Sylvia@CaliforniaOneCare.org

insightoutnews:

Univision 34:

Sylvia@californiaonecare.org

This Sunday Afternoon in Santa Monica:

THE STATE OF HEALTHCARE

2012 AND BEYOND

With

California’s Insurance Commissioner DAVE JONES
California OneCare’s ANDREW MCGUIRE
Consumer Watchdog’s CARMEN BALBER

SUNDAY, MARCH 25, 2 – 4:30pm

William Turner Gallery, Bergamot Station

2525 Michigan Ave., Santa Monica

FREE ADMISSION, FREE PARKING & REFRESHMENTS

Dear OneCare Supporters,

California OneCare supporters are cordially invited to this special PPDC* event, an informative discussion on the state of healthcare reform today, including the latest on the Affordable Care Act of 2010, California’s Single Payer movement, and information on a critical ballot initiative for controlling health insurance rate increases.

Our own Andrew McGuire will discuss next steps for single payer legislation in Sacramento and cover key strategies developed by California’s coaltion for single payer, Campaign for A Healthy California. There will be a Q & A session following the three presentations.

We thank Susan Haskell, and the Pacific Palisades Democratic Club for their unwavering support of California’s health care reform movement.

Sincerely,

George Savage, Secretary, Board of Directors, California OneCare

The California Senate was only two votes short of passing SB 810 last week. But six Democrats refused to support the bill when it was put to a vote in the California Senate. You may have been one of the thousands of Californians who called these senators urging them to change their minds and vote for the people of California. You showed them what real democracy looks like. They didn’t listen.

It turns out their allegiance was not to us, their constituents.
It was to those who are profiting from our current broken health care system.

Follow the Money

*Insurance Industry may include auto, life and other insurance

Together, you and I and others like us can turn this around.

Go to the ACT! page on the California OneCare website to see how you can get involved in building a movement for single payer that cannot be ignored. There you will find activities, materials and projects to help educate people in your community about single payer, raise money for the campaign, plan actions with friends, and get endorsements from your community leaders.

Let’s reach every Californian with the message that a single payer health care system will give all of us access to the health care we need at a cost we can all afford.

Become a monthly donor and help us to help you spread the word!

Over the next months we will continue to improve our website. We need your help to become a fully interactive site that will allow supporters like you to communicate and plan activities with others in your community. Your monthly contribution in whatever amount you choose will help make this happen.

Thank you for your continuing support for single payer and our work.

Sincerely,

Jeanne Ertle
Vice Chair, California OneCare

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.