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

Hernandez then complained about another popular bill, AB 52, that would have allowed state regulators to pre-approve insurance industry rate increases. He voted that one out of committee too, but said he wouldn’t support a final version unless changes were made. Under industry pressure, AB 52 soon died in the State Senate in late August. Well, turns out there may have been a reason for all of Hernandez’s hemming and hawing. According to an investigation by Think Progress, he’s been on the health lobbyists’ payroll:

State Sen. Ed Hernandez (D), the chair of the health committee, voted for AB 52 but told the press he could not support the bill in its current form. Hernandez’s income is boosted by about $69,000 a year in payments from Kaiser Health Plans, the state’s largest insurer (and one of AB 52′s most prominent opponents) in rent at an office building owned by Hernandez. The unusual arrangement might present a serious conflict of interest, but Hernandez’s spokesman told ThinkProgress that the rent payments began shortly before Hernandez entered the legislature, and that Kaiser maintains a community outreach center in the senator’s building. (emphasis is the author’s)

Hernandez’s spokesman can try to spin this stinky arrangement until he gets dizzy. It doesn’t matter that the rent payments were made before Hernandez became a state senator. What’s problematic is that Hernandez continued this financial relationship with Kaiser while still sitting on the state Senate Health Committee. At the very least, Hernandez should have recused himself from the vote on AB 52. It makes one wonder if there are any other little arrangements the senator has got going with his health lobbyist buddies? The stench of corruption here is just too great to ignore.  It’s no wonder that we, the people of California, and the United States can’t get the kind of legislation passed that will truly address the dire problems we face, which includes replacing a morally bankrupt and deadly healthcare system with one that provides high-quality and affordable care to all. Our democracy has been hijacked by unethical business interests funneling money to our so-called “representatives” by means that may be legal in this country, but elsewhere, such “arrangements” would be called by another name.

Sylvia@californiaonecare.org

The California Chamber of Commerce has announced that AB 52 is on the top of its list of “Job Killers,” meaning they will make killing the legislation a top priority. The Chamber purports to represent all businesses in the state, but its board membership reveals mostly multinational corporations. Health insurers have a seat at the table. California Chamber board members include Greg Adams, a top Kaiser Health Plans official, David Anderson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare of Southern California, and Pam Kehaly, President of Anthem Blue Cross of California. Diamond membership to Chamber requires annual dues of at least $100,000, suggesting that top insurers have funneled hundreds of thousands of their customers’ premium money to a right-wing lobbying group, rather than spending it on actual medical services.

This is more evidence of how the healthcare system in this country has become shamelessly corrupt. We have a situation where companies that are supposed to be looking after the health of their customers, are instead using their customers’ own money against them. No other country allows such an outrage, and we shouldn’t either.

Sylvia@californiaonecare.org

There is an immensely important vote on Wednesday in the health committee of the California State Senate.

It’s a vote on AB 52 to regulate health insurers, and give the insurance commissioner the ability to review, approve, deny or modify excessive health insurance rate hikes – much as regulators do now in California with auto insurance.

As you might imagine, the insurance industry is committed to doing whatever it takes to defeat this vote and the bill.

We need your help defeating the insurance industry.

Do you remember a few years ago, everyone lent a hand to try and save the life of Nataline Sarkisyan, who was being denied a lifesaving liver transplant by CIGNA?  We need the same sort of citizen firepower today.

We can defeat them tomorrow, if we all pitch in today.

A victory for the people in Sacramento will belong to all Americans, not just residents of California who desperately need some small relief from egregious insurer price gouging.

AB 52 would give the insurance commissioner, Dave Jones, the ability to regulate health insurance rate hikes.

“I have the authority right now to reject excessive rate hikes for auto insurance, homeowners insurance, property insurance, casualty insurance, but not health insurance,” said California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones.

The state Senate Health Committee is voting on Wednesday about whether AB 52 [Link to the bill here] can leave committee and be voted on by the entire State Senate.

