Healthcare Access is a Human Right 

by Kathryn Donahue. January 18, 2018. North Coast Journal.

Excerpts only. Read complete article here. 

Jim Wood, our state assemblymember, in his Dec. 28 Views column, “Setting the Record Straight,” attempts to discredit California Senate Bill 562 and its supporters.

Wood cites many disingenuous facts.

S.B. 562 is the single payer, Medicare for all bill that has been shelved in our state Assembly by corporate Democrats without needed work or discussion. This is a bill that would provide healthcare access to every resident of California for every type of medical service.

The first blatant attack on S.B. 562 that corporate Democrats like to repeatedly state to the public is that there is no funding mechanism in this bill, therefore it is woefully incomplete and not worthy of support. Here is the back story on that disingenuous statement: After passing with a vote of support in the state Senate and going then to the Assembly, the man who immediately placed this bill on the Assembly shelf to die is Assembly Rules Committee Chair Anthony Rendon. Before this shelving of the bill occurred, Mr. Rendon, via his staff, was in discussion with Healthy California, the campaign comprised of organizations representing more than 6 million Californians committed to guaranteeing healthcare access for the residents of our state. In this discussion, Mr. Rendon’s staff relayed to the Healthy California organization that the funding mechanism for S.B. 562 was something to be left to the Assembly to work through, debate and then provide the needed amendments for a funding mechanism. Healthy California agreed to this plan. However, Mr. Rendon then chose to immediately shelve this bill before any work could be done by the Assembly to add the mechanism for funding. An economic analysis of S.B. 562 done by the University of Massachusetts Amherst Economic Department and authored by Robert Pollin provides a look at how this could be accomplished.

The job of our state assemblymembers is to work this bill through their committees, including the Health Committee on which Mr. Wood serves as chair. Instead the corporate Democrats have devised a non-legislative sidetracking of S.B. 562 called “select committee hearings”. Those who understand the mechanisms and value of a single payer system have been excluded from these hearings. The nonprofit California Healthcare Foundation cited by Mr. Wood as the go-to organization for facts relating to a single payer system is an amalgamation of corporate entities that includes health insurance corporations and executives and members of California’s hospital, medical and dental associations, all of which decline to support a single payer system.

. . .

It is time to move S.B. 562 forward. Improve it, debate it, amend it. Mr. Wood needs to stop calling his constituents the uninformed minority who foist untruths on others. Mr. Wood needs to do the legislative work for which he was elected. Mr. Wood needs to work to move this bill through Assembly committees and facilitate a positive outcome for S.B. 562. Your constituents demand, need and deserve no less.

Kathryn Donahue is a longtime registered nurse and patient advocate. She has lived and worked in Humboldt County for 39 years.

Read complete article here.