Yes, you've all heard the bad news...Anthem Blue Cross has been cleared for a double-digit increase in premiums. There is legislature waiting in the California State Senate and Assembly that could change things...but it comes too late for this brazen increase. What do we do in the interim? Do we just mope? NO WAY!!! We take our frustration right to the source. OneCare Happy Hour is coming again, and this time we are going to go toe to toe with Wellpoint and Anthem Blue Cross. Because we will be RIGHT IN THEIR FACE, FOR THE FIRST TIME.
Follow me over the flip.
Tomorrow, August 27th, 2010, will be the first OneCare Happy Hour in a while. Sorry about the fact that we haven't been able to get them together all Summer because of various goings on. We're back and we're going to do these regularly, because SB 810, California OneCare, is headed next for the State Assembly to be voted on by the full Assembly, then it will be headed to Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk.
Of course, Herr Gropenfuhrer will not sign it. He'll probably wad it up and use it to light a cigar, knowing him. However, we are on the verge of some historic changes in the Golden State.
1.) We are very close to having a Democratic Supermajority in the State Assembly and State Senate. Only three more in each house will do it. With a 2/3 Democratic supermajority, a "Healthy Majority" if you will, gridlock will cease, and vetoes will be overridden.
2.) There is a proposition on the ballot this November, Proposition 25, that will mean only a simple majority will be needed for budgets and other money bills. No more 2/3rds majority needed!
and 3.) We can kick Meg "Buy It Now" Whitman's ass this November and get a living legend, Jerry Brown, back in the Governor's Office. Yes, Jerry's been cagey about whether or not he would sign SB 810. But HE CAN BE PERSUADED. Meg Whitman? Don't make me laugh. She will be the Gropenfuhrer's third term. And she will be even worse, because on the few moderate positions Schwarzenegger held, she's way to the Right of him.
SB 810 is the furthest along of all state Single Payer efforts. It is able to hit the ground running. We might not do as well as Taiwan, which got Single Payer in a year. But we look to our Neighbor to the North, Canada, with envy at their excellent health care system. How did they get it? Province by Province. Only after Single Payer was passed in each Canadian Province did a countrywide system of connections pass.
We can do this. We can sweep aside the namby-pamby, weak tea, compromised health insurance reform in the Golden State, and have the genuine article. It starts with you. Join us tomorrow.
Here's the map to get there.