Healthcare advocates form broader coalition

More than 70 percent of California voters believe the United States health care system needs significant overhaul, according to a recent Field Health Policy Survey. The wrangling in Washington, D.C. over President Obama’s health plan shows just how complex the issue is, but for Mike Smith it comes down to one singular answer. Single Payer.
A former member of the Sonoma hospital board and currently its legislative liaison, Smith has been involved in health care policy for 30 years. He directs the Sonoma chapter of Health Care for All (HCFA), a state-wide group dedicated to enacting universal health care through single payer financing, namely Senate Bill 810 (SB 810).
“We’re taking on one of the most powerful and profitable industries in the world,” Smith acknowledged. “It will take a lot of work breaking the stranglehold.”
SB 810 was introduced by Senator Mark Leno, who said in April that the single payer model “is not just legislation. It’s one of the fastest growing social movements in California.”
At its July meeting, the Sonoma group voted to merge with the Santa Rosa chapter of HCFA. Meetings will rotate between the two cities, Smith said, while creating “a bigger, broader coalition.”
An immediate goal as the grassroots campaign ramps up is to collect endorsements for SB 810 from notable individuals and organizations.
The bill passed through the Senate Health Committee in March. It will next be heard in 2010 by the Senate Appropriations Committee. That gives groups like HCFA time to build support for the plan.
A previous version of the bill was vetoed by the Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2005. “There’s no hurry to get the bill in front of him again without more public support,” Smith said. “Support will grow. The movement will build up a lot of steam.”
Helping to bring the issue to the forefront will be a year-long media campaign kicking off next month. According to HCFA collateral, the “365-day campaign will rip through the most tumultuous political period in decades, including state primary and fall elections in 2010.”
The current debate in Washington, D.C. has established the topic at the national level, and the HCFA campaign will continue to focus attention on the issue in California regardless of any national plan.
Smith said it was a mistake for President Obama not to include Single Payer among his potential healthcare fixes. Still, the movement will be “energized by the Obama plan,” he said. “It’s a stamp of approval.”
The strategy is to parlay the national debate, the media campaign and a grassroots push to make Single Payer a key platform point for California candidates in 2010. “It will be a tag issue for electability,” Smith said. “The support if there. The polls show it.”
Senator Leno, at his press conference rolling out the legislation, said “We intend to keep the debate alive through the facts of the bill, place it on the governor’s desk again,” and, if necessary, “work hard to elect a governor in 2010 who will sign our bill.”
The principal sponsor of the bill is the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee. “We’re not going away,” Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro stated on the group Web site. “And our ranks are building.”
The Single Payer system would grant health insurance to all residents of California regardless of age or employment status. According to HCFA, individuals could choose their own doctors and dentists under an essentially unchanged private delivery system. There would be no deductibles, co-pays or exclusions for preexisting conditions.
Services would be funded by payments – an amount not yet specified – from individuals, employers and the government to a new state board that “is not answerable to stockholders, CEO’s and the constant drive for profits.” Smith said taking the insurance companies out of the equation creates immediate savings of 20 to 30 percent on, “overhead and accounting. There are no other interests than providing quality care at low rates.”
Opponents of the plan include the California Chamber of Commerce. In a letter to state senators, Policy Advocate Marti Fisher warned that SB 810 would, “Create a new government-run, multibillion-dollar socialized health care system based on a yet-to-be specified ‘premium structure’ – in essence, a tax on all employers.”
Smith countered, “It’s not socialism at all. The government does not make care decisions, the doctor does.”
Smith and the 25 local volunteer HCFA members, soon to join a larger contingent in Santa Rosa, seem ready to do battle for SB 810. “It’s the public plan that has a fighting chance.”
The next meeting of HCFA will be Wednesday, August 12, 7.p.m., at the Peace and Justice Center of Sonoma County, 467 Sebastopol Avenue, Santa Rosa.