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Important Websites
Our Partners in Advocacy:
Gray Panther Sacto. Monthly Meetings: 2nd
Tuesday ever y month, Hart Senior Center
Steering Committee Meetings:
4th Tuesday of every month, Hart
Senior Center
Officers
Temporary
leaders: Margie Metzler, (916) 921-5008, margiemetz@hotmail.com;
Arnie Godmintz, (916) 332-5980, arniegod@sbcglobal.net;
Pat Naylor, (916) 391-6274, plnaylor@comcast.net
PO Box 19438
Sacramento, CA 95819
Web: www.gpcal.org
Lola Young, Treasurer
Dr. Karl Stoffers, Environment
Terry Terry, Disabled issues
Marge Cumming, Historian
Nell Ranta, Hospitality
Linda Roberts and Karen Raasch (CIDs),
Housing issues
Nell Ranta, Labor/wage issues
Margie Metzler, Newsletter Editor
John Bernier, Newsletter Asst. Editor
Peter D'Anna, SS/Medicare Advisor
Richard Seyman, Dale Kooyman, Barbara Stanton, Transportation
advisors
Edie Poole, Pat Naylor, and Jean Mellberg,
Members at Large
Margie Metzler, Program Coordinator and Webmaster, www.gpcal.org
| Gray
Panthers California
Healthcare Reform Project
Note:
this is our new page, devoted to single-payer healthcare issues!
Margie's
Uninsured Blog
From presentation on
Women's Equality Event and Reception, August 28: Healthcare
issues
HCA
June 6: Dr. Glennah Trochet Presentation PPT
PDF
HCA
June 6: Community Clinics, Dr. Abraham Daniels PPT
PDF
New
Drug/Pharmaceuticals Presentation
Yosemite
Presentation
Chico
presentation (PowerPoint) (PDF)
Lucerne
presentation June 14 (More on history and myths)
OWL
presentation (with Charlene Jones) June 21 2008 (Powerpoint)
(PDF)

Our grant with the Wellness Foundation, California, has been extended
for three years! As part of this grant, we have expanded our focus to
all Healthcare Issues, including the Uninsured and Underinsured in America,
discussions of the plans proposed in California for healthcare and other
prescription drug and healthcare-related issues.
| Kuehl's is only real universal bill
(letter to the editor, Sacbee, published Jan.
7 2008)
Re "Assembly bill would help cover state's uninsured,"
Jan. 2: Republicans and health insurers aren't the only ones opposing
Assembly Bill X1 1. Gray Panthers are proud to stand with doctors,
advocates and patients, California nurses and the League of Women
Voters. We all oppose a solution that continues to place the fiscal
health of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries above the
physical health of Californians.
Forcing everyone to buy health insurance for whatever premium companies
decide to charge – for whatever benefits they choose to offer
– does not make sense. Quality standards are absolutely vital
for any fair plan.
The bill as it stands hints at penalties for those not purchasing
insurance, but gives no real details. Would wages be garnished by
the state? States that passed some similar employer mandate have
not reached anything like universal coverage: Massachusetts' widely
touted plan has seen uninsured numbers go up by roughly 150,000,
while Oregon's uninsured numbers stagnate.
Don't call something "universal" unless it truly covers
everyone. Like state Sen. Sheila Kuehl's Senate Bill 840! Californians
need to understand their options. We may be voting life or death.
Joan Lee, Sacramento
Convenor, Gray Panthers California
Margie Metzler, Sacramento
Program Coordinator, Gray Panthers California
http://www.sacbee.com/326/story/611004.html |
Here are our presentations as they have been
given in the past months. Our presentations can be tailored to your needs.
Want us to provide a presentation for your
group? Call us,
(916) 921 -5008, or e-mail margiemetz@hotmail.com
Articles and Books
Insurance Companies
Single-Payer/Healthcare General
- Angell, Marcia, MD: The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They
Deceive Us and What to Do About it. Random House Trade Paperbooks, 2005
- Bartlett, Donald L. and Steele, James B.: Critical Condition: How
Health Care in America Became Big Business—and Bad Medicine. Broadway
Books, 2004.
- Cohn, Jonathan: Sick: The Untold Story of America’s Health
Care Crisis—And the People Who Pay the Price. Harper Collins,
2007.
