The legislative fight, anyway.
On April 27th, the California Senate Health Committee will hold its first hearing on SB.810, a bill sponsored by Senator Mark Leno to establish a single payer health insurance system throughout California.
In the cities of Sacramento and Oakland California, the good fight was recently fought for eight days by members of and volunteers for Remote Area Medical. They provided free vision, dental and medical care to thousands of people over the course of their visit -- a visit that could no longer be necessary if we win can the war against health insurers and for the right to health care.
Now it's our turn. Let me show you how you can make your voice heard.
There are (at least) two distinct California organizations actively promoting single payer health care in California, Single Payer Now and California OneCare.
Saturday I received a notice in the mail from Single Payer Now about upcoming events. If you are a Bay Area resident, you may be able to join in on their trip to Sacramento in support of single-payer on April 27th:
On Wednesday, April 27, Senator Mark Leno will hold a noon press conference in Sacramento on SB 810, the California Universal Healthcare Act. At 1:30pm, the Senate Health Committee will discuss SB 810. We want the capitol to be full of single payer supporters attending these events...
Please consider signing up to take our buses to Sacramento. We are organizing the buses with the California Alliance for Retired Americans.
We will be leaving San Francisco at 9:50 AM and from the Ashby BART at 10:20 AM. We will pass the hat to cover expenses, and a lunch will be provided. It costs us about $40 per person. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Again, you must RSVP for the bus. To reserve a seat on the bus ... call Don Bechler at 415-695-7891.
If you cannot go, please consider making a financial contribution.
And/or
At your request, we will mail you health care postcards as a tool to open conversations with folks about single payer and SB 810.
Let us know how many cards you would like, and where to mail them. Email us or call (415) 695-7891
California OneCare is also gearing up for the April 27th hearing:
On April 27, the Senate Health Committee of the California State Legislature is scheduled to hear the single payer bill, SB 810. Sen. Mark Leno, SB 810's sponsor, re-introduced the bill in February. SB 810 successfully passed both the State Senate and the Assembly during Arnold Schwarzenegger's tenure as governor, but on the third try last year, the bill got stalled in the Assembly.
We need the fourth time to be a charm. Gov. Jerry Brown and our state representatives need to hear from all of us that every Californian deserves equal access to quality, affordable medical care. They need to know that we are sick and tired of insurance companies taking more and more of our hard-earned money just to satisfy their insatiable greed. They must know that no one should be allowed to profit from people who are sick. We must tell them that the federal health reform law is not good enough.
California OneCare provides contact information for your representatives. If you would like to directly contact Governor Jerry Brown or your State Senator, or the Senators on or the chairperson of the Senate Health Committee...
I'd like to leave you with the story of one family that made it to the RAM clinic. It's copied almost verbatim from a powerful comment by new Kossack bisonoric left in a previous diary of mine about the Oakland clinic. (Stan Brock, mentioned in the story, is the force behind Remote Area Medical.)
My family & I arrived shortly after midnight & stood in line for RAM's last day in Oakland. They handed out 400 tickets; I was #390. I'm an unemployed cancer survivor; my unemployment benefits ran out in January, and I had to give up my COBRA recently because I couldn't afford the payments to Kaiser. My mom is 74, had 3 broken molars + 2 infected teeth. She hasn't had an eye exam in years, and buys her glasses at the dollar store. My son is college aged, uninsured, and had 2 wisdom teeth that needed to come out + a cavity.
We waited in the cold with everyone else, and entered the building around 9 a.m. We were told to choose either dental or vision care, because of a shortage of time & practitioners. We were treated with kindness & professionalism by RAM & Tzu Chi volunteers. Amazing how efficient the whole process was!
Every volunteer I met was happy to be there; some of the practitioners had found out about the event while watching the news on Friday or Saturday, and decided to volunteer their time. I hugged & thanked the chiropractor (I wasn't the only one) after he gave me an adjustment, and could see that he was deeply touched. I think he may have treated over 400 people in ~12 hours.
As we were leaving, I saw Stan Brock. I held his hand, and thanked him for facilitating RAM. He said,"It's but a small thing." I told him, "No; it's no small thing to every one of the people who received treatment today. It's enormous, huge." Stan Brock is absolutely right; but I maintain that at the end of every RAM clinic, lives are powerfully changed.
As hideous as it is that folks in this country can't see properly for the price of an eye exam & glasses, or wake each day with terrible pain from a mouthful of decayed/infected teeth, or die silently from an undiagnosed/untreated disease-- it's these rare "small things" that can effect such a powerful change in a person's life.
There's a divide between the spectacle created when RAM rolls into town, and the individual who receives long delayed treatment from a volunteer at a RAM clinic.
Most every person in that line I stood in held the opinion that:
-- Healthcare access in this country is designed to cater to those who can pay for it, and those who can't? Well, we're just f**k*d.
-- And it doesn't look like it's getting any better soon enough.
-- And: Is this what the GOP thinks will fill the gap in lieu of real healthcare reform?? (that one got a lot of laughs)
When we arrived home, we were sleep deprived, had gauze packed mouths, and we had all experienced something powerful. My daughter (who went to school like a good kid on Tuesday) asked me what happened; I started to tell her, and began sobbing. I felt overwhelmed by the whole experience; I'm angry & brokenhearted that average folks can't get the help they need until things are near/at a crisis point. I'm moved by the generosity & compassion of the RAM volunteers, and the people who stood in line.
Every congressperson & senator should be required to spend one day volunteering at a RAM event. Just my two cents.
How about mailing that to the California Senate Health Committee?