SACRAMENTO LAUNCH OF SB 840 A REAL HIGH By Deborah Leveen

February 27 was an exciting day for single payer advocates: a noon press conference called by Senator Sheila Kuehl to re-introduce SB 840, followed by an afternoon "informational hearing" held by the Assembly Health Committee devoted entirely to SB 840. For anyone who feared that the so-called "year of health care reform" would be dominated by the incremental proposals, the huge public turnout combined with the support of top legislative leaders made clear that SB 840 is very much "on the table" this year.

THE HEARING
Busloads of supporters from around the state converged on a rain-covered capitol. I joined Jim Forsyth on a bus organized by CARA (California Association of Retired Americans). By the time we arrived, the halls of the Capitol building were jammed with people. It was exhilarating to see so many people there to support SB 840, many of them wearing bright tee shirts announcing their organizational affiliation.

The crowd far exceeded the capacity of the room where the press conference was going to be held, as well as the Assembly hearing room. We gave up on gaining access to the press conference and headed instead to the fifth floor entrance to the hearing room gallery in hopes of getting seats at the hearing. There we settled in-there must have been at least two hundred people crammed into the end of a small, airless hallway-and waited for over an hour for the door to be opened. Other people headed for the cafeterias and even offices across from the Capitol building where they could watch the hearing on TV.

But the wait was worth its weight in gold! For someone who hasn't heard Senator Kuehl speak before, it was inspiring! She is an extremely effective speaker-both forceful and succinct; she has an amazing command of the issues addressed by her bill and the ways in which her bill is truly the only effective way to address those issues; and she conveys a total confidence in the future of the bill: as she said at the outset, she disagrees with those who say it's impossible to win SB 840-because it's the only bill that truly solves the problems we must address. In her closing comments, she remarked that she tells new members not to fall in love with their bills-they've got to be ready for changes-but she's totally violated that rule with SB 840!

Kuehl used the hearing very effectively. She began with a very persuasive overview of SB 840, and then, instead of calling witnesses, she showed the OneCareNow campaign DVD. Then members of the Health Committee asked questions, and all but one ( Alan Nakanishi, the Republican Vice Chair of the committee) were supportive.

The most interesting question, relative to the ongoing discussion in VoteHealth about how to respond to the incremental "leadership proposals," was one from Assemblywoman Patti Berg, a longstanding supporter of SB 840: she asked whether there were provisions of SB 840 which should be included in any reform passed by the legislature this year. Kuehl listed three things: first, shared responsibility-as she said, it's emphasized by everyone, but with very different meanings; second, real insurance market reforms-address the insurance company incentives to delay care, keep people out-but that's hard to do without SB 840; and third, build large risk pools.

The press conference was attended by representatives of some of the major supporters of SB 840, including Health Care for All - CA, the California Nurses Association, the California School Employees Association, SEIU, Health Access, the Consumer Federation of America, the League of Women Voters of California, the California Alliance for Retired Americans, and the California Council of Churches.

HCA chair Dan Hodges was there and describes it as follows:

Senator Sheila Kuehl's third press conference to introduce her single payer legislation was the most impressive by far. When she introduced SB 921 in 2003, the press room was virtually empty-few supporters, some health policy experts on the stage behind her and hardly any reporters. When she introduced her first SB 840 in 2005, there were more supporters and some key legislative leaders on stage, but still few reporters. On February 27, when she re-introduced SB 840, the room and the hallway outside were packed with supporters, the stage was crammed with senate and assembly co-authors and representatives of supporting organizations, and this time, there were quite a few reporters. One observer commented the presence of so many co-authors made it look as though there were "a quorum of at least one house on the crowded stage." That same observer described Kuehl's "command of the intricate provisions of the 88 page bill and the subject area of health coverage honed from the six years of battle on this issue..." and her ability to answer questions from reporters without the need for notes. Sen. Kuehl and Daniel Weintraub, a conservative writer for the Sacramento Bee, had extended Q   A about how SB 840 can control health care costs. Weintraub's next column, "One health care plan-Kuehl's-is really different," was very sympathetic to the merits of SB 840.

New Members Join Vote Health Exec Committee

Kay Eisenhower was reelected chair of Vote Health at the February membership meeting. The Executive Board will have two new members, Debbie Leveen and Becky McFarland, along with returning members Tory Becker, Sue Bergman, Allan Brill, Brad Cleveland, Jim Forsyth and Irma Swygert

AFL-CIO Signs On For Single Payer, Thanks to CA Nurses Association!

CNA will join the AFL-CIO after the national labor body adopted a sweeping new healthcare policy statement endorsing a single payer system based on "updating and expanding Medicare benefits" to all Americans. The SF Chronicle reported that CNA made its affiliation conditional on this endorsement.

Art Pulaski of the California Labor Federation noted that CNA has been a strong advocate for health care reform, "We consider them a great addition to the movement."

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