- Daschle, Tom, Senator: Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care
Crisis. Thomas Dunne Books, 2008.
- Himmelstein, David, MD, Woolhandler, Steffie, MD., with Hellander,
MD: Bleeding the Patient: The Consequences of Corporate Health Care.
Common Courage Press, 2001.
- LeBow, Robert H., MD: Health Care Meltdown: Confronting the Myths
and Fixing Our Failing System. Alan C. Hood & Co., 2003.
- Mahar, Maggie: Money-Driven Medicine, The Real Reason Health Care
Costs so Much, Collins, 2006.
- Quadagno, Jill: One Nation, Uninsured: Why the US Has No National
Health Insurance. Oxford University Press, 2005.
- Reid, T.R., The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper,
and Fairer Health Care. The Penguin Press, 2009.
- The American Prospect, May 2008. Special Report: The Path
to Universal Healthcare.
- Borrowing Ill Health
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=borrowing_ill_health
Hospitals are getting more aggressive about sending debt collectors
after under-insured consumers.
TAMARA DRAUT | April 21, 2008
- Health Reform You Shouldn't Believe In
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=health_reform_you_shouldnt_believe_in
What the Massachusetts experiment teaches us about incremental efforts
to increase coverage by expanding private insurance.
MARCIA ANGELL | April 21, 2008
- Lessons From California
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=lessons_from_california
The Schwarzenegger plan was a near miss, but well worth the trouble.
The stage is set for the next effort.
ANTHONY WRIGHT | April 21, 2008
- The Elusive Politics of Reform
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_elusive_politics_of_reform
Once again, a new administration and Congress will try to bring
us universal health insurance. This time, despite urgent cost pressures,
will they do it right?
EZRA KLEIN | April 21, 2008
- The Primacy of Prevention
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_primacy_of_prevention
Addressing the whole range of behaviors that affect health is the
key to a healthier society. This requires a universal health care
system.
NEAL HALFON | April 21, 2008
- What Path to Universal Coverage?
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=what_path_to_universal_coverage
The next administration will expand health coverage. Will they fix
what is broken -- or just inflate costs?
ROBERT KUTTNER | April 21, 2008
- What Really Ails Medicare
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=what_really_ails_medicare
The cost crisis of Medicare gets a lot of attention. The program
can be fixed only by universalizing the larger health system in
which Medicare resides.
JONATHAN COHN | April 21, 2008
- Why Not Connecticut?
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=why_not_connecticut
A model grassroots organizing campaign mobilizes public opinion
for universal coverage in a state long dominated by private insurers.
MARC CAPLAN | April 21, 2008
- Himmelstein and Woolhandler, Harvards Med. School: The
High Costs of for-Profit Medical Care
- Himmelstein and Woolhandler: Massachusetts'
Mistake
- Mass Health Plan: Failing
Grade: Himmelstein and Woolhandler
- Paying
For National Health Insurance—And Not Getting It
Steffie Woolhandler and David U. Himmelstein
- I
Am Not a Health Reform
By DAVID U. HIMMELSTEIN and STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER
SB 840:
General Healthcare Issues
Health Care Systems – the Four Basic
Models
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/countries/models.html
An excerpt from correspondent T.R. Reid's book on international health
care, titled We're Number 37!, referring to the U.S.'s ranking in the
World Health Organization 2000 World Health Report. The book is scheduled
to be published by Penguin Press in early 2009.
There are about 200 countries on our planet, and each country devises
its own set of arrangements for meeting the three basic goals of a health
care system: keeping people healthy, treating the sick, and protecting
families against financial ruin from medical bills.
But we don't have to study 200 different systems to get a picture of
how other countries manage health care. For all the local variations,
health care systems tend to follow general patterns. There are four
basic systems:
The Beveridge Model
Named after William Beveridge, the daring social reformer who designed
Britain's National Health Service. In this system, health care is provided
and financed by the government through tax payments, just like the police
force or the public library.
Many, but not all, hospitals and clinics are owned by the government;
some doctors are government employees, but there are also private doctors
who collect their fees from the government. In Britain, you never get
a doctor bill. These systems tend to have low costs per capita, because
the government, as the sole payer, controls what doctors can do and
what they can charge.
