SB 840 Supporters Take Next Steps

Despite a drenching downpour, some 90 people attended the single payer forum, Fixing Health Care in California, on March 16. The event, featuring Sara Rogers from Senator Sheila Kuehl's office and a panel of representatives from CaPA, local small business, the Greenlining Institute and California Nurses Association, was moderated by the League of Women Voters of Oakland. Vote Health and the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club played key roles in organizing the event and urging participants to get involved in the SB 840 campaign.

The East Bay SB 840 Coalition, which sponsored the forum, is now joining the ambitious 365/OneCare Now campaign. The concept behind the 365 campaign is to have local people in California's 365 largest cities sponsor an event in support of SB 840. The events will start in August with the smallest town, and end a year later in Los Angeles. There are 32 cities and towns in the East Bay on the list, starting with Alamo on day 19 and finishing with Fremont on day 353, and Oakland on day 359.

We will need contact people who live and/or work in each of these cities who are willing to enlist other community groups in planning an event for their location. Obviously we can't do this by ourselves or substitute for the local residents! This campaign will force us to build new alliances outside our "comfort zone" and jumpstart broad grassroots support for health care for all.

One organizing method is suggested by the map of the two counties. People often live, work and worship in adjacent communities. For example, the Hayward Democratic Club is taking on not only their own city but also the neighboring towns of Castro Valley, San Lorenzo and San Leandro. They will coordinate events taking place in each of those towns on the relevant date. Other obvious geographical groupings would be the Tri-City area-Fremont, Newark and Union City-and the Tri-Valley-Dublin, Livermore and Pleasanton. The coalition is contacting organizations in these communities, such as the Tri-City League of Women Voters.

The East Bay coalition is also putting together a tabling "kit" for people willing to distribute SB 840 information on street corners and in shopping districts as part of our outreach effort. Hopefully some of the people we reach will want to do more than sign a petition, and we can get them involved in requesting a speaker for their congregation or organizing a "365" event in theircommunity. We are receiving more requests for speakers at churches and hope to expand our faith-based outreach. We are particularly heartened by the information assembled by the national United Church of Christ, which calls for publicly-funded health care for all.

There's a lot to do. Please call Vote Health at 510.832.8683 to talk about how you and your friends and colleagues can plug into this exciting campaign!

Check out www.OneCareNow.org, where you can sign the petition online or support of universal health insurance in California. This website will eventually be the informational heart of the campaign, as it chronicles the efforts in each of the 365 cities in support of universal health insurance.

And do you know anyone in Alamo? Give us a call!

April Faux Premiere

On April Fool's Day the San Fernando Valley chapter of Health Care for All-California hosted a 365/OneCare Now campaign fundraiser with a star-studded "fake" movie premiere at a jam-packed Burbank sound stage. MC'd by Ed Asner, the "faux film premiere" featured a special performance by Lily Tomlin and comedy skits by Ed Begley, Jr., Hector Elizondo, David L. Lander, Len Lesser, Marcia Strassman and Cindy Williams. The entertainment also included a salute to Senator Sheila Kuehl, who gave an update on SB 840.

More than 500 people attended this marvelous event to raise funds for a newdocumentary film on California's health care crisis and the solution that SB 840 provides. Emmy award-winning filmaker Don Schroeder is spearheading this project for HCA; he is also the co-founder of the SF Valley chapter with Sharon Stevens of Studio City. He promises that the 12-minute film will be ready by the August 12 kickoff date for the OneCare Now campaign.

Congratulations to those who made this event such a success! If you want to contribute to the video project, make out a check to HCA Ed Fund, note it's for the video project in the subject line, and send it to HCA Ed Fund, 601 Hetts Lane, Sebastopol, CA 95472.

Health Care for All in Ohio!

Ohio has a complicated initiative process, requiring two rounds of signature gathering from at least 44 of the state's 88 counties, but health careactivists and labor have mobilized to put single payer health care on the ballot in November 2007. The Single Payer Action Network (SPAN) includes the state AFL-CIO, many local unions such as the UAW, Steelworkers, Communication Workers, UNITE HERE, and advocacy groups such as Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP is the parent body of CaPA, the progressive physicians alliance in our East Bay SB 840 coalition).

Campaign leader Bob Kurtycz of UNITE HERE noted, "Ohio has lost over 250,000 jobs since George Bush took office. Over 70 percent of all Ohioans get their health care from their employers. So what do you think happened to those 250,000 workers and their families?"

For more information on this campaign, check www.spanohio.org. This paragraph was excerpted from the March 2006 Labor Party News, www.thelaborparty.org

So you want to be in pictures?

Michael Moore is seeking health care stories for his next film on American healthcare! He is looking specifically for people to interview about the following experiences:

• folks who have insurance but who are being denied care by their insurer;
• people who have gone bankrupt because of medical bills;
• people who have been taken to court by hospitals, even for small bills; someone who just had surgery and is just getting their bills;
• indigent, uninsured, very ill people who can't afford medical care.

While Moore can't promise anything, he would like to interview people he might be able to help through his involvement. Contact Jessica Rothhaar at Health Access, jessicar@health-access.org or 510-873-8787 ext. 107 with stories ASAP.

Newsletter committee:
Jan Arnold, Bradley Cleveland, Kay Eisenhower and Jim Forsyth.
Our thanks to CA Nurses Association for their help in producing this newsletter.