PHOTO/NATIONAL NURSES UNITED
SAN JOSE, CA — Despite the delaying tactics of our corrupt state legislature, amplified by the corporate media, the people’s Campaign for a Healthy California CA SB 562, grows stronger every day.
We, the people, are writing our own story in town halls, presentations, movie showings, fairs, farmers markets, multiple visits to our representatives, and knocking on doors in all 80 districts up and down California—talking one on one with people about our bill. Their reply? They just want healthcare, affordable, uncomplicated full and accessible healthcare for themselves, their families and communities!
Our campaign of over six million Californians representing over 350 government, community, business, faith, healthcare providers, and labor organizations is fighting to ensure healthcare is a human right. Thousands of people who have never before gotten involved in politics are becoming dedicated activists.
Antonio Mora: “I have joined the fight because I can’t stand it that my grown children cannot afford care because of high deductibles when they need it, or the burden of debt to pay bills incurred.”
Terry Gascay: “I want to make this country GREAT again, and to me that means healthy and thriving. Capitalism and free enterprise have made this nation greedy and sick, so I FIGHT for single-payer as a means to leave a positive legacy for the future of us all.”
Our bill would provide California residents with comprehensive coverage, including hospital, primary and preventive care, vision, dental, hearing, mental health, lab tests, rehab, long-term care. … It would give us real patient choice of providers and get rid of narrow networks, insurance payments, deductibles, premiums, and co-pays!
Christine Fitzgerald, disability rights advocate: “With CA SB 562, one unified coverage would allow people like me with multiple needs to get services like testing and in-home support services in one place and time—with one doctor to oversee everything ensuring better care.”
Although California fully implemented the ACA “Obamacare,” what we have still is a wasteful, profit-driven, and unequal patchwork. Over two million of us are not allowed to purchase from the exchanges or receive subsidies because we are undocumented immigrants. Eleven million of us are underinsured, or forced into restrictive, and bare-bones managed care plans. Fifteen million more of us are underinsured because we can’t use the plans we are paying for because we have a deductible of $2,000 or more.
There is no time to waste as the federal government relentlessly pushes to dismantle not only the ACA but Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and community clinics, and nonprofit hospitals which provide some safely for our most vulnerable, elderly, poor, unemployed and underpaid workers without benefits. We must fight back, but we must also fight forward to a vision of what we truly need—nationalized healthcare. Single payer is a start.
This growing campaign is part of the motion that is happening all over the country for our basic human needs—housing, health and healthcare, clean water and air, food, education. … We are coming to believe that these are public property, not commodities to be bought and sold.
