October 2006 Vol. 25. No. 10

Published by the Humboldt Senior Resource Center in Eureka, California. HSRC is a non-profit community-based organization offering services for senior citizens, multi-generational families and caregivers.

Reading Service of the Redwoods Volunteers
Medicare Rx: October dates can affect prescription plans
California's Universal Health Care - could it have worked?
Senior Aqua Aerobics: A new group likes getting all wet
Del Norte STRONG classes
McKinleyville - Health services at the senior center
Fortuna-Feeling dizzy? Feeling tired? Maybe it's your pills
Diabetes and obesity: a modern day epidemic
Senior softball: World champ gets his ring

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After four years of arduous effort in Sacramento writing and rewriting, of running the gauntlet of committees, the single payer health care bill finally hit the Governor's desk.

Imagine, every Californian insured for life. All health care covered - prescription drugs, preventive care, primary, hospital, emergency, dental, vision, durable medical equipment, mental health; your primary provider of choice; no more pre-existing condition exclusions; no co-pays or deductibles for at least two years; lower premiums for most who are now covered. No more sacrificing food for prescriptions. All that at no additional cost. Too good to be true. But there it was.

Then in the stroke of a pen it's gone. The governor immediately stated his intention to veto what is perhaps the most high-impact legislation he's likely to see.

SB 840 (Kuehl), the California Health Insurance Reliability Act, came in almost totally below the radar. Most folks didn't know it existed. But it provided for reliable, comprehensive health insurance for every Californian.

By any measure our existing health system is on life support. Roughly one in five Californians are without health insurance or under-insured - about 20,000 men, women and children in Humboldt County alone. An estimated half of every health care dollar is siphoned off in insurance company costs and over-priced pharmaceuticals.

Soon the average annual cost for a family health insurance policy will be $20,000. Last year alone, medical bills pushed two million Americans into personal bankruptcy.

Rural and inner city hospitals, trauma centers and ERs are closing at an alarming rate; more than half of California's hospitals are losing money; employers are cutting back or eliminating employee coverage because of cost. Among industrialized nations, only the United States lacks national health insurance covering everyone - and with the highest cost health delivery.

While admitting he had not read it, the Governor labeled SB840 "socialized medicine, government run healthcare, unaffordable." Untrue. The truth is it cuts administrative costs from about 30 percent to less than 5 percent, freeing up billions for direct patient care. It could save California families from $300 to $3,000 per year and businesses from $300 to $3,000 per employee.

SB840 has no government- run health care, only a sole- source, centralized cost control and payment mechanism. Costs are paid by pooling Medicare, MediCal and premiums from employers and individuals. Administrative costs are capped at no more than 5 percent after 10 years, a huge savings over today's typical 15 to 25 percent insurance burden. Bulk purchasing of drugs and equipment cut those costs another 20 to 35 percent.

California could net a cool $8 billion savings in the first year, and up to $343 billion after ten years. (According to Levin Group economic impact study of SB921 in April 2004. SB840 is modeled after SB921.)

Doctors and hospitals would once again be the decision makers, receiving fair payment for services rendered. No more time wasted arguing with insurance companies; no more uncompensated costs for the uninsured; no more ERs breaking down under the weight of uninsureds; no more rural and inner-city hospitals and trauma centers closing because of non-paying patients.

The bill passed the Senate and the Assembly on a party line vote.

How bad does it have to get before our elected representatives put simple morality and the lives of people ahead of the deep pockets of insurance and drug companies? This November in the voting booth is a good place to remind them there's a consequence to marching in lock step off the cliff.

The new system with its vision of health care for our future generations would have been in operation within two years. Now, the only recourse may be for the bill to morph into a referendum, a proposition on a future ballot. Let's get behind that grass roots activity in a big way, and soon.

Chuck Acridge is a resident of Fortuna with an active interest in senior public policy issues. Source information came from the office of Assemblywoman Patty Berg, from the office of State Senator Sheila Kuehl, and from the web site www.healthcareforall.org.