The Campaign for a Healthy California on Wednesday denounced the failure of the California Senate to pass SB 810, the California Universal Care Act. The bill died when it remained two votes short of passage.

Democrats fell short of previous levels of support, which successfully passed similar bills through the legislature twice before, only to be vetoed by then Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. This year 19 voted in favor of the bill, two against, and four abstaining in spite of intensive efforts at persuasion by grassroots proponents. The bill received no support from Republicans.

…

CHC member organizations spoke out against the disappointing vote, “Nurses will not give up on winning guaranteed universal healthcare, like SB 810” stated DeAnn McEwen, RN, Co-President of the California Nurses Association, “because we will not abandon our patients who need this vital reform.”

In other words, the movement for universal access to health care in California will not be deterred by a few short sighted lawmakers. At a time like this, I like to think of Ghandi’s famous quote: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

Sylvia@californiaonecare.org

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

Sylvia@californiaonecare.org

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

Join the Campaign for a Healthy California to rally in solidarity with CA-Health Professional Student Alliance Lobby Day in support of SB-810, The California Universal Health Care Act

NEW ORLEANS STYLE FUNERAL MARCH & SPEAK OUT

MONDAY, JAN. 9, 2012

11:AM: Assemble at Pershing Square, 532 South Olive St., Los Angeles 90013 (Pershing Square Metro)

11:15AM: Funeral Procession

12PM: Speak Out and Rally at “Insurance Giant” Headquarters

*End Corporate Control of Health Care

*Health Care is a Human Right

*Patients Before Profits

BRING YOUR STORIES AND PICTURES!

Contact: info@healthycaliforniacampaign.org for more info or call: 323-316-8933

]]> http://californiaonecare.org/healthcare-for-the-99-march-speak-out-jan-9-2012/feed/ 0 http://californiaonecare.org/healthcare-reform-2-0-woolhandler-and-himmelstein/ http://californiaonecare.org/healthcare-reform-2-0-woolhandler-and-himmelstein/#comments Tue, 13 Dec 2011 21:38:01 +0000 admin http://californiaonecare.org/?p=8987

Healthcare Reform 2.0

Comment:

L.A. County expands no-cost healthcare

By Anna Gorman

Los Angeles Times, October 9, 2011

In one of the largest expansions of health coverage to the uninsured, Los Angeles County is enrolling hundreds of thousands of residents in a publicly funded treatment program and setting the stage for the national healthcare overhaul.

The county hopes to register as many as 550,000 patients and is assigning them to medical clinics for services at no cost to them.

Under President Obama’s controversial healthcare overhaul, millions more uninsured Californians will be eligible for Medicaid — the healthcare program for the poor — beginning in 2014. Even as the debate over the law continues in Washington, California is starting that expansion now and using federal dollars to do so. Altogether, the state expects to receive $2.3 billion to expand and modernize its Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal, now available only to certain low-income residents.

In L.A. County, the stakes are high. In 2014, the newly insured county residents will be able to seek treatment wherever they want. To keep them with the county, health leaders recognize that they must make the system one of choice rather than of last resort. Otherwise, the only patients left will be illegal immigrants and others still ineligible for public coverage.

“Our survival depends on it,” said Mitchell Katz, director of the county Department of Health Services. Unless the healthcare system improves, he said, “if people have choice, they won’t choose us and the system will implode.”

Health workers began signing patients up for a program called Healthy Way L.A. in July and so far have enrolled 24,000, many of whom are receiving services. County residents are eligible if they are between the ages of 19 and 64, citizens or permanent residents of five years and earn less than 133% of the federal poverty level (about $14,500 for an individual and $29,700 for a family of four).

The coverage is not insurance and cannot be used outside of L.A. County, but it does give patients the ability to receive free primary and specialty care, mental health services, chronic disease management, medication and emergency treatment. Most of the enrollment is being done when patients go to the county’s network of hospitals and clinics.

