Tens, hundreds of thousands would likely be severely injured requiring extensive and expensive healthcare.  Many, perhaps most of these people would either not be insured or dangerously underinsured.  This reality would add a particularly gruesome uniquely American overlay for the world to ponder in horror.

In California, certainly ground zero for a massive earthquake, we’re now learning that some victims of Blue Shield are facing cumulative rate hikes of up to 86%!* This means people will drop their already woefully inadequate junk, bare bones insurance coverage, which we know is coverage in name only.

Wondering how this country would address the healthcare needs of a huge uninsured and underinsured population in the aftermath of a national catastrophe is a long overdue discussion. And don’t count on the traditional media to begin it. Would we have millions of gravely injured Americans facing healthcare-related financial ruin and bankruptcy? Or would the barbaric reality of our profit-driven healthcare system crumble before the scrutiny of the world.

I suspect (or maybe I’m engaged in magical thinking) the latter. The government would have to intervene in a massive show of force. Nationalize the insurance companies?  Require the for-profit parasites to cover everyone? Regulate rates so ordinary Americans could afford to get coverage? Institute community rating and guaranteed issue across the board?  Massive open enrollment to Medicare and Medicaid?

Everything would have to be on the table, and perhaps we’d be on our way to single payer.

Right now, you can help us move California to single payer. When the for-profits in California fall (as they will), it will only be a matter of time for the domino effect to ripple across much of the nation.

1. You can sign this petition supporting California OneCare and the fight for single payer in California.

2. You can make a contribution to California OneCare. The fight for healthcare justice in California belongs to all of us.

Does everyone know that in Canada, single payer began at the provincial level in Saskatchew­an and then eventually , as more provinces embraced universal health care, the federal government got on board.  This is how it will happen in the United States, but it will take all of us.

Nyceve is on the board of California OneCare.

*Editor’s Note: Blue Shield canceled the planned rate increase soon after this essay was published.

The Young Invincibles for California OneCare from Michelle Klein-Hass on Vimeo.

Dave Jones, the Insurance Commissioner of California is ready for a fight and so are the people. Keep your eye on Dave as the battle for single payer in California unfolds.

The for profit health insurance industry is destroying lives in pay or die California. You don’t believe me? Look at this.

Working families are being gouged to the point of having to drop their already woefully inadequate coverage. Coverage so bad and so bare bones that it usually carries a deductible of $5000-$10,000.  For Blue Shield customers who buy their own insurance, the likely rate hikes will be the third since October, amounting to up to 59 percent in some cases.

In a particularly naked attempt to tamp down criticism of its egregious gouging, Blue Shield is hiding behind an actuary who will not even speak to the press to explain his findings.  The Blue Cross actuary who’s in hiding is none other than David Axene.

Mr. Axene, is the actuary who last year found errors in the BC/BS rate hike application. One would assume BC/BS figured by enlisting Axene as an “independent” arbiter of price gouging, it could slam through yet another rate hike. But Axene has gone to ground, and isn’t talking.

Note on David Axene’s web site, he is deflecting all inquires to the BC/BS PR hacks. Here’s a copy of Axene’s full report.

The for profit insurance industry earned 12 billion in profits in 2010. Insurers are so flush that if you want to make money in the stock market, investors are being urged to buy funds that include health insurance companies.

Seems that skyrocketing profits go hand-in-hand with skyrocketing premiums. The greed of the insurance industry knows no bounds. And it is greed, a particularly deadly sin, which will bring them crashing to the ground

The good news is that grassroots groups, including California OneCare (where I serve on the all-volunteer board) are coalescing around plans to bring universal single payer healthcare to everyone in this beleaguered state.

Take a look at this report which was on the PBS Newshour a day or so ago. Pay attention to Dave Jones, the recently elected California Insurance Commissioner.

Dave Jones is their biggest nightmare, and we’re (that means all of us) , going to help him rid the state of this parasitic industry.

Dave Jones has been fighting this industry for years, he knows what he’s up against.

As an assemblyman, Dave Jones was a fierce champion of the people and an advocate of single payer health care.

Listen to Jones at 2:30 describe the medical loss ratio.

“Every cent of every premium dollar that is spent on healthcare is actually viewed by these companies as a loss, which is not available to cover administrative expense, executive salaries and profits. The very term medical loss ratios which is used to assess the relative share of the premium dollar that goes to healthcare, is itself an extraordinarily sad commentary that it is being treated by an industry as a loss.”

The fight for single payer in California belongs to all of us. It is the camel’s nose under the tent, and the insurance industry is going to do whatever it takes, to defeat us. If we are successful in California (and Vermont), we have begun the long slog of ridding our nation of the evil scourge of the insurance industry.

We will win and they will lose. This is not a threat, it’s a guarantee. What is going on in California is unsustainable. President Obama handed us a gift the other day, by supporting an accelerated state opt out from 2017 to 2014.

1. You can sign this petition supporting California OneCare and the fight for single payer in California.

2. You can make a contribution to California OneCare. The fight for healthcare justice in California belongs to all of us.

Does everyone know that in Canada, single payer began at the provincial level in Saskatchew­an and then eventually , as more provinces embraced universal health care, the federal government got on board.  This is how it will happen in the United States, but it will take all of us.

Please note, I am on the Board of California OneCare

Originally posted at the DailyKos.