Coalition Develops Initiatives for OneCareNow Campaign

Our first local campaign meeting took place May 31st in Eden District, which includes Castro Valley, San Lorenzo, San Leandro and Hayward. More than 15 activists volunteered to do tabling, act as action team co-chairs, work to secure local city council and other endorsements of SB 840, and to build an event supporting SB 840 on the day assigned to each of their cities. Thanks to Hayward Demos and the League of Women Voters, with other activists, for getting this process started!

Retired teachers are also stepping up to the plate, in mid and south county. We have commitments from activists in Alameda as well, and the Wellstone Demos are working on developing a local team from Albany. The Berkeley, Oakland, Fremont and Hayward events will be next year, so we are currently focused on the smaller towns in terms of identifying community action team co-chairs. But already we have volunteers from Strawberry Lodge, Berkeley and Oakland for organizing in support of SB 840. We also have a commitment from Nate Miley's office for assistance in tabling in towns in his district!

Another exciting development is the formation of a new HCA chapter in Contra Costa County! We can thank Pat Snyder from the League of Women Voters for taking the key role in organizing this new effort. Vote Health will continue to assist with the campaign in parts of Contra Costa, along with Health Access, ACORN, and CSEA (the union of non-teaching school employees.) And the SB 840 East Bay Coalition will continue to coordinate OneCareNow/365 activities - although so many groups and activists are getting involved that we may overlap quite a bit - hardly the worst problem we could have!

To support all this organizing, OneCareNow has developed materials that will unify our campaigns. We have bumper stickers, a new flyer, banners, tabling signs, volunteer forms, outreach letters, sample resolutions, etc. to help each local committee do its work without having to reinvent the wheel. Many of these materials can be viewed at the next Vote Health membership meeting June 19, or you can check the OneCareNow.org website to either download materials or order them. The tabling kits are particularly useful, as we hope to use the OneCareNow petitions to spread the word throughout the state and build an online constituency for single payer health care.

For information about SB 840, check the healthcareforall.org website, where you can view the actual bill, projections about cost, and articles about single payer.

Medical Center Struggles to Balance Budget

The Alameda County Medical Center is projecting a $4.5 million deficit for fiscal year 2006-07, despite increased revenues of $23 million. ACMC's executive team must come up with a strategy to close the budget gap by Tuesday, June 27, when the Board of Trustee is scheduled to adopt a final budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1st.

The Medical Center is treating more patients-both in its hospitals and clinics-but revenue isn't keeping up with the cost of medical care primarily because of a significant increase in indigent and uninsured patients. Despite the increase in volume, the county is only budgeting a small increase-$2 million-to the Medical Center for indigent care services. In addition to underfunding the county's indigent care program, the county is pushing the Medical Center into the red by charging ACMC rent on its clinic buildings in Oakland, Hayward and Newark-previously ACMC only paid $1 per year-and extracting interest charges on loans that are in dispute.

Vote Health is urging the Board of Supervisors to:

1. Fully fund the county indigent care program, CMSP;
2. Forgive the $6.6 million in interest payments; and
3. Reduce rent payments on the three clinic buildings to the previous level of $1 per year.

Despite a tight budget year, ACMC plans to increase access to needed services, including specialty clinics, oncology, radiology and outpatient surgery. The Medical Center plans to step up its recruitment and retention efforts to reduce the costs of temporary staff and improve the quality of care.

The public will have an opportunity to comment on the county and Medical Center budgets:

• ACMC's Board of Trustees will hold a public hearing on the proposed budget on
• Thursday, June 15, 2 to 5 p.m., at Highland Hospital, Classroom B in the old building.
• The county Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing on its health care budget on Monday, June 19th, 1:30 p.m., at the Administration Building, 1221 Oak Street, at 13th, in Oakland.

Canadians are healthier, thanks to single payer!

According to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health, Harvard Medical School researchers have found that Canadians are healthier than Americans - the latter are 42% more likely to have diabetes than our northern neighbors, 32 % more likely to have high blood pressure, and 12% more likely to have arthritis! Study co-author Dr. Steffie Woolhandler notes that insured Canadians and Americans had about the same rates of disease, it was the uninsured Americans who made the overall US figures worse.

If you want to help change this situation, join the campaign to support single payer health care coverage in California! You can volunteer for the OneCareNow campaign by calling Vote Health at 510/832-8683 or emailing us at info@votehealth.org.

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