Over the next two years, the county will pay half the cost for Healthy Way L.A. — or about $300 million — and the federal government will pay the other half. By 2014, when the patients become eligible for Medi-Cal, the federal government will pick up the entire tab, which will help bolster the financially strapped county’s health system.

http://www.latimes.com/health/la-me-health-reform-la-20111010,0,4242519.story

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

This admirable effort in Los Angeles County to include more uninsured adults in its health services programs demonstrates some of the complexities that arise in trying to coordinate health care financing and health care delivery under our current dysfunctional, fragmented system that is being expanded by the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Traditionally, the county has been the health care provider of last resort. If we had a financing system that covered everyone, there would be no need to support separate financing of a welfare program for low-income individuals, though there would still be a need to be sure that adequate facilities were available in areas with high rates of poverty that might not attract private health care providers.

Between this need to ensure adequate capacity in underserved areas, and the anticipation that there will still be tens of millions of uninsured individuals, forward thinking county health administrators are wise to try to work within the current system, with the anticipated changes under the Affordable Care Act, to be sure that care will be available for these underserved populations. The efforts in Los Angeles County can serve as a model for other counties throughout the nation, though the task is difficult because of the budget constraints that states and counties now face.

So how is Los Angeles County going to finance the safety-net in an unstable environment during the health reform transition? The first phase is to expand the safety-net to cover uninsured low-income adults. This is not an insurance program, but it relies on a contribution of federal funds that would pay about half of the expansion in clinic services for this population. Thus it expands the traditional role of the county as the provider of last resort, with the addition of much needed federal funds.

By providing these patients with a primary care medical home now, the transition to a program financed completely by the expansion of Medicaid will be much smoother.

But then what? The 100 percent federal financing of the Medicaid program applies only to the expansion of coverage for these newly enrolled low-income adults, and it is only temporary, designed as an enticement to states to roll out their Medicaid expansions under ACA. States are already facing severe fiscal problems in trying to finance their Medicaid programs, so what will they do when the extra federal subsidies end for these state programs with greatly expanded enrollments?

This policy nightmare was created by our politicians who decided above all to protect the markets for the private insurance industry catering to all of the population sectors that are above poverty levels. For those in poverty, they decided to use chum money to get the states to expand their Medicaid programs, but then revert to the chronic underfunding that characterizes this program, but which would now be compounded by expanded enrollment.

What would have happened had our legislators instead enacted a single payer national health program? Full federal funding would have been provided for these low-income individuals on an equal basis as with everyone else. Income would play no role in a person’s ability to clear the financial barriers to health care. The safety-net facilities provided by the counties would be fully funded by the program.

Because of a lack of interest by the private health care sector in serving regions with high poverty levels, it is likely that the counties would continue as administrators of these institutions, but they would do so knowing that adequate federal funding would always be there through the single payer national health program.

Think of how much easier the task would be, under a single payer system, for Mitchell Katz, the director of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, to prevent the implosion of the county administered health facilities, which we will need regardless of whatever financing system we end up with. But then, Mitchell Katz isn’t looking for a way to make his job easier; he is looking for a way to be sure that health care will always be there for everyone who needs it.

Re-posted with permission from pnhp.org.

The Vermont Legislature has pioneered a bill creating a path for a universal, publicly funded healthcare system. James Haslam from the Vermont Workers’ Center, is coming to California to share their story and inspire Californians to do the same. Also speaking is Donna Smith, National Co-Chair for Progressive Democrats of America’s Healthcare NOT Warfare Campaign, who was featured in the movie Sicko. Sponsored by the Campaign for a Healthy California.

Schedule:

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18—LOS ANGELES
7:00 p.m. – Los Angeles ILWU Local 26 Union Hall
5625 South Figueroa Street, LOS ANGELES CA 90037
Map and directions here.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19—IRVINE
7:00 p.m. – Irvine United Congregational Church
4915 Alton Parkway, Irvine CA 92604
Map and directions here.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20—SAN DIEGO
6:30 p.m. – San Diego Machinist Local 725 Union Hall
5150 Kearny Mesa Road, San Diego CA 92111
Map and directions here.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21—SAN JOSE
7:00 p.m. – South Bay CLC, Hall A
2102 Almaden Rd., SAN JOSE CA 95125
Map and directions here.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22—SAN FRANCISCO
10:00 a.m. – San Francisco St. Mary’s Cathedral
1111 Gough Street, San Francisco CA 94109
Map and directions here.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22—WATSONVILLE
3:00 p.m. – Watsonville Civic Plaza
275 Main Street, Watsonville CA 95076
Map and directions here.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 23—SACRAMENTO
1:00 p.m. – Sacramento CWA Local 9421 Union Hall
2725 El Camino Avenue, Sacramento CA 95821
Map and directions here.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 23—FRESNO
7:00 p.m. – Fresno CWA Local 9408 Union Hall
4422 E. Ashlan Ave, Fresno CA 93726
Map and directions here.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 24—CHICO
6:30 p.m. – Chico Trinity United Methodist Church
285 E. 5th Street, Chico CA 95928
Map and directions here.

