Campaign For SB 810 – Single Payer Universal Health Care

Posts Tagged ‘PNHP’

Urgent Calls Needed for Single Payer Bill

February 15th, 2013

ACTION ALERT for California OneCare Supporters:

California’s Single Payer legislation is at risk!

Your Calls to Legislators are Needed Friday

Dear OneCare Supporters,

We join The Coalition for A Healthy California and PNHP-CA to seek your help starting Friday, February 15th.

Please take a moment to make brief, polite phone calls to encourage an Assemblymember to author and introduce single payer legislation in the Assembly by next Friday, February 22nd.

If the bill is not introduced in time, there will be no single payer legislation this session, which lasts two years.

Background:

Senator Mark Leno authored the single payer legislation, SB 810 in the past two sessions (four years) and the bill failed last year by only two votes. At the end of last session, Senator Leno declined to author the bill again and suggested we seek an author in the Assembly. Despite concerted efforts, we have not been successful in finding an Assemblymember to introduce the bill. We are told that the legislature is focused on implementing the private health insurance exchange mandated by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Single payer bills SB-810 and SB-840, which passed twice, had over 40 Co-Authors in the legislature previous years!

Tell our Assemblymembers they can chew gum and walk at the same time! A single payer system cannot be implemented until 2017 – the date the Affordable Care Act allows states to go beyond the ACA and set up their own healthcare systems. We can both implement the health exchange this year and get California ready for single payer in 2017.

HOW TO HELP

Please call the following legislators starting Friday and request that they carry the single payer legislation. Ask for the legislative aide listed below. If they are not available, please ask for their voicemail and leave a brief message. If voicemail is unavailable, simply leave your message with the person who answers the phone. Be sure to mention if you happen to live in the district.

Here are the legislators to call, with the name of their aide:

1. Paul Fong (28, Sunnyvale): Andrew Medina (916-319-2028)

2. Bonnie Lowenthal (70, Long Beach): MJ Gascon Flores (916-319-2070)

3. Rob Bonta (18, Oakland): An-Chi Tsou (916-319-2018)

4. Richard Gordon (24, Los Altos): Angela Pontes (916-319-2024)

5. Mariko Yamada (4, Vacaville): Robert McLaughlin (916-319-2004)

6. Mark Stone (29, Monterey, Santa Cruz): Arianna Smith (916-319-2029)

7. Shirley Weber (79, San Diego): Crystal Quezada (916-319-2079)

PLEASE CALL!

We need and appreciate your ACTION NOW. We also appreciate your generous DONATIONS. With your help, WE WILL WIN!

Sincerely,

Andrew McGuire, Executive Director, California OneCare Campaign & California OneCare Education Fund

(Our thanks to our friends at PNHP California (Physicians for a National Health Program – California) for this Alert)

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Tags: Assembly California OneCare Mark Leno Physicians for a National Health Program PNHP sb 810 single payer

100 Economists call for single-payer, universal health care NOW!

December 28th, 2012

What a great New Year’s Message:

100 Economists call for single-payer, universal health care NOW!

Dear California OneCare Supporters,

Increase the eligibility age for Medicare to 67? Is Congress completely crazy?

We should be reducing the Medicare eligibility age, not increasing it. Healthcare costs when you reach 65 are greater than at any other time of your life. The notion that it’s good fiscal policy to wait a couple of years until the cost of treatment for many people will become more expensive due to delayed diagnoses and treatment is wrongheaded and cynical.

In fact, a small incremental increase in the payroll tax (currently just 1.49%) could cover everyone, young and old. That’s the direction Congress should take, and it’s exactly what we are fighting for in California.

At California OneCare, we’re educating and advocating for a single, public, not-for-profit health-insurance plan that will cover all Californians and be a model for the nation. Our programs educate and empower people on a personal, grassroots level because we believe that person-to-person contact is the only way to achieve lasting change with this complex issue. Check out our media page for more information.

Your support is appreciated by us and, yes, by economists:

Last week, more than 100 economists emphatically endorsed a national single-payer, Medicare-for-All system in the U.S. that covers all ages as the most humane and fiscally-responsible way to run a health care system: http://econ4.org/statement-on-healthcare

Your continued support and your donation at this time will enable California OneCare to expand outreach, organizing and advocacy in 2013.

Please mail a tax-deductible contribution today to California OneCare Education Fund, P.O. Box 5116, Novato, CA 94948. Or go to http://californiaonecare.org/donate/ today and make a contribution.

With your help, we will win!

Happy New Year to you and your family.

Yours in health care justice,

Andrew McGuire

Executive Director, California OneCare Campaign

Our thanks to Dr. Don McCanne and our friends at Physicians for a National Health Program – California pnhpcalifornia.org for sharing this Econ4.org Statement on Healthcare.

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Tags: California California OneCare economists healthcare medicare Medicare for All Physicians for a National Health Program PNHP single payer Universal Health Care

Join the Doctors’ Salute to Senator Sheila Kuehl, Oct. 21

October 5th, 2012

Join the Doctors’ Salute to Senator Sheila Kuehl

“Lifetime Achievement Award”

Physicians for National Health Program – CA’s

Jazz & Champagne Brunch Gala Fundraiser!

Sunday, October 21, at 11:30 AM

at LA’s Catalina Jazz Club

Dear California OneCare Supporters,

As a California OneCare and single payer supporter, you know only too well how much we all owe to former State Senator Sheila Kuehl for her unwavering fight for true health care reform in California. Our friends at PNHP-California are presenting this Salute and Jazz Brunch Gala and Fundraiser and you are invited.

Senator Sheila Kuehl authored landmark legislation, SB-840, that would have transformed this state and led the nation to adopt a single payer health care system to cover all residents. Senator Kuehl’s efforts pushed through positive votes in both the Senate and Assembly in both 2006 and 2008. Then Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, vetoed both bills, calling the bill “socialized medicine.”

I’m sure many of you will want to extend your thanks to both Senator Kuehl and to the PNHP-CA team for their consistent advocacy for single payer legislation in California. This Jazz and Champagne Brunch event is a fund raiser with both live and silent auctions and all are welcomed, on a first-come basis.

For tickets and reservations, go to pnhpgala.eventbright.com For more information, view the event flyer here.

For those of you who would like to support the work of PNHP-California but can’t make it to the gala, please consider purchasing tickets and donating them for use by our CaHPSA students and/or members with limited income. For information on sponsorship levels, or to place an ad in the event’s Tribute Journal, please call PNHP at 510-590-9691. More sponsorship information is available at www.pnhpcalifornia.org/gala.

Thanks for your continued support for the California OneCare Campaign and for single payer reform in California. With your help, WE WILL WIN.

Sincerely,

Andrew McGuire, Executive Director, California OneCare Campaign

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Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger California California OneCare Physicians for a National Health Program PNHP Sheila Kuehl single payer