Vermont recently passed single payer health care, and in California, our legislature has previously passed a single payer bill known as SB 810, only to have republican governor Arnold Whatshisname veto it twice. Well guess what Arnold, SB 810 is back, and we are going to get a democrat, Jerry Brown, to sign it! Here is what some of us are doing about that.
Our group in Riverside is having a public forum to support SB 810 and single payer in California. We have rented a hall* at the local Universalist Unitarian Church, of which I am a member, and will have our forum on Saturday, May 14th, at 10 AM.
Singlepayernow.net is providing us a well qualified and knowledgeable guest speaker named Don Bechler, and we will have promotional information to hand out. We will provide information and a CALL TO ACTION, suggesting what interested persons can actually go out and do to help implement a single payer system in California.
Thanks in part to public pressure, SB 810 recently was voted out of the state senate health committee and is going to the appropriations committee next for budgetary analysis and approval. You can read about that vote here
http://californiaonecare.org/...
You and your friends can do something similar where you live if you choose to do so. Why wait for the federal government to quit squandering the wealth of the nation on corporate wars instead of doing something good for the common benefit of all US residents? Find local citizens who support health care for all instead of profits for corporations, group together, organize, run for office at the local and state level.
Promoting such a forum as ours is a learning experience - media has changed drastically over the past decade, now it is all online. No more snail mailing information to the local newspapers. One must post it on the internet 'calendars', although listings will still appear in print. And finding contact information for various political groups and associations who may favor single payer is challenging, but once you get a list, people on that list are willing to spread the news.
Fortunately I have my own website, and I have created a page for our single payer event with details, links, and a map. You can view that page here if you wish:
http://www.msongs.com/...
At the moment, predicting turnout for this event is a challenge. It may be that there will be just a few of us, or there might be a big crowd. Who knows? But we are doing something to help get health care for everyone in California.
*Even though I am a church member and health care for all is a platform of the national Universalist Unitarian Association, I must pay to rent the hall, as a private party, because I identified SB 810 as a bill promoted by the Democratic Party, and therefore made it a partisan political issue, according to the church. My right to free speech and association is worth the rental fee IMO.