Countries using the Beveridge plan or variations on it include its
birthplace Great Britain, Spain, most of Scandinavia and New Zealand.
Hong Kong still has its own Beveridge-style health care, because the
populace simply refused to give it up when the Chinese took over that
former British colony in 1997. Cuba represents the extreme application
of the Beveridge approach; it is probably the world's purest example
of total government control.
The Bismarck Model
Named for the Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who invented the
welfare state as part of the unification of Germany in the 19th century.
Despite its European heritage, this system of providing health care
would look fairly familiar to Americans. It uses an insurance system
-- the insurers are called "sickness funds" -- usually financed
jointly by employers and employees through payroll deduction.
Unlike the U.S. insurance industry, though, Bismarck-type health insurance
plans have to cover everybody, and they don't make a profit. Doctors
and hospitals tend to be private in Bismarck countries; Japan has more
private hospitals than the U.S. Although this is a multi-payer model
-- Germany has about 240 different funds -- tight regulation gives government
much of the cost-control clout that the single-payer Beveridge Model
provides.
The Bismarck model is found in Germany, of course, and France, Belgium,
the Netherlands, Japan, Switzerland, and, to a degree, in Latin America.
The National Health Insurance Model
This system has elements of both Beveridge and Bismarck. It uses private-sector
providers, but payment comes from a government-run insurance program
that every citizen pays into. Since there's no need for marketing, no
financial motive to deny claims and no profit, these universal insurance
programs tend to be cheaper and much simpler administratively than American-style
for-profit insurance.
The single payer tends to have considerable market power to negotiate
for lower prices; Canada's system, for example, has negotiated such
low prices from pharmaceutical companies that Americans have spurned
their own drug stores to buy pills north of the border. National Health
Insurance plans also control costs by limiting the medical services
they will pay for, or by making patients wait to be treated.
The classic NHI system is found in Canada, but some newly industrialized
countries -- Taiwan and South Korea, for example -- have also adopted
the NHI model.
The Out-of-Pocket Model
Only the developed, industrialized countries -- perhaps 40 of the world's
200 countries -- have established health care systems. Most of the nations
on the planet are too poor and too disorganized to provide any kind
of mass medical care. The basic rule in such countries is that the rich
get medical care; the poor stay sick or die.
In rural regions of Africa, India, China and South America, hundreds
of millions of people go their whole lives without ever seeing a doctor.
They may have access, though, to a village healer using home-brewed
remedies that may or not be effective against disease.
In the poor world, patients can sometimes scratch together enough money
to pay a doctor bill; otherwise, they pay in potatoes or goat's milk
or child care or whatever else they may have to give. If they have nothing,
they don't get medical care.
These four models should be fairly easy for Americans to understand
because we have elements of all of them in our fragmented national health
care apparatus. When it comes to treating veterans, we're Britain or
Cuba. For Americans over the age of 65 on Medicare, we're Canada. For
working Americans who get insurance on the job, we're Germany.
For the 15 percent of the population who have no health insurance,
the United States is Cambodia or Burkina Faso or rural India, with access
to a doctor available if you can pay the bill out-of-pocket at the time
of treatment or if you're sick enough to be admitted to the emergency
ward at the public hospital.
The United States is unlike every other country because it
maintains so many separate systems for separate classes of people. All
the other countries have settled on one model for everybody. This is
much simpler than the U.S. system; it's fairer and cheaper, too.
- Provider Report Card: http://www.opa.ca.gov/report_card/
(Office of the Patient Advocate)
- Field Poll on Californians' views
on healthcare, August 22, 2007: "The findings show that a growing
majority of voters (69%) express dissatisfaction with the way the health
care system is working in California. Yet, by a five to three margin
(58% to 36%) voters in this state feel it is unlikely that the governor
and legislature will be successful in passing significant health reform
this year.
At the same time, there has been a shift in voter preferences as to
how best to reform the state's health care system. Last December, a
52% majority of voters supported the idea of making reforms to the health
care system within the framework of the current health insurance system
by sharing responsibilities among employers, government and business.
Now, just 33% favor this alternative. On the other hand, there is growing
support for the idea of replacing the current system with a new state
government-run system that would cover all Californians. Statewide,
36% of voters now favor this approach, up from 24% who felt this way
nine months ago.
