SF June 22 Rally for HR 676 focussing on Sebelius' attack on Single Payer

Picket Health & Human Services Secretary

Kathleen Sebelius

for Single Payer Healthcare

11am Mon., June 22

SF Fairmont Hotel – 950 Mason

 

June 28 – SF Pride Parade

March with State Senator Leno for Single Payer Healthcare

Plus media victories

 

Dear Single Payer Activist,

 

Please picket with us on Monday, June 22, from 11am to 12:15 at a $500 luncheon featuring Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. The picket will be at San Francisco's Fairmont Hotel at 950 Mason.  On June 16 on NPR radio Sebelius said

Interviewer: Can you say flat out it's just never going to be single-payer health insurance, and we're going to try to write it, if we can, so that itwon't ever be?

Secretary Sebelius: "Oh I think that's very much the case,…"

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105442888

 

Please let know if you can picket on Monday, if you can call our phone tree, and if your organization can endorse the picket.  At this moment, the California Alliance for Retired Americans, the California Nurses Assn., the SF Gray Panthers, and Single Payer Now have endorsed.

 

__ I plan to attend the picket.

__ I can help call our phone tree.

__ My organization _________ endorses the picket.

__ I have forwarded this alert.

 

Suggested signs include

Healthcare Yes!  Insurance Companies No!

Support HR 676

Stop Banning Discussion of Single Payer Legislation

Put Single Payer on the Table

 

New item.

Please join with us on Sunday, June 28, and march for single payer with State Senator Mark Leno at San Francisco's Gay Pride March.

We will send out details of where to meet soon.

___ I plan to march for SB 810 with Senator Leno on June 28.

 

Pasted below are a single payer letter in today's SF Chronicle, information for Single Payer Now on the radio on Friday, and a piece written on the public option and negotiating.

 

Thank you.

Don Bechler

Chair – Single Payer Now

415-695-7891

www.singlepayernow.net

 

SF Chronicle  June 18, 2009  Letters to the editor  Suzanne is a leader with Single Payer Now.

 

Losing dental benefits

Thanks to Victoria Colliver for describing the plight of Dennis Conklin, who soon will lose his teeth along with his Medi-Cal dental benefits ("Loss of dental care under Medi-Cal hard to swallow," June 12).

Dennis and the other estimated 2.8 million low-income Californians whose dental services are about to fall to the budget ax would not be in this sad state if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had approved SB 810, the California Universal Health Care Act. The bill, passed twice by the Legislature and vetoed both times by the governor, would have covered full dental care along with all other medically necessary procedures. If signed into law, it would have financed comprehensive, high-quality health care for every resident while saving billions of dollars.

SB 810 is a piece of legislation that has teeth to it and could take a powerful bite out of our fiscal crisis.

SUZANNE COWAN

San Francisco

Single Payer Now will on radio on Friday, June 19 at 1pm.

The station is KZYX&Z at 88.1 in Fort Bragg, 90.7 in Philo and Mendo, and 91.5 in Ukiah and Willits.  We do have live streaming on the web at kzyx.org.

 

Comments by Don Bechler to those people who are working for a "public option".

 

We have no idea if a public option proposal will do more good than harm.  The current outlook looks grim.

Such a proposal could drive people to believe that government can not do anything right.

I see 5 versions of a public option.

A. Direct people to a private insurance plan - Baucus

B. Postpone public plan. Wait to see if insurance industry can voluntarily solve problem.  If not, then trigger a public option.

C. Have a private insurance company purchasing pool for small business.  The history of this approach has not been good.

California tried it and it went broke.

D.Have a separate subsidized Medicare like option.  Kennedy.

E.Have a separate non subsidized Medicare like option.  Participants would fund it.  (But are not they the people who currently cannot afford healthcare?)

 

Choice D would be the most liberal.

But then we would have to figure out what it would look like.

1. Would there be copays, premiums, and deductibles.

2. What would it cover? Dental? Long Term Care?  Full mental health?  Prescription drugs?

3. Would it allow full choice of physician or would that be limited?

4. What would be the regulatory mechanisms to prevent insurance companies from cherry picking.  Like the Mafia, it is part of the private insurance company gene structure to figure out how to cheat us out of our money and healthcare.

 

Keep in mind, offering different classes of care to different classes of people is not reflective of our best values.

 

Lets talk about how to negotiate even if you think there may be a compromise.

I have some experience as I was on both UAW and IAM negotiating committees.

Does one walk into negotiations asking for what they think might be the final outcome or does a negotiator walk into a room asking for what they want?  I assume everyone on this list is for single payer.

  

No one on this list is going to be involved in voting on the final legislation. 

Our task is to lobby for what is best. 

 

Only HR 676 can bring healthcare to everyone. 

Only 676 has no copays, deductibles, or premiums.