California One Care is the focal organization for the Single Payer movement in California. Their plan is as ambitious as it is well planned and will be as visible as it will be instrumental in bringing about to the whole country the ONLY Public Option framework that makes sense.
The main attractions included the outrageous Paula Poundstone and the outstanding California Senator Mark Leno, author of the centerpiece of this 3 year plan Senate Bill 810 (SB 810).
But perhaps THE main attraction was the 32 30 second spots featuring Hollywood celebrities such as Lily Tomlin, Elliott Gould, Ed Begley Jr., Valerie Harper, Ken Howard, Connie Stevens, Laraine Newman, Susan Savage and many more.
The spots which will air starting in February 2010 after SB 810 is passed in Sacramento were produced by the indefatigable Don Schroeder who is the liaison between California One Care and Hollywood. He also presented the 3 year plan to make California be the first state to adopt Single Payer.
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News Release
September 03, 2009
For Immediate Release
Contact: (916) 324-5500
Print Version
Brown Launches Independent Inquiry into HMOs' Handling of Health Insurance Claims
Los Angeles - Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today announced that deputies in his office are launching an independent inquiry into how Health Maintenance Organizations review and pay insurance claims submitted by doctors, hospitals and other medical providers.
This investigation is prompted by reports that California's five largest health-insurance providers are denying insurance claims at rates of up to 39.6 percent.
"These high denial rates suggest a system that is dysfunctional, and the public is entitled to know whether wrongful business practices are involved," Brown said.
In the coming days and weeks, deputies will review records and will speak with individuals who have relevant knowledge of the issues raised.
The Los Angeles Times reported today that the California-based Consumer Watchdog has submitted a letter to Attorney General Jerry Brown calling for an investigation of insurance giants Wellpoint and United HealthCare (UHC). The complaint comes in response to the insurance companies’ practice of actively encouraging employees to engage in anti-health care reform political activity. According to Consumer Watchdog, "while coercive communications with employees may be legal, if abhorrent, in most states, California’s Labor Code appears to directly prohibit them." Read the rest at Think Progress
 On Friday in San Francisco, about 200 single-payer proponents held a rally in front of the Federal Building and headed in small groups to Rep. Nancy Pelosi's office to urge the speaker of the House, who was in China, to back single-payer legislation and give its supporters a seat at the table of the health reform debate. The public appeals were part of a series of demonstrations being held in more than 50 U.S. cities over the next few days to encourage lawmakers to enact a single-payer plan.
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About 1 million adult Californians seek health care in Mexico each year – and that figure is likely growing as the recession expands the ranks of the uninsured who are drawn to cheaper care south of the border, said the lead researcher of the first major report on the topic released Tuesday. Read More....
by Chuck Idelson | Guaranteed Healthcare
In Canada, it took the dogged determination of one province, Saskatchewan, and a visionary leader Tommy Douglas, to pave the path to a national health care system, which they call Medicare.
For all the detractors of the Canadian system in the studios of Fox News and the board rooms of rightwing think tanks, consider this one note: In 2004, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation conducted a national poll to select the greatest Canadian of all time. The winner in a landslide -- Tommy Douglas.
While the federal window remains open for reform, with two national single payer bills, John Conyers' HR 676 in the House and now Bernie Sanders' S 703 in the Senate, many nurses, doctors, and health activists are turning to the states to lead as well. More than a half dozen U.S. states now are considering legislation to establish single payer systems, essentially an expanded and updated form of the U.S. Medicare system to cover everyone in their states. Here's a roundup of some of the state bills:
California
The latest bill SB 810 passed its first legislative test Wednesday in the Senate Health Committee on a party line 7-4 vote before a room packed with nurses, doctors, medical students, California School Employees Association members, and healthcare activists.
In her lead testimony, Malinda Markowitz, RN, co-president of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee noted that "nurses know insurance companies don't provide any value whatsoever in the delivery of medicine. Under SB 810, we would be free of their interference, their denial of care, their massive bureaucracy, and their waste of healthcare dollars."
UC Irvine medical student Parker Duncan said that he did not want to “be in a world not doing what I was trained to do,” referring to the paperwork that is one of the expensive burdens that undermine the ability of the current system to deliver health care.
