The single payer movement is gaining a lot of momentum in California. Early this year, the California Legislature introduced AB 1400, a new single payer bill that when approved by Gov. Gavin Newsom will start the process of implementing improved Medicare for All (i.e. single payer) and hopefully other states will follow.
With Latest California Single Payer Health Care Bill Shelved, Advocates Push Newsom For Support
The single payer proposal that proponents put forward this year, Assembly Bill 1400, failed to make it through the Assembly Rules Committee this week and is now a two-year bill, eligible to move in January 2022.
The bill’s backers are now asking Newsom to step up and champion the cause. At a Monday demonstration at the Capitol, they played a recording of Newsom from his 2018 campaign where he promised to “lead the effort to get it done.”
The process will not be easy and it will require the leadership of legislators in Sacramento. This is where Pilar Schiavo, Assembly District 38 candidate will play a key role. Pilar has been a single payer leader for many years, through the California Nurses Association where she worked for 13 years.
Pilar’s Assembly District 38 is now in GOP hands because of lack of leadership among Democrats (too many primary candidates).
I do not live in her district but I have been a single payer activist for almost as many years and I believe that Pilar can be the leader we need in Sacramento to make it happen. I’ve written about the Sacramento process too.
The next primary will be in March and I write this diary to help Pilar get support from single payer activists and the CA Dem party to do what they can to help her get to Sacramento.
I talked to Pilar yesterday and she is going to be the keynote speaker in a virtual statewide Zoom “townhall” on October 28 at 7PM PT. You can register in Eventbrite;
Let’s do what we can to make single payer a reality, starting in California.
Pilar does not take any money from corporations, specially from health insurance ones which seem to give to many Dem politicians in California. So, again, do what you can and donate to her campaign something, no matter how little, through her web site.
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AB-1400 Guaranteed Health Care for All
This bill, the California Guaranteed Health Care for All Act, would create the California Guaranteed Health Care for All program, or CalCare, to provide comprehensive universal single-payer health care coverage and a health care cost control system for the benefit of all residents of the state.
AB 1400 has already been endorsed by many influential people, single payer organizations and government bodies like the Los Angeles City Council.
“Single-payer healthcare is long overdue, and while we push for Medicare for All nationally, California can lead the way by enacting CalCare,” said Councilmember Mike Bonin. “Unanticipated medical expenses should not doom people to bankruptcy, poverty or homelessness. I am proud that the Los Angeles City Council enthusiastically endorsed AB1400, which would offer health care coverage to 3 million uninsured Californians.
Should Gavin Newsom survive the Republican-driven attempt to oust him from office, the Democratic governor will face the prospect of paying back supporters who coalesced behind him.
And the leaders of California’s single-payer movement will want their due.
Publicly, union leaders say they’re standing with Newsom because he has displayed political courage during the coronavirus pandemic by taking actions such as imposing the nation’s first statewide stay-at-home order. But behind the scenes, they are aggressively pressuring him to follow through on his 2018 campaign pledge to establish a government-run, single-payer health care system.
“I expect him to lead on California accomplishing single-payer and being an example for the rest of the country,” said Sal Rosselli, president of the National Union of Healthcare Workers, which is urging Newsom to get federal permission to fund such a system.
Another union, the California Nurses Association, is pushing Newsom to back state legislation early next year to do away with private health insurance and create a single-payer system. But “first, everyone needs to get out and vote no on this recall,” said Stephanie Roberson, the union’s lead lobbyist.