New Campaign for Single Payer

Health Care for All-California is about to launch a resolution campaign to increase support for single payer throughout the state and prepare for a possible legislative campaign next spring. HCA got a boost from the Health Care Option Project study results, which demonstrated that a single payer system is the most cost effective model to provide quality care for all Californians. In addition, HCA has set up a statewide meeting in August with representatives from numerous large groups to rebuild and strengthen a single payer coalition.

Vote Health, as an HCA affiliate, will begin an educational outreach campaign in our community. The lessons of Prop. 186 taught us that if people are educated about what single payer is and how it can solve many of the current health care problems, they are more likely to support it. This process of building broader support and commitment for single payer from local community groups, labor unions and the faith community is important to begin before the initiative campaign.

There is lots of work to be done to effectively organize such an outreach effort and we need your help to make it happen. Come to the next Vote Health meeting Monday, July 22^nd to hear more details about the current campaign and to get involved. Help create an unbeatable force for health care for everyone in this country, regardless of ability to pay. Click here for additional committee meeting times and contact numbers.

Updates

Single payer activists in Oregon submitted 98,001 signatures for the Oregon Comprehensive Health Care Finance Act, Initiative #27, to the state elections office this month — 46% more than the required number to get on the ballot for November 5^th. They are now gearing up for a Get Out the Vote Campaign and have hired a campaign manager, a communications director and a professional fund-raising group. Please call Margot Smith at 486-8010 for comrades. For more information and inspiration, go to healthcareforalloregon.org.

The Alameda County Medical Center ended its 2001-2002 budget year with a $15.8 deficit. In June it announced a change in its Charity Care Policy: People who earn 300% of the federal poverty level, down from 500%, will be billed for medical services, and their medications will no longer be paid for. This will result in many more people not being able to afford necessary medications, which will increase the numbers of people going to emergency rooms for preventable illness, such as uncontrolled hypertension, diabetes, congestive heart failure and mental illness. Repeat after me, "We need single payer health coverage now, before any more lives are lost."

Analysis by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that newer drugs, while more costly, have much greater health benefits than older drugs and reduce non drug medical expenses such as hospital stays and visits to doctors, as well as mortality rates. The study found that the reduction in nondrug medical expenses was four times the increase in new drug costs.

The saga of where to build a new juvenile hall in Alameda County continues, with at least four options being tossed around between the County Supervisors, City of Oakland officials, Port of Oakland officials and numerous other parties. Health care advocates hope the outcome is a hall suitable for youth, convenient for most residents' families, and much cheaper than the originally proposed 430-bed facility slated for Dublin. This would leave funds to rebuild the Fairmont Hospital Campus, which the Board of Supervisors has stated they are committed to doing.

Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, coauthor of a new study showing that government expenditures accounted for 60% of US health care costs in 1999, states: "We pay the world's highest health care taxes. But much of the money is squandered. The wealthy get tax breaks. And HMOs and durg companies pocket billions in profits at the taxpayers' expense. But politicians claim we can't afford universal coverage. Every other developed nation has national health insurance. We already pay for it, but we don't get it."

August 1^st Action to Support Family Health Coverage!

Approximately 1000 union members working at four East Bay hotels — the Claremont, Oakland City Center Marriot, and the Holiday Inns of Emeryville and Oakland — are facing major health plan takeaways in their latest contract bargaining. Workers currently pay from zero to $10 monthly to cover family members and are being threatened with new coverage that would cost up to $300 per month at the end of the new contract! In addition, many hotel workers are being offered no raises at all, with small increases for the rest. One hundred fifty spa workers at the Claremont are trying to win union representation by 2850; most of them do not even qualify for health plan coverage at any cost.

Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE) Local 2850 is mounting a campaign to fight the cutbacks and is calling for supporters to march on the Claremont Hotel on August 1^st. Participants will gather at the Rockridge BART at 4:30 pm; the march begins at 5 pm and proceeds down College to Ashby for a rally a Oak Park on Domingo Avenue, which borders the Claremont. A van will follow the march for those who can't walk the distance.

Join Vote Health members on August 1^st to support these sisters and brothers in our joint fight for quality health care for all! For further info, call HERE2850 at (510) 893-3181. We'll be taking signups at the July 22 Vote Health meeting.

Newsletter committee:
Nancy M. Friedman, Sue Bergman, Kay Eisenhower
Our thanks to CA Nurses Association for their help in producing this newsletter.