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Newsletter: March, 2003
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CAMPAIGN HEATS UP WITH INTRODUCTION OF S.B.921

After months of anticipation, Senator Sheila Kuehl's single payer bill, "The Health Care for All Californians Act", SB 921 was introduced into the state legislature February 21st. Bay Area politicians Senator Don Perata, Assemblywomen Wilma Chan and Loni Hancock have signed on to the bill as co-authors.

As promised, the bill calls for a comprehensive health benefit package for all California residents. Some of the provided benefits would include necessary medical care, mental health care, dental and vision care, prescription drugs and medical equipment, diagnostic testing, surgical, podiatric inpatient and outpatient services, hospice care, and emergency care. Due to grassroots pressure on Senator Kuehl, long term care was recently added to the benefit package. (For a full accounting of the benefit package and the complete text of the bill go to: www.sen.ca.gov, click on legislation; click on Senate; and then type in SB 921)

Now the clock is ticking loudly - the bill will be heard in four senate committees by May 2nd of this year. What this means is that now is the time to solicit organizational endorsement letters for the bill to be sent immediately to Senator Kuehl, and the following legislators: Senator Jackie Speier, Chair, Insurance Committee; Senator Martha Escutia, Chair, Judiciary Committee; Senator Deborah Ortiz, Chair, Health and Human Services Committee; Senator Gilbert Cedillo, Chair, Revenue and Taxation Committee; and, Senator John Burton, Pro Tempore, Senate. Sample letters and instructions are posted on the Health Care for All California website: www.healthcareforallcalifornia.org.

In addition, we want to encourage Vote Health members to go to the actual committee hearings in Sacramento. A strong showing of grassroots support is necessary. Please call Margot Smith at 486-8010 or Jim Forsyth at 581-5169 for ride and car pooling information.

Vote Health has sent more than 200 invitations to East Bay organizations to attend a regional organizing meeting in late March to support the bill. A member of Senator Kuehl's staff will be present to explain the legislation, followed by a discussion and strategy session for local organizing. If you belong to an organization that would consider becoming active in this campaign, call Kay Eisenhower at 658-1147 for information about that meeting.

This newsletter will reach you after our March 17th Single Payer meeting, so if you'd like to join this campaign, please contact Sue Bergman at 540-7085 or sbergman@acmedctr.org.

**Vote Health's New Executive Committee**

At our February General Membership Meeting, Vote Health members voted for a combination of new and old Executive Committee members for a two year term. In addition to the activists listed below, Rosa Watts, a union actvist from SEIU 250 and long time Vote Health supporter, agreed to be an alternate to the Committee.

  • Tory Becker is a long time activist with LAGAI/Queer Insurrection, committed to health care reform. As part of her work with the California Prison Focus Project, she counsels prisoners with HIV and Hepatitis C, and works against the death penalty. She is currently employed with the Veterans Administration as a nurse practitioner in substance abuse and mental health. She formerly worked in that capacity at Fairmont Hospital, where she developed a devotion to keeping Highland and Fairmont Hospitals fully serviced and open.
  • Susan Bergman is a health educator for ACMC, where she started in May of 2000. She serves the outpatient clinics, primarily as a diabetes educator and says this job is a perfect match for her! She serves on the Board of Directors of Health Care for All-California, representing Vote Health, and has been a long time advocate for health care and other social justice issues. She has a masters in adult education, and is an avid world traveler.
  • Allan Brill has worked in hospital and clinic settings (federal, state, county, UC, private and non-profit) for over 30 years, as a psychiatric social worker, physician representative (Director, California Assoc. of Interns & Residents & SEIU), Registered Nurse labor representative (CNA), and patient advocate. Allan has been a co-founder of 3 statewide and 6 community health advocacy coalitions, including Vote Health, and has been a single payer activist since 1972. He has also served for many years on several Bay Area AFL-CIO Labor Councils.
  • Bradley Cleveland has worked as the communications and research coordinator for SEIU Local 616, which represents staff at the Alameda County Medical Center, for the past 13 years. He has served on the county budget committee and the Medical Center strategic planning committee. He is currently on leave from the union to work for the Medical Center on its strategic plan for Highland and Fairmont hospitals.
  • Suzi Goldmacher has been in health care since 1974, first as an RN and as a nurse practitioner since 1981. She worked in the field of occupational health and workers' compensation for 20 years, managing clinics and taking care of hospital employees who were injured on the job. Her activism has varied, and this is her second round of single payer work,Proposition 186 being the first.
  • Kay Eisenhower has been a union activist for the past 30 years with a special interest in health care as a former ACMC worker. She is retired from her job as a librarian, in SEIU 616, for which she is currently a delegate to the Alameda County Central Labor Council.
  • Nancy M. Friedman has been on the Executive Committee of Vote Health since 1994, having devoted much time to Proposition 186, the Single Payer Initiative. She served as Chair from 2001-2003, and is now part-time Executive Director. She has been active in progressive causes for over 30 years. In her spare time, she is a psychotherapist with a private practice in Oakland, specializing in Depth Oriented Brief Therapy. Unfortunately, there is no additional spare time currently to pursue art, her "third career".
  • Becky McFarland is a social worker in the California Children Services of the Alameda County Public Health Department, Family Health Services Division. She worked at Highland Hospital for many years as a medical social worker. She currently works weekends at Washington Hospital and sees a lot of uninsured and underinsured patients, whose stories are her motivation for activism with us!
  • Tim Saunders did his internal medicine residency at Highland Hospital in the early 1990s, and has resided in the area since then. He has been on the Executive Committee of Vote Health since January 2001, and feels passionately the need for single payer health care.
  • Margot Smith is a retired researcher from the CA Department of Health Services. She earned her doctorate at UC Berkeley School of Public Health and worked on access to health care for several years. She is a leader of the Berkeley Gray Panthers and travels widely, both for pleasure and to get arrested for civil disobedience! She is also a video maker and has had several shown on PBS. She is currently working on a video about the need for universal health care.