What you can do today to help the battle for AB 52:

If you are a resident of California:

Please call these Democrats on the Senate Health Committee and demand that AB 52 go to the floor for an up or down vote. This is very similar to the marriage equality vote in New York State. The Republican controlled New York State Senate ‘allowed’ that bill to come before the full New York State Senate for an up or down vote.

These are the people in Sacramento we need you to call.

Senator Ed Hernandez (Chair) — 916-651-4024
Senator Elaine Alquist — 916-651-4013
Senator Kevin de Leon — 916-651-4022
Senator Mark DeSaulnier (AB 52 co-author) — 916-651-4007
Senator Michael Rubio — 916-651-4016
Senator Lois Wolk (AB 52 co-author) — 916-651-4005

Here also is a link to where you can find the telephone number of your state representative. Please call them NOW and 1) make sure they know they must support AB 52 and, 2) demand your representative tell Committee Chairman Senator Hernandez and other members of the Senate Health Committee to allow the bill out for a vote of the entire Senate.

If you’re not a resident of California:

If you don’t live in California, odds, are you know people in California.  This bill
is important to them whether they know it or not.  So how about giving them a call and asking them to give their State Senator a call.

Or even better, use the ‘share’ function at the top of the diary and email this diary to anyone and everyone you know in California, with a note that they should make a call. You can also put it on your Facebook page and put it on your Twitter stream.

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Tomorrow, the vote in the Senate Health Committee is to pass the bill out of committee so that it can be voted on by the entire Senate. You’d think this would be a straightforward vote, well you’d be very wrong. The California Association of Health Plans is spearheading a campaign of lies and scare tactics. Read some of their crap here.

Guess who doesn’t want this vote to happen?  You got it, the insurance industry.  These thugs are spending a fortune to defeat this lone vote. Kaiser alone has spent $700,000 to kill this and other health care bills in Sacramento.

I would say, in the struggle to make healthcare a right in this country, this vote today, in it’s own way, is as important as the marriage equality vote was in New York State. It’s a shot over the bow of this predatory industry.

Every nail in the coffin of the for-profit insurance industry, is an important victory for the American people–not just the people of California–and against these murderous corporations.

The other day, I explained why Wendell Potter called the Blue Shield profit cap ‘a PR ploy and bullshit’. Blue Shield did this in a crass attempt to deflect attention from the vote on AB 52.

The stakes could not be any higher. On July 1st, 1.5 million Californians received rate hikes, some as high at 92%.

I urge you to read this article entitled Health Insurers Use Scare Tactics to Block Regulation of Rate Inceases by Michael Hiltzik the business editor of the Los Angeles Times about how the insurance industry is fighting AB 52 with a massive heavily funded campaign of deceit, distortion and outright lies.

What we’re seeing here from the insurance industry, is but a small appetizer of how they will use every weapon at their disposal, once the campaign for single payer gets started in earnest.

Let’s show the murder by spreadsheet industry what we’re made of today.

Here again are the people we need you to call.

Senator Ed Hernandez (Chair) — 916-651-4024
Senator Elaine Alquist — 916-651-4013
Senator Kevin de Leon — 916-651-4022
Senator Mark DeSaulnier (AB 52 co-author) — 916-651-4007
Senator Michael Rubio — 916-651-4016
Senator Lois Wolk (AB 52 co-author) — 916-651-4005

Originally posted in the Daily Kos. Nyceve is a board member of California OneCare.

Friday, May 06, 2011

Senate Health Committee Moves Single-Payer Bill

by David Gorn
Many dozens of single-payer supporters crammed the Senate Committee on Health chambers on Wednesday for hearing on a bill that would set up a single-payer health system in California.
The supporters were respectful and emphatic as they all stepped, one by one, up to the microphone to voice their support for such a model. After all of the advocates took their turn and returned to their seats, Senate Health Committee Chair Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina) wanted to know if there were any more speakers, so he politely asked if there was anyone else in the audience who was in favor of the bill.
And a sea of hands went up, as nearly everyone in the audience spontaneously and quietly raised their hands.

