Many voices for Single Payer

Advocates of single-payer health care gathered on Sonoma Plaza on Saturday to rally for a law guaranteeing health care in California.

The “SpeakOut,” backed by the California Nurses Association, is part of a statewide effort. The local group staged a ‘drive-up’ rally in March.

“The need for a single-payer health care system not tied to employment status has become increasingly obvious since the Covid-19 pandemic began,” said event organizer Dr. Mary McDevitt, a member of Physicians for a National Healthcare Plan. “Because health insurance in the U.S. is typically provided by employers, the numbers of uninsured and underinsured have increased along with Covid-caused spikes in unemployment.”

Three million Californians have no health coverage and nearly one-third of all Californians who do have it reported delaying or skipping necessary health care in the past year because of the cost, she said. AB 1400, or CalCare, was recently introduced in the State Assembly and would guarantee health care to all Californians by way of a Single-Payer coverage system.

“Passage of AB 1400 is vital to our goal of providing Healthcare for all Californians,”  the Sonoma-based activist told the crowd. “We ask all Sonomans to call their Assembly Member and urge passage of this bill.”

Other speakers provided moving personal testimony of the crippling financial costs of healthcare in the current system, where coverage is often tied to employment and where HMOs/ insurers decline to pay for emergency treatment received outside their own networks. It was noted that two-thirds of the bankruptcies in this country are tied to medical debt.

Photos by William Murray