OneCareNow: Universal Health Insurance California's Grassroots Campaign

LONG BEACH - Horns were blaring their support Tuesday on the corners of Ocean Boulevard and Pine Avenue during a rally informing passersby about a bill that would create a single-payer health care system in California.

Senate Bill 840, authored by State Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, passed the Senate on June 6 with a 61 percent majority vote and is now in the Assembly. A similar version of the bill, which would provide one state-run health insurance plan to cover all California residents, was vetoed by Gov. Schwarzenegger last year.

"We know that single-payer, like Medicare, works, and if that works and people are able to go to their own doctors and get the care that they need, why wouldn't a single-payer plan work for health care for everybody?" said Linda Calderon, president of the Long Beach section of the National Council of Jewish Women.

The rally was part of a 365-day campaign organized by OneCareNow in support of SB 840. The campaign began in Morro Bay on Aug. 12, 2006, and will end on Saturday in Los Angeles.

"This is kind of unprecedented," said Sheila Hoff, director of the South Bay-Long Beach chapter of Health Care for All, who has helped OneCareNow to organize numerous organizations for the same cause.

About 4.7 million Californians lack health insurance according to a 2005 The Lewin Group study on health care, and 18,000 uninsured people die each year who would not have if they were insured, according to the Institute of Medicine.

"We went into medicine because we enjoyed helping people," Dr. Kevin Cwayna said. "But our ability to help people under the system has been corrupted by a third player."

But uninsured people are not the only ones who would benefit from this bill, Cwayna said.

"The insured people in the U.S. think they're OK," he said. "The truth of the matter is that half of the bankruptcies in the U.S. are because of personal health care costs, and 75 percent of those people had health insurance."

If the bill passes, total health care spending in California will be reduced by $8 billion in the first year, according to The Lewin Group report. Employers who offer health benefits would save 16 percent and the average family would save $340 per year, the study concluded.

"It gets rid of the insurance companies who suck money out of the system," Hoff said.

SB 840 is one of several health care bills working their way through the Legislature. While SB 840 is still alive in the Assembly, proponents said they are hoping to keep it on hold until next year while they continue rallying support for the measure.

"This is the only bill that covers all Californians without premiums, without copays, that covers vision, dental, mental health," said Barbara Barker, member of the California Health Care Committee and co-president of the Torrance League of Women Voters. "It takes a social position."

Those against the bill have concerns about costs and a government-controlled program.

"We're concerned that a single-payer type system could limit the ability of a doctor to make decisions about the best way to treat and care for a patient," said Ron Lopp, broadcast manager for the California Medical Association.

"The bill fails to establish what the estimated cost of the program would be or how much revenue would be generated to fund the program," said Lisa Folberg, associate director of the center of government relations for the California Medical Association, in a letter to Kuehl.

But those at the rally continue to support the bill. About 30 people held signs on the street corner and marched up Pine Avenue across Broadway and back while handing out fliers.

"I had full benefits and now I'm unemployed," said Long Beach resident Juan Rodriquez. "It's hitting me home now."

Massachusetts passed an individual mandate law that requires residents to have health insurance and Arizona is working on a bill similar to SB 840 now, but California could be the first state to pass a single-payer system bill.

"It will be a sense of well-being both for the individual and for society as a whole, a sense of security and safety from your own illnesses and those of others," Barker said. "I think there'd be a sense of pride that we all take care of each other."

The Los Angeles rally will take place on the south lawn of City Hall on Saturday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.