Pennisula News

Local groups rally for universal health care

By Rebecca Villaneda Peninsula News
Thursday, February 8, 2007 4:27 PM PST

On Monday representatives from the League of Women Voters, Health Care for All, Pacific Unitarian Church and the Palos Verdes Peninsula Democratic Club came together to advocate Sen. Sheila Kuehl’s Senate bill 840 — a single-payer health-care coverage plan.

Nancy Forbes was one of about 20 demonstrators to rally for Sen. Sheila Kuehl’s Senate bill 840, which would give all Californians health care under a single-payer system. The demonstration was held on Monday at the corner of Silver Spur Road and Hawthorne Boulevard.

The bill, which was introduced last February and vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in September, will have another chance at creating a universal health-care system at the end of the month when it is reintroduced.

According to Kuehl’s Web site, “SB 840 works by pooling our health-care resources … This allows us to consolidate the administrative functions of thousands of different insurance companies and plans into one comprehensive insurance plan.”

The Web site explains single payer as a system in which everyone pays a premium into one health-care trust fund, and everyone gets health-care coverage paid out of the fund.

Hans Grellmann, a member of the P.V.P. Democratic Club, said making the state of California the single entity to negotiate prices would save on administrative costs from insurance companies.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous that there are so many people in this country without health insurance. It’s not American,” Grellmann said. “The administrative costs by insurance companies are eating up a lot of dollars that we spend.”

Judith Webb, co-president of the League of Women Voters, Palos Verdes Peninsula/San Pedro chapter, agreed that the common thread among SB 840 supporters is they want to bypass insurance companies.

“Up here on the Hill, it’s difficult because most of us have good insurance. I do,” Webb said. “They don’t think about the fact they are paying for all the people who aren’t insured, and this is why their premiums keep getting higher.”

Sheila Hoff, representing Health Care for All South Bay and Long Beach, said SB 840 will benefit everybody and is more affordable because there are no co-pays or deductibles.

“There’s no pre-existing conditions; it’s not an employer based health-care system. Everyone pays,” she said.

Hoff said the bottom line is people want to see a change.

Susan Grebe, a member of the League of Women Voters of the Beach Cities, said SB 840 will run like Medicare, which operates at under 3 percent in administrative costs.

According to Grebe in the current system, 20 to 30 percent of every dollar goes to administrative costs and salaries for the businesspeople behind the insurance companies.

“The only reason not to like [SB 840] is if you happen to own an insurance company,” Grebe said.

Hoff said Monday’s rally was just one of many events to promote Health Care For All’s grass-roots campaign, OneCareNow.org. The Web site organizes campaigns throughout the state to teach Californians about SB 840 and tells people that more than 500 organizations support Kuehl’s bill.

According to Hoff, the reason Schwarzenegger vetoed SB 840 was political. She said he never took the time to get to know the bill.

In a statement accompanying his veto of SB 840, Schwarzenegger called the bill “Socialized medicine.”

“This bill would require an extraordinary redirection of public and private funding by creating a vast new bureaucracy to take over health insurance and medical care for Californians — a serious and expensive mistake,” he said.

On Tuesday, the governor held a press conference to introduce his own health-care reform. The plan is backed by a coalition of consumer, labor, nurse, ethnic, physician and business groups, among others. Speakers at Tuesday’s conference included Barbara Blake, state secrectary of United Nurses Association of California; David Sobel, medical director for patient education and health promotion for Kaiser Permanente; and Steve Sanger, CEO of General Mills Inc.

“It’s great to be joined here today with people from groups that don’t always see eye to eye on health-care issues, but they all support our emphasis on prevention because it is the least expensive and most effective way to lower health care costs,” Schwarzenegger said.

But residents said they are apprehensive of his plan and that SB 840 is the only way to go.

Dorian Tippet of the Pacific Unitarian Church said seeing friends and other members of her church go bankrupt because of medical needs brought her attention to Kuehl’s bill.

“Scwarzenegger’s program will benefit insurance companies even more. He just jumped on the bandwagon,” Tippet said. “He sees the Nunez, Kuehl and Perata legislation and he’s just jumping on the bandwagon because its politically expedient to do so.”

Webb said initially, SB 840 will take a big chunk of money from the state’s general fund to set it up. She added that although the bill may not be perfect, it’s a place to start.

“The problem is right now it is so bad that we need to jump in with both feet and do this,” she said.

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