For public health: Vote Measure 'A - OK'
Kate Scannell, The Oakland Tribune
Article Last Updated: Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 9:22:30 AM PST

TO a large extent, how "Measure A" fares in our next election will reflect how deeply we value the humane treatment of all persons, and how genuinely we are able to assume the compassionate stance of "walking in another's shoes." It will also provide a yardstick by which we will measure public understanding about the reality of the health care crisis in our county and nation.

Measure A is an Alameda County measure submitted to voters for the March 2 Primary Election that requests a half-cent sales tax increase -- that is, 50 fifty cents on every $100 -- throughout the next 15 years in order to maintain our county's already stressed trauma, emergency and medical services.

It would be rewarding enough to enact this measure that strictly promises to use a tax increase for health care services for "indigent, low income and uninsured children, families and seniors, to retain qualified nurses and health care professionals and to prevent closure of county clinics and the Alameda County Medical Center."

In this troubled wartime economy rife with partisan spending politics and government budget deficits, Measure A provides a rare and unqualified opportunity to feel good about paying a tax.

And yet, Measure A provides even more than an appeal to our conscience and an opportunity to manifest our humanity. It does more than support the ailing Alameda County Medical Center, which includes three hospitals (Highland, Fairmont, and the John George Psychiatric Pavilion) and three community clinics that serve our county's poor and uninsured people.

What Measure A also provides is a reality check for each of us -- something sorely missing in our current cultural climate of grossly unreal reality shows, hyperbolic TV talk shows bursting with hyped lives, and governmental messages that are manipulated to serve political agendas.

Measure A reminds us that a real woman with weeping sores studding her swollen legs is trying to survive her life and maintain her minimum-wage job and low-rent apartment in Alameda, and our decision about the Measure decides whether she is voted off the island.

Measure A reminds us that suffering can be tricky, it can look like something other than the in-your-face ranting of talk show guests who feel thematically wronged; it can look like a shy and quiet child whose teeth have rotted, or a father so fatigued by working two jobs that he can't complain about his unchecked diabetes.

Measure A asks us to remember that, despite our different versions of our political and philosophical truths, we are still connected by the universal certainty of suffering and death, and by the unpredictability of our futures.

An unforeseen moment in time -- a car "coming out of nowhere," a child born with severe disabilities, a job that simply disappears, an elderly parent who suddenly needs caregiving -- can move any one of us from solid financial security in our current lives to the threadbare safety net of our county medical system.

The reality check also includes an estimation of our awareness about the social value of our public health system in stemming communicable diseases like TB, syphilis, or AIDS in populations of people who have nowhere else to obtain care.

It should come as no surprise that the Alameda County Medical Center faces an urgent need for operating funds. For a long while, we've heard about its perennial budget deficit

-- currently, $71 million -- and last year we witnessed the closure of two of its outpatient clinics. As we should know, health care across the entire country is under siege.

IF passed, Measure A aims to raise $90 million per year, three-fourths of which will be allocated to the

Alameda County Medical Center. The remainder of the money will be distributed to private hospitals and medical services to help compensate them for the care they deliver to our poor and uninsured residents who have come to rely increasingly on private emergency rooms to access basic medical treatment.

There is ample cause to support Measure A. And yet, what would make it even more compelling would be the promise of direct oversight by the county Board of Supervisors themselves. Currently, the medical center is run by a group of people -- the Board of Trustees -- appointed by the supervisors in 1998. But the fact remains that, as honorable and efficient as the trustees may be, we have elected the supervisors, not the trustees, to run our county government. We have traveled to the voting booths and checked off the particular names of particular persons on ballots, choosing whose judgment and character and skills should inform the business of our public health system.

Measure A will require at least two-thirds voter approval in order to pass. I urge everyone to vote "yes" on the measure at the March 2 poll. It's an opportunity to stay real and to affirm a human connection during these very disorienting and wearily divisive times.

Kate Scannell is an East Bay physician and medical writer.