Some complain that the occupiers’ message isn’t clear. “What do they want? What are their demands?” the skeptics ask. But those who ask these questions aren’t paying attention. I believe the message is very clear. People want to remove the vise-like grip that corporate America has on every aspect of their lives. In a democracy, the people rule – not corporations. Health care is an essential part of life that corporations have absolute control over in America.

A small group of billionaires operating in shiny glass towers with virtually no accountability to the public are deciding who lives and who dies. These health insurance executives – denizens of Wall Street – have set themselves up as Greek gods on Mount Olympus. It’s time to topple them from that perch, and turn our healthcare system over to the people. For in a democracy, we the people – not the corporations – should run our health care system via a national health insurance model: Medicare for All. Below are voices from actions around the country, talking about how a broken healthcare system has affected their lives.

###

Dr. Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Program confronts health insurance executives in Washington D.C. as part of an action by October2011.org, a group in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Personal stories from Occupy Wall Street in New York.

Occupy Philadelphia

Occupy Minneapolis

Occupy Denver

Occupy Oakland

Sylvia@californiaonecare.org

Some Common Ground for Legal Adversaries on Health Care

By Adam Liptak

The New York Times, September 29, 2011

The 2010 health care overhaul law has provoked an unprecedented clash between the federal government and 26 states, dividing them on fundamental questions about the very structure of the federal system. But the two sides share a surprising amount of common ground, too, starting with their agreement in briefs, filed on Wednesday, that the Supreme Court should resolve the clash in its current term.

Their briefs also reflect agreement on matters of substance. The two sides, along with the judges in the majority in the appeals court decision most likely to be reviewed by the justices, all said the dispute is about means rather than ends. There are other ways, they said, for Congress to achieve near-universal health coverage, some of them more expansive than what was enacted.

“Both sides agree that Congress has the constitutional power to enact a national health care system that raised taxes to support a single government agency that pays all medical bills, just like Medicare,” said Walter Dellinger, who served as acting solicitor general in the administration of President Bill Clinton and supports the law.

Randy E. Barnett, a lawyer for some of the plaintiffs who on Wednesday sought Supreme Court review, made essentially the same point. “What I’ve said from Day 1,” he said, “is that if Medicare is constitutional then Medicare-for-everyone is constitutional.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/30/us/health-care-adversaries-have-common-ground.html

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

The Affordable Care Act represents the most expensive model of reform and yet falls short on universality and affordability, and now it is being challenged as a violation of the Constitution. Why are we defending it when the least expensive model that actually would accomplish our goals has been declared by all parties to be compliant with the Constitution?

Fast tracking the decision is great. Once the legal issues are dispensed with, we can look at the mess we have left, reject it, and move on to enacting an improved Medicare for all.

Additional comment from Merrill Goozner:

What’s interesting about rising insurance premiums is that they are way out of line with the rise in costs, which was only around 4% last year in nominal dollars, which in inflation-adjusted dollars would be just a 2% increase. Both Medicare total expenditures and insurance total expenditures rose (which, after adjusting for inflation was the same rate as economic growth; GDP rose 2.6% in 2010). It was one of the lowest increases in decades, as health care’s share of the economy did not increase for the first time in many years.

So why the hike in premiums. A Goldman Sachs analyst quoted in the WSJ story earlier this week attributed the outsized premium increases to insurance
companies padding their bottom lines.

I blogged on it here: http://gooznews.com/?p=3215

Re-posted with permission from pnhp.org.