Twice this decade California's legislature passed earlier versions of SB 810 (SB 840 carried by now retired Sen. Sheila Kuehl), but the bills were vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. State activists say they will continue to push single payer in California, even if they need to wait until the next governor, who won't be Schwarzenegger, is elected in 2010.
Colorado
House Bill 1273 by Fort Collins Democrat John Kefalas, passed its first vote in the state House April 6. The bill sets up a 23-member commission to design a universal health-insurance system.
"Our current health-care system is not well," Kefalas said. "Our current health-care system is unsustainable, with the cost of health care and the numbers of the uninsured rising dramatically."
Press reports note a state Blue Ribbon Commission on Health Care Reform two years ago studied single payer and found it was the only approach that saved money compared to what Coloradans now spent on healthcare.
Illinois
HB 311, the Healthcare for All Illinois Act, sponsored by Rep. Mary Flowers, had its first hearing in March. Though no votes have been taken yet, the new Gov. Pat Quinn is a long time supporter of single payer reform.
At an introductory press conference, Brenda Langford, Cook County RN, said that “Illinois can once again be a symbol of hope and progress for our nation. Nurses are tired of watching our patients suffer from denial of care and lack of access to coverage. We see far too much of this at Cook County hospitals—and that’s why we support guaranteed healthcare through a single-payer system.”
Maine
LD 1365, sponsored by Brunswick Rep. Charles Priest, and co-sponsored from legislators from all over the state, had its first hearing April 13.
The hearing came just days after both houses of the Maine legislature passed resolutions calling on President Obama and Congress to enact federal single payer legislation. A poll this winter showed 52 percent of Maine physicians also favor single payer.
As Cathy Herlihy of the Maine State Nurses Association put it in a state forum featuring U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe, a single-payer system is the “the only solution,” she said. “We do not have time to wait. Our health should not be sacrificed for limited reforms.”.
Pennsylvania
Two single payer bills are alive in the state, House Bill 1660, the “Family and Business Healthcare Security Act of 2009,” and Senate Bill 300.
Gov. Ed Rendell has said that if a single payer bill were to make it to his desk, he will sign it, reports Chuck Pennachio of Health Care for All Pennsylvania.
The state Democratic House Caucus is holding a public forum on the bill Friday, April 17 at 10 a.m. at the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia, featuring speakers from Physicians for a National Health Program, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, and other single payer supporters..
The hearing comes on the heels of a resolution passed by the Philadelphia City Council calling for both state and federal lawmakers to establish a single-payer health system.
Other states
Single payer bills are also on the docket in Minnesota, Missouri, and Washington.
By Lisa Girion and Noam Levey
A wide array of forum participants, including hospital and insurance company executives and the mother of a teenager who died from a preventable hospital-acquired infection, gave voice to the growing desire for change. But the presentation was light on details.
Universal coverage -- health insurance for all Americans -- was widely touted, but there was no discussion of how to achieve that goal.
The forum, the fifth in a series the White House organized around the country over the last month, comes as senior Democrats on Capitol Hill move ahead on drafting legislation to be introduced later this spring to overhaul the nation's healthcare system.
The president and his congressional allies have pledged that the bill will expand coverage to some 46 million uninsured people, rein in costs and improve the quality of care.
The White House billed the five forums as a way to get public input. But the invitation-only event in Los Angeles was clearly programmed to showcase the broad goals Obama has said he wants included in the legislation, including an emphasis on prevention, as well as secure and affordable coverage for everyone, regardless of age or preexisting conditions. Outside the forum, the California Nurses Assn., Physicians for a National Health Program and other groups drew hundreds to a rally in support of the so-called single-payer option, which would put government in charge of organizing and purchasing healthcare and leave the private insurance market in tatters.
Deborah Burger, co-president of the California-based nurses union, a Schwarzenegger foe, said she feared that the single-payer approach would not be considered in Washington because of heavy lobbying by the insurance industry. She said the forum, where no single-payer proponent spoke, was just more "window dressing."
With the forums concluded, the action now shifts to Washington, where members of Congress also are working toward universal coverage through legislation that would modify the current private insurance market rather than replace it.
by paradocs2:
The [sic] is a disappointing report from the last White House Forum on Health Reform held in Los Angeles on April 6. My general impression is that the attendees are being used as window dressing to preserve the power of the insurance companies.
