By Richard Halstead
Marin Independent Journal
February 19, 2006
Guy Esberg of San Anselmo said he recently traveled to Germany for an operation and is contemplating going to Thailand for a second operation because he can’t afford to have the procedures performed in the United States.Don Cohon of Sausalito said he received a $24,000 bill after he fell off his bike and was taken by ambulance to Marin General Hospital, where he received minimal treatment and was released less than three hours later.
David Brody, a Mill Valley psychiatrist, said he is seriously considering moving to Cambodia or New Zealand because the medical system in this country is “falling apart.”
These were just a few of the testimonials presented Saturday at the Marin Civic Center during a political rally for adopting a government-run health-care system.
The meeting was sponsored by Health Care for All-California, a statewide organization working toward a single, nonprofit health-insurance system that will cover all Californians equally.
More than 200 people turned out on a cold, rainy Saturday to listen to local health-care professionals, government officials, union representatives and others make the case for the change.
If attendance at Saturday’s rally is any indication, support in Marin for a government-managed system runs strong. Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, kicked off the meeting, and Assemblyman Mark Leno, D- San Francisco, wrapped it up.
All five candidates competing in the June Democratic primary for the 6th District State Assembly seat were there. Each has expressed support for a government-run system.
Supervisor Cynthia Murray, who had voiced skepticism about government-managed health care, said Saturday that she had undergone something akin to a “religious conversion” on the issue.
An estimated 46 million Americans, one in every five Californians, lack health insurance, said Larry Meredith, director of Marin County’s Department of Health and Human Services. Meredith said health insurance premiums currently are rising 10 percent per year and are expected to double over the next decade.
There is a particular urgency now because SB840, a bill that would create a state-run system in California, is wending its way through the state Legislature. Andrew McGuire, director of Health Care for All-California, said that in July, his organization will initiate a campaign to boost public awareness of the bill in 365 cities throughout the state.
Woolsey said she is supporting SB840, which was introduced by State Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D- Santa Monica, “because I think if it passes, it will create a momentum for national, single-payer solutions around the country.”
Woolsey also is supporting the United States National Health Insurance Act, which has been introduced by Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan. The legislation would create a national system of universal single-payer health-care insurance.
Past efforts to reform the health-care system didn’t fail because Americans are disinterested in the issue, Woolsey said.
“It lost,” Woolsey said, “because the industry that profits from the current system launched a massive negative campaign unprecedented in both its cost and its level of deception.”
With more and more employers eliminating health-care benefits or boosting co-payments, the health-care system is caught in a vicious circle, said John Severson, director of Coastal Health Alliance, a clinic that serves mostly uninsured and underinsured West Marin residents.
People without health coverage get treated after their condition reaches a crisis, and that drives treatment costs up, Severson said. To pay for the treatment of these patients, often in hospital emergency rooms, insurance companies raise everyone’s rates.
“And all of that is a huge dead weight that is working its way straight down our health-care delivery system,” Severson said, “putting our hospitals, physicians and outpatient clinics under a tremendous amount of strain.”
Leno outlined how spiraling health-care costs trigger negative social effects. Health-care bills are the most common cause of personal bankruptcy, and new federal laws have made it more difficult to file for bankruptcy, he said.
“That means more families break up and we have more children in our foster-care system,” Leno said. Only half of all foster children finish high school, and many end up in prison, he said.
“Seventy-five percent of those in the Department of Corrections have come through a foster home,” Leno said.
Rising prison populations mean higher state costs. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget would devote more than 8 percent of state discretionary spending to prisons, Leno said.
“That means the elderly, the indigent and the frail are relying more and more on health services at the local level,” Leno said. “Which means there are fewer dollars for libraries, parks and filling potholes.”
Leno said the health system was unlikely to collapse all at once.
“It is this slow drip, drip, drip,” he said, “as our quality of life slowly disappears.”