That has been the history of single-payer legislation in California, with enthusiastic, almost fervid, support of it by many citizens and organizations in the state, but a tepid, almost embarrassed, reception by many lawmakers.

For the rest of the article: http://www.californiahealthline.org/capitol-desk/2011/5/senate-health-committee-moves-singlepayer-bill.aspx#ixzz1LcMwKKNT

Here’s how Wednesday’s vote on SB 810 broke down:

YES – Ed Hernandez, Elaine Alquist, Kevin de Leon, Mark DeSaulnier, Lois Wolk

NO – Joel Anderson, Sam Blakeslee, Tony Strickland

Sen. Michael Rubio – who had said last week that he was going to vote no on the bill – curiously, abstained. Was the insurance industry breathing down his neck? Rubio’s office had said the senator believes the federal Affordable Care Act is good enough to help Californians. But this “reform” was a huge giveaway to the insurance companies and keeps them and the whole for-profit system intact. The insurers know SB 810 would spell their doom. Only Sen. Rubio knows why he didn’t show up for that vote, but abstaining is just as bad as voting against. His constituents should give him an earful.

Despite overwhelming demand from the citizens of California for single payer, it’s frustrating to see so many of our legislators have to be dragged by their hair toward doing the right thing. Never mind that the United States is hopelessly out of step with the rest of the western world when it comes to healthcare delivery. And the ACA isn’t going change that. Only a comprehensive, not-for-profit universal healthcare system can. SB 810′s near death this week shows we have to be ever vigilant against the dark forces of the health insurance industry and their minions in the California Chamber of Commerce hell bent on digging their claws into many a politician.

Sylvia@californiaonecare.org

Leno’s office released the following statement after the vote:

“California is being overrun by out-of-control health care costs, which has a significant impact on the state budget, businesses and families,” said Senator Leno, D-San Francisco. “Our single payer plan not only guarantees universal coverage for all Californians, but also contains health care costs, which is essential to solving our state budget crisis in the long term.”

SB 810 creates a private-public partnership to provide every California resident medical, dental, vision, hospitalization and prescription drug benefits and allows patients to choose their own doctors and hospitals. This single payer, “Medicare for All” type of program works by pooling together the money that government, employers and individuals already spend on health care and putting it to better use by cutting out the for-profit middle man.

“We must continue to fight for healthcare for every Californian,” said DeAnn McEwen, President of the California Nurses Association and a nurse at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center. “Federal reform does not insure that all Californians will receive the care they need. President Obama noted that if states come up with a better plan, they could move forward. Californians deserve the best. Senate Bill 810 will provide every Californian with an excellent standard of care, improve health outcomes, and finally get healthcare costs under control.”

California currently spends $200 billion annually on a fragmented, inefficient health care system that wastes 30% of every dollar on administration. Under Senate Bill 810, that wasteful spending is eliminated. The bill creates no new spending, and in fact, studies show that the state would save $8 billion in the first year under this single-payer health care plan.

“Most doctors support a public-private partnership like Medicare, but with everybody covered, better benefits, and lower costs,” said Dr. Henry L. Abrons, president of Physicians for a National Health Program, California Chapter. “We need to spend our precious resources wisely. Federal reform won’t accomplish these things, but SB 810 will.”

“Health Care for All realizes that the only way to provide better health care for absolutely everyone, for less money than we’re now spending, and control rising costs, is to pass a bill like SB 810 and then make the necessary changes to finance it,” said Greg Brockbank, chair of Health Care for All, California. “We stand ready to do our part in making that happen, and then to help successfully implement it.”

SB 810 will now move forward to the Senate Appropriations Committee. It’s imperative that we keep calling and writing our legislators so we can get the bill through the entire Senate a fourth time, then on to the Assembly, and finally to Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk. Along with Vermont – which is poised to pass its own single payer bill – we have the chance to show the rest of the country that single payer works, and is the best and most fiscally responsible way to solve our healthcare crisis. Full care for all, for less!

To find your state Senator, click on this link. To find your Assemblymember, click this link.

Sylvia@californiaonecare.org

Sylvia@californiaonecare.org