I am a family doctor who has practiced in San Diego for almost thirty years. Five per cent of my patients are uninsured, 10 per cent are on welfare (MediCal) and many are under-insured or loosing their insurance. Today April 6, 2009, by personal invitation of the Governor of California, I attended the last of the five regional White House fora on health care reform. I was in San Diego along with about 100 other folks, participating in a live satellite feed from the main meeting in Los Angeles. Governor Schwarzegger with the ease of Hollywood hogged the microphone extolling his long lived interest in health reform and healthy lifestyles without mentioning his twice vetoing our state’s single payer legislation (SB 840.)
His attitude was seconded by SEIU representatives and the AARP invitee (who neglected to reveal she worked for an insurance broker not a patient advocacy organization.)The whole tenor of the meetings revolved, in truth, around using the memes of technology and prevention to avoid any substantive discussion about social justice, the uninsured, the poor performance of our medical system, the role of private insurance companies, or the current constrained discussions in Congress.
Rarely was any distinction made between guaranteed and subsidized access to private health insurance and guaranteed access to universal medical care. No mention was made of the excessive inefficiencies, costs, and profits of the insurance companies. Early on in the program the health reform activist Anthony Wright representing HEALTH ACCESS was personally called out of the audience to give his reflections. Remarkably he was uncritical of the process and content of the meeting. He made no mention of the single payer option but did sneak in the sole mention of support for a public plan along side the commercial ones.
The single exception to all this obfuscation was the great Marion Wright Edleman who gave many embarrassing international comparisons in health care outcomes for women and children, comparing the USA to third world statistics, in her impassioned plea for real change. Nonetheless, it was apparent to me that everything is not on the table and the Obama Administration and Congress, along with state and local officials are using these fora to obscure the true causes of the failures of our contemporary medicinal care system and protect the politically potent lobbies.
A new study came out today from the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education called 'No Recovery in Sight: Health Coverage for Working-Age Adults in the United States and California'. The report claims that half a million people in California have lost their health insurance coverage during the recession Controversial Issues:
1. Will everyone be required to buy health insurance? If so, that's called an "individual mandate". During the campaign, then candidate Obama objected to the idea of requiring all adults to get health insurance saying that he thought people would want to buy it if it was affordable but you wouldn't have to force them to do it. The California health reform effort last year failed in part because of concerns people had about an individual mandate -- but Massachusetts has one and so far it has worked pretty well.
2. How much will we have to pay to get coverage if a bill is passed? Will it be affordable? What is affordable anyway? For many families, $500 a month for a family premium breaks the bank and keeps food off the table. No one knows the answers to these questions right now.
3. Can we reform the health insurance industry so that they can't refuse coverage if you've ever been sick? That is called "medical underwriting" and "pre-existing conditions". Last week, America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) and the BlueCross BlueShield Association (BCBSA) wrote a letter to the president offering to drop those practices if everyone was required to have insurance. It's a start. They certainly didn't offer to do that back in 1993 when the Clintons were trying to reform health care.
4. A lot of people think that if we offer health plans to people who don't get insurance through their employers, that there ought to be a choice between a private insurance plan and some sort of publicly administered plan. That "public plan option" is being fiercely debated in Congress right now. The private insurance plans worry that they can't compete successfully with a public plan for a whole lot of reasons I won't go into here, so they are opposing it. Look for this to be huge source of debate in the next few months. But do yourself a favor -- do your homework about it and don't believe everything you hear, like it would be socialism or government telling your doctors what to do. Read about the public plan idea and see if it makes sense to you.
5. Should our health care benefits be taxed? Or should the portion our employers pay be taxed? This is a hot potato for sure. The problem with this idea is that there is a LOT of money to be collected by taxing the benefits of people who have insurance to help pay for those who do not. Very tricky.
These are just a few of the issues that will need to be resolved before we get health coverage for everyone. Despite the fact that this is complicated, all you need to do to answer your own questions is look around you -- do you know someone who has insurance but still can't get the care they need? People who are a paycheck away from losing what they have? People who have to rely on the emergency room because they have no other way to get care? If you do, then you understand the meaning of "No recovery in sight" UNLESS we pass health reform.
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