There is a direct relationship between voters' growing dissatisfaction
with the health care system and the increase in support for creating
a government-run system, as voters "very dissatisfied" with
the way the health care system is functioning are more likely than others
to support a government-run system."
- Means Testing, Medicare
Part B
- Scaling Back Changes to Medicare
Payments, NY Times Aug. 3 2006 (follow-up to
Bush Administration Plans
Medicare Changes )
- CalPIRG Articles:
Health
Care Reform: Good for Our Health, Good for the Budget 1/14/2008
Facing a projected $14 billion budget shortfall, California lawmakers
are right to consider how the landmark health care reform bill, ABX1-1,
will affect the deficit. But ABX1-1 brings in new money for health care
that could not be used to plug the gap in the general fund, as well
as limiting health care costs moving forward.
CALPIRG
Recommendations to Governor Schwarzenegger for 2008 1/08/2008
In anticipation of Governor Schwarzenegger’s State of the State
Address this afternoon, CALPIRG advocates made their own policy recommendations
to the governor on critical issues facing the state of California in
2008, including health care, privatization of public assets, mortgage
lending reforms, and balancing the state budget.
Health
Care Reform: Good for Our Health, Good for the Budget, 1/14/2008
Much-Needed
Health Care Reform Headed for a Vote, 12/14/2007
CALPIRG
Members Speak Out on Health Care, 11/09/2007
CALPIRG
Statement on Democrats' Health Care Reform Compromise Plan, 11/07/2007
CALPIRG
Statement on Assembly Health Committee Hearing on Governor's Health
Care Reform Proposal
Get Help!
Organizations
Healthcare for All http://www.healthcareforall.org/
General Information
Back to top
In 2005, Gray Panthers of California won a grant from the California
Wellness Foundation for advocating and various training and development
activities regarding the mess known as Medicare Part D. Activities
included the following:
• Attend CMS, HICAP and State of California official meetings
• Provide outreach and training to organizations whose members
are affected by Part D
• Create and develop educational and advocacy materials
• Get stories from people adversely affected by Part D
• Keep a project database
• Attend meetings, hearings, advocacy sessions etc.
• Encourage others to become activists and advocates!
In July of 2007, our Grant was extended for three years,
and expanded to include other importatnt helathcare issues.
Let me know if you'd
like to join us! (or call 916-921-5008).
What are we doing about this mess?
• Educate
• Website
• Create informational materials
• Meet with anyone who will listen
• Roar! (Advocate)
• Form coalitions with other senior groups: other Gray
Panther groups, OWL
(Older Women's League) , CARA
(California Alliance for Retired Americans),
Health-Access, CCS (Congress
of Califonria Seniors), NCPSSM
(National
Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare), etc.
• Form Coalitions with other activist groups
• Form Coalitions with Pharmacist groups (Pharmacists
Planning Services,
Inc., PPSI)
• Attend meetings of all sorts
• Write, call, talk, e-mail, etc.
• Donut Postcards
• Collect horror stories
Back to top How Can You Help?
• Write, call, talk, e-mail, etc.
• Send postcards, letters, etc.
• Letters to the Editor
• Letters to Legislators (Federal and State)
• Tell us your horror stories
• Testify in Congress, in writing, in the Capitol
• Give us more ideas!
Back to top Contact
Information
Gray Panthers
of Sacramento
P.O. Box 19438, Sacramento, CA 95819
For more information contact
Temporary leaders: Margie
Metzler, (916) 921-5998, margiemetz@hotmail.com;
Arnie Godmintz, (916) 332-5980, arniegod@sbcglobal.net;
Pat Naylor, (916) 391-6274, plnaylor@comcast.net
Website: http://www.gpcal.org/
Meetings: Steering Committee, 4th Tuesday of the month, 1-3
Monthly Meetings: 2nd Tuesday of the month, 1-3
Both, Hart Senior Center, 915 27th Street, Sacramento, CA 95816
Healthcare Reform in California Program:
1121 Wayland Avenue
Sacramento, CA 95825
Contact Margie Metzler, (916) 921-5008 or margiemetz@hotmail.com

This program and this website operate under a grant from the California
Wellness Foundation (http://www.tcwf.org/)
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