UPDATE: New meeting time.
It’s time to talk about MediCare for all. Both California and New York are moving bills forward that will make health care available for everyone and cut out the middleman. SB 562, Healthy California Act, has passed the floor of the Senate and is now moving to the Assembly. This is a historic moment.
As a doctor, I am a careful, analytic, realist. But I must admit, I get a little choked up thinking about the possibility of moving beyond the broken, expensive, profit driven mess we call a health care system. Is this a pipe dream? Pie in the sky? I don’t think so. Almost all developed countries have universal health care systems that provide quality care to their residents. And they do it for half as much as we are already spending and they have far better outcomes.
I experienced a national health system three years ago when I broke my hand while travelling in Bhutan. It was amazing. I walked into the government hospital ER, signed in and gave them my date of birth — that was registration. No paperwork. No calling the insurance to see if it was active. I just talked to the ER doctor, got an x-ray, saw the orthopedic specialist, got a cast and left without paying a cent. I offered to pay but they said they had come to the conclusion that the time it took for them to track the billing and payments was more than it was worth.
Just imagine what that would be like. Imagine — no health care bills, no insurance policies, no trying to figure out what is and isn’t covered, no having to stay in a job you hate because you need the health insurance. When I imagine spending my time talking to patients instead of fighting with insurance companies to get blood sugar test strips covered, I get fired up.
What is this dream I am talking about? It has many forms — national health care, single payer, MediCare for All. The basic idea is always the same. Everyone pays into one medical system and then we are all guaranteed care when we need it. Currently, many people get their health care through a system that is run by businesses (insurance companies) whose bottom line means they need to take in far more than they spend in health care. They not only need to pay for medical care, they also have to pay exorbitant salaries of CEOs and administrators, advertisers and people to process (look for reasons to deny) requests from health care providers to be paid. Super inefficient.
Could we really cut out the middleman and have a true health care system? The Healthy California Act, SB 562, coauthored by our own Santa Rosa State Senator, Mike McGuire, would create a single payer system here in California. It is a visionary plan that would cover everyone in California.
As a doctor who sees up close the tragedy caused by the lack of a true health care system that covers everyone, I have long believed in the universal health care dream. The exciting thing is that right now people are fired up and ready to make it happen. The time for real health care reform is now. Health care is a right and shouldn’t revolve around the insurance industry’s profits. Let’s use the momentum we have here in California to lead the way. Si se puede! Yes we can.
Find out more at a Town Hall Meeting “SB 562: The Campaign for Guaranteed Health Care for All” on Thursday, June 22, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Healdsburg Community Center (1557 Healdsburg Avenue, Healdsburg). The event is wheelchair accessible and the doors open at 6 p.m.
Panna Lossy is a physician and part of the UCSF faculty at the Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency. Lossy is also part of HPEACE (Health Professionals for Equality and Community Empowerment).
