Momentum for Universal Health Care Goes "Universal!"

Who would have guessed a year ago that the Sacramento Bee would publish an editorial (March 25, 2007) recommending, "Blowing up the individual health insurance market...and replacing it with something that makes more sense? ... The more we look at this mess, single-payer seems to be a ... likely long-term solution because of the many ills of the private insurance market."

Business executives are chiming in as well, according to an April 6, 2007 article in the New York Times by Milt Freudenheim, after a 2006 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that premiums in the US had risen about 87% since 2000. Says a VP at IBM, "Five years from now this problem will have to be cured, or the competitiveness of the US will be dramatically affected." Robert Galvin of General Electrics says employers "are more interested in reform today than at any time since the Clinton effort in the early 1990s."

Costco, which subsidizes health care for more than 80% of its US workforce, points out that in another 10 years, "there will be another 75 million uninsured. The federal government has to lend some assistance." A Kelly Services official notes that as manufacturing declines, more and more workers will include independent contractors and temporary employees; he suggests that part of the solution should be to "separate health care from employee sponsorship" and listed as a possible remedy an "employment-based" withholding tax, matched by employers as in Social Security, with Medicare and Medical expanded to cover the unemployed - as SB 840 projects for its funding sources.

Senator Sheila Kuehl weighs in in her recent guest commentary in NewsReview.com: "Every year we pay more, get less, and insurance companies make off with the difference...The growth in health-care spending is bankrupting our state, our businesses and working families." She points out that SB 840 is really not a radical change for how care is delivered, as the "delivery system would remain fully private."

So what's holding us up? If the Sacramento Bee and many business leaders agree with Senator Kuehl and us that something has to give in the health care system, why aren't we moving forward towards single payer reform? First of all, we ARE moving forward towards single payer - after all, the California Legislature passed SB 840 last session, only to be vetoed by the governor. Many organizations working on current proposals for incremental health care reform also acknowledge that SB 840 is the "gold standard." And the fact that mainstream media are covering the health care crisis as never before, even though they may not mention "single payer," continues to increase the momentum for meaningful reform.

Secondly, many of us who support single payer reform have become so used to hearing that it requires building a grassroots movement that we have not yet recognized that such a movement is well underway! In just a year the reform scene has changed dramatically, with major statewide players coming together in the OneCareNow campaign to support SB 840. Joining Health Care for All - CA and the League of Women Voters are the California Alliance of Retired Americans, California School Employees Association, California Physicians Alliance, California Council of Churches, California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers, the California Retired Teachers Association, and others. The California Nurses Association has played a key role since becoming the principal sponsor of SB 840 last year, and is also cooperating in the OneCareNow campaign. And on the national level, the recent announcement by the AFL-CIO that it is now committed to "Medicare for all" adds major momentum to our campaign.

The new momentum is clearly visible in Sacramento. Last August's rally to demand that Schwarzenegger sign SB 840 only attracted a modest crowd. When Senator Kuehl held her press conference in February to introduce her bill, busloads of supporters packed the State Capitol hearing room. We plan to maintain that visibility at the next hearing on SB 840 April 18, Rm. 4203 at the State Capitol at 1:30pm.

So the next time you hear an advocate of health reform state single payer is "of course" the solution but that it's politically out of the question, remind them that the support for a single payer approach is burgeoning among organizations capable of bringing effective grassroots pressure to bear on the debate in Sacramento. And the clearly increasing sense of urgency among business leaders to find a genuine solution to our health care crisis can't help but contribute to our momentum.

At the same time, this pressure to address the health care crisis has generated proposals from the leadership in Sacramento for more incremental reforms to be adopted during this legislative session. Many of our allies in the coalition for SB 840, and Senator Kuehl herself, are committed to achieving meaningful reforms this years. We in Vote Health need to evaluate these proposals to determine how to respond. Can we identify and support changes which both significantly expand access to health care and help build toward a single payer system? Can we identify changes which would be so harmful that we should make clear our strong opposition? Our senator, Don Perata, is integrally involved in the effort to develop a "unified" Democratic proposal; should we convey our recommendations to him?

Please join us at the next Vote Health meeting to discuss these issues.

Events Emphasize Need for Universal Health Care

Berkeley Health Commission has scheduled a forum to discuss the various proposals for achieving universal health care - Saturday, April 28 from 10am - 12 Noon, at the North Berkeley Senior Center, Martin Luther King and Hearst St., Berkeley.

Women's Health Summit, Thursday, May 10 from 9:30am - 3:00pm at the First Unitarian
Universalist Church, 1187 Franklin St., San Francisco.

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