Here’s a blast from the past. This 16-minute video from the early 1990s by Off Center Video features physicians, economists and ordinary Canadians explaining Canada’s universal healthcare system. The presentation is introduced by the late Minnesota Senator, Paul Wellstone. Imagine if every household in America could see this. Share with your family and friends!
Sylvia@californiaonecare.org
Rep. Jim McDermott, a Democrat from Washington, will soon introduce legislation that would allow states to use federal funds to create their own single payer plans. From The Los Angeles Times:
If passed into law — admittedly a long shot with Republicans controlling the House of Representatives — McDermott’s State-Based Universal Healthcare Act would represent a game changer for medical coverage in the United States.
It would, for the first time, create a system under which a Medicare-for-all program could be rolled out on a state-by-state basis. In California’s case, it would make coverage available to the roughly 7 million people now lacking health insurance.
McDermott’s bill would be a boon for those of us who support SB 810, the California bill that would establish a state Medicare-for-all system. For one, the legislation would address the cost issue of establishing single payer in California by allowing state tax revenues to be combined with money for Medicare and Medi-Cal beneficiaries. However, the bill is contingent on the Affordable Care Act, and the accompanying state opt-out waiver, surviving a U.S. Supreme Court challenge.
If Republicans were truly interested in states’ rights, they would support this bill. What is wrong with the states experimenting with alternatives to the ACA? What is wrong with trying to prove that single payer can work? Isn’t innovation an American virtue?
To show your support for Rep. McDermott’s State-Based Universal Healthcare Act, go to his web site here.
Sylvia@CaliforniaOneCare.org
Our public leaders here in United States like to proclaim that we’re number one at everything, despite evidence to the contrary. When it comes to health care, now developing nations are beginning to leave us in the dust. In the article “U.S. lags in global healthcare push,” on last Saturday’s front page of the Los Angeles Times, China, Mexico, Ghana and even formerly war-torn Rwanda have embarked on efforts to expand health coverage to their citizens.
“This is truly a global movement,” said Dr. Julio Frenk, a former health minister in Mexico and dean of the Harvard School of Public Health. “As countries advance, they are realizing that creating universal healthcare systems is a necessity for long-term economic development.”
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But the international drive to provide healthcare for everyone is increasingly leaving America behind.
“We are really an outlier,” said David De Ferranti, a former World Bank vice president who heads the Results for Development Institute, an international nonprofit based in Washington.
This situation is increasingly becoming an international embarrassment for the U.S., as well as an impediment to our nation’s economic progress. Developing countries know they cannot compete globally with an unhealthy workforce. Yet, the U.S. continues to limp along, wasting resources on an inefficient for-profit healthcare system, and seeing its global economic dominance erode. Americans are throwing their hard-earned money down a health insurance rat-hole, leaving them unable to put that money toward paying off mortgages, financing education, or buying cars or other consumer products.
America’s inability to expand affordable coverage to all really comes down to a toxic combination of political dysfunction, corporate greed and a troubling lack of social solidarity, which fuels appeals to selfishness and bigoted attitudes toward the poor and vulnerable. We have one major political party refusing to extend health care as a right to all Americans, while the other major party will not fight for, let alone consider, the best option to our healthcare crisis – single payer. And we have a Supreme Court that next month could undo programs that provide health care to the poorest Americans. While we’re fighting amongst ourselves over an issue that should bring all Americans together, the rest of the world is passing us by.
Sylvia@CaliforniaOneCare.org
On May Day – also known as International Workers Day – the Campaign for a Healthy California, Occupy LA and Occupy LA Wellness held a rally in support of universal health care. The rally at Mariachi Plaza in East Los Angeles attracted several hundred people, and was part of various May Day actions held around the city. The event featured speakers and musical entertainment. A highlight of the rally was a street theater performance, featuring a giant papier mache puppet representing California families battling another giant puppet representing the health insurance industry. California OneCare board member Alberto Saavedra played the emcee. The show was an instant hit.
Sylvia@CaliforniaOneCare.org
