Introducing Jeanne Ertle, our latest unsung hero of healthcare reform! This project of HEAL California, highlights the hard work and dedication of individuals who are working – often in the background – to win Medicare-for-All in California and the nation.
The end goal for Jeanne Ertle’s activism is not just volunteering, knocking on doors or getting signatures for initiatives but about transforming Americans’ relationship with their government. And she believes universal healthcare can do that.
Born in San Diego, Ertle has deep roots in social justice campaigns. From alleviating hunger around the world, to nuclear proliferation or supporting affordable housing, the 73-year-old has continually sided with the disenfranchised and the marginalized. Since 1991, her main focus has been fighting for a single-payer healthcare system in the United States.
“I have a strong commitment to democracy,” she said. “And I believe if we had a healthcare system
that the government was involved in, which covered everybody, America’s relationship with its government could change from one that is antagonistic to one that recognizes us as partners with the government. I think that would strengthen democracy. That underlies all of my work and is the reason I do what I do.”
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Ertle’s sense of social justice was informed early by her parents, Zigmunt and Velma Peranski, as well as her Catholic upbringing. Her father was a union member, a machinist, and her mother, a maid. Her father was born in Pennsylvania and worked in the coal mines as a youth. He escaped by joining the Army and heading to France in WW I.
“Clearly, my family benefited because of the labor movement,” Ertle said. “The stories I heard about the rights that unions were fighting for and the terrible way my mother was treated while working as a maid made me feel strongly about these issues.”
Growing up in a Catholic household, including attending a Catholic elementary school, taught her about the supportive relationship between the Church and labor. Although she later attended a public school, she never forgot the lessons.
One of the first activist groups Ertle joined was “Bread for the World,” an organization formed by ministers throughout the country to address world hunger, initially through charity. They eventually realized that charity was not enough. Any success would depend on social change and that would require political engagement.
This would be a pivotal insight for Ertle’s future activist involvement, one that would inform her work as executive director of the Office for Justice and Peace of the San Diego Diocese as she addressed issues of poverty, nuclear weapons, the US economy and homelessness. For her political work in the establishment of the San Diego Housing Trust Fund for low income residents, she was the recipient of the San Diego Housing Commission Shelter Award.
In 1991, universal healthcare became a political issue at the national level. A candidate in Pennsylvania ran on single payer and won.
“This was when jobs from the Midwest were disappearing, factories were closing, and people were losing their healthcare,” Ertle said. “Americans were starting to realize that we needed a real healthcare system that benefited people. We could no longer depend on jobs for healthcare access.”
It was around this time she began working with Neighbor to Neighbor in a California initiative campaign (Proposition 186) for single payer. As a volunteer coordinator, she recruited and organized volunteer signature gathers and coordinated and presented at fundraising house parties.
“It was an amazing experience,” she said. “Hundreds of people in San Diego County volunteered to collect signatures and host fundraising parties. We lost very badly, but it taught me a couple of things. People’s understanding of their own reality can be changed by propaganda, public relations and the media. I decided, based on that, that education was what I should be concentrating on.”
After moving to Chico, California, Ertle became involved in the Butte County Health Care Coalition, a group associated with Healthcare for All. It was during this time, as a board member of Health Care for All, that she worked for passage of a single payer bill in the California Legislature. The bill was passed by the Legislature twice and forwarded to the governor’s desk for signature. Unfortunately, the governor at the time was Arnold Schwarzenegger, and he let the bills die.
“I’ve never done this work because I needed healthcare myself. I was fortunate,” she said. “I just have a strong commitment to social justice and to me that means everyone deserves to have the healthcare they need.”
In 2011, Ertle joined the board of California OneCare as vice chair. Using social media, California OneCare educates and advocates in support of a single-payer type system.
“Social change is hard,” she said. “I’ve been working on this issue for many years, and it may be that I won’t see success in my lifetime. But because of my work and that of many thousands more, and, of course, Bernie Sanders, we’re closer than we’ve ever been.”
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