    • Thanks to all of these dedicated people-without them, Vote Health wouldn't exist.

    Juvenile Hall Victory Close!

    According to Guy Ashley, a writer for the Contra Costa Times ("San Leandro Juvenile Hall plan is ahead", March 7, 2003), the Alameda County Board of Supervisors now has three out of five votes needed to rebuild Juvenile Hall in San Leandro, rather than move the facility to Dublin. It currently sits just up the hill from Fairmont Hospital on a 200-acre site owned by Alameda County.

    Supervisor Scott Haggerty, who had backed the Dublin site, is ready to change his vote, joining Supervisors Keith Carson and Nate Miley, who support the San Leandro site. The Times interview said that several factors led to Haggerty's change of heart:

  • The census of Juvenile Hall has dwindled from an overcrowded 299 in 2001 to 220 for the past several months, making the proposed 450-540 beds overkill;
  • he was convinced that the larger was unnecessary because juvenile "diversion" programs that keep kids out of the hall can work;
  • the Environmental Impact Report indicated the facility could be safely rebuilt in San Leandro despite the earthquake faults which criss-cross the current site; and
  • Dublin residents have threatened legal action, which could stall construction and jeopardize the $33 million in federal funds for the project.

    Books Not Bars, Let's Get Free (both projects of the Ella Baker Center) and the Youth Force led a coalition with Vote Health and other community groups, most notably from Dublin, for almost two years to "derail the Super-Jail." That complex would have gobbled up the entire "Emerald Fund", money earmarked for improving or building new buildings in the county. This smaller Juvenile Hall should require far less capital outlay.

    Vote Health will now continue advocating that the Medical Center's aging Fairmont Campus benefit from the decision to keep the hall in San Leandro and make it a more appropriate size. Thanks to a motion from Supervisor Nate Miley last year, the Board of Supervisors voted to commit any savings from constructing a smaller juvenile hall to rebuilding the aging Fairmont facility. Now is the time to follow through with that commitment!

    ACMC Budget Deficit

    The Medical Center has moved aggressively this fiscal year to close its budget deficit by increasing revenue by $17 million, according to Chief Financial Officer Peter Praetz. Despite ACMC's successful revenue strategies, the Board of Trustees will consider service cuts at its March 31 meeting because of deep cuts in the federal "Disproportionate Share Hospital" program (DSH). The Medical Center will lose over $7 million in DSH funds this fiscal year.

    The Medical Center Trustees will consider the following cuts over the next few months: Closing the Fairmont laboratory and cafeteria; cutting the hours of the outpatient clinics; and eliminating services not mandated by the state, including Fairmont's Skilled Nursing Facility.

    Management is working on strategies to increase the federal matching funds dedicated to the state's Medi-Cal and Health Families programs that flow to the state's public hospitals. And they are asking the Alameda County Board of Supervisors for additional financial support for the 90-bed skilled nursing facility (SNF).

    The Trustees will consider service cuts at their March 31 board meeting, which takes place at the Eastmont Wellness Center, beginning about 4:30 p.m.

    Covering the Uninsured Week ...

    was March 10-16th, sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In San Francisco, an opening panel was attended by about 150 ardent single payer supporters. The SF Chapter of HCA-CA was largely responsible for filling the hall. Three of the five panelists supported single payer. The event opened with a moving gathering of 41 people representing the 41 million uninsured in the U.S.
    That same week the Institute of Medicine reported that the presence of a large number of uninsured people in a community can affect the availability of medical care for everyone. Paying for uncompensated medical care puts a strain on the community and can lead to cuts in preventive medicine, surveillance and other programs.

    Dr. Arthur L. Kellermann, of the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, said that providing uncompensated care can put a severe strain on emergency and trauma care and other community health facilities. That can worsen emergency room overcrowding and hospitals may decide to close these facilities in response to financial stress, "The insured and the uninsured have a shared destiny," said Kellermann, co-chairman of the committee that prepared the study.

    Newsletter committee:
    Nancy M. Friedman, Sue Bergman, Allan Brill, Margot Smith.
    Our thanks to CA Nurses Association for their help in producing this newsletter