Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Zelda's Single Payor Legend

TRI-PAC Health and Wellness Advocacy vociferously opposes the reintroduction of SB 840 (Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, aka Zelda Gilroy).

In 2004, TRI-PAC leadership met with Deputies from the Office of Senator Sheila Kuehl and their “consultants” to inform and educate them, as well as to express objections and call for amendments. Unfortunately, our discussions fell on deaf ears.

Last legislative session, on request and recommendation of TRI-PAC, the Governor responded favorably and vetoed the bill (SB 840).


The education and teaching community have done a great disservice to their students, parents, to their profession, and should be ashamed of themselves for supporting and advocating passage of such misinformed and misguided policy and legislation which is not in the best interest of children, families, current and future generations of Californians.

Single payer health care is a system where government pays for all health care costs usually from taxes. Private hospitals and physician practices may remain private. Single payor is distinct from socialized medicine; hospitals are run by the government and medical professionals are employed by the government.

In 1975 my mother and I went to visit relatives in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. My Dad (now deceased) was an ophthalmologist who stayed behind to tend to his patients. I went swimming in Lake Winnipeg. I got stung in the eye by a mosquito. I could not be seen nor could I get a prescription. There was a fee dispute between the physicians and the Manitoba Provincial Government. The system came to a grinding halt. There was a physician classmate of my Dad on site. He stood firm with his colleagues in "solidarity" and would not see me. I returned from our visit to Winnipeg with the stinger in my eye as a Canadian "souvenir".

In the ensuing 30 years, there have been no material improvements to the Canadian system—people still have to wait for elective surgery, CAT Scan, MRI, and other ancillary service that we take for granted.


Now, that the health care proposals by the Senate President Pro-Tempore, the Assembly Speaker, the Governor, and Senator Kuehl (which was heard separately) begin their way through the legislative process.
I have been informed that all these bills will be negotiated and combined into a single bill for passage by both the Assembly and the Senate and forwarded to the Governor for signature.

SB 840 is a "legend" in the minds of misguided politicians.

Its intent is not doable.

It will not cover the uninsured.

Robert Donin,
President, TRI-PAC Health and Wellness Advocacy
11693 San Vicente Boulevard, #346
Los Angeles, CA. 90049
robertdonin@yahoo.com

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Correct me if I am wrong, but the Single Payor innitiative was defeated on the Federal level at least three times in the last 100 years. Judging by the pragmatic functionality of our government on all of the other issues, I believe that the Federal Government knows best when it comes to the Single Payor initiative as well. If the initiative has been deemed not good for the entire United States why has it suddenly become good for the Mighty State of California?

I actually believe that nothing could be worse than a Single Payor system in CA!!! Is the immigration influx not big enough that we need to make CA more appealing with free health insurance?

Single Payor systems "work" in places where illegal immigration rates are low and every resident pays taxes so as to keep the system afloat. I cannot imagine that most CA residents pay taxes or contribute in any other way to the system.

I am very angry that in addition to my college loans I will be paying for someone else's broken leg or a baby delivery.

Anonymous said...

Hi, are you Russian? I saw your doctor health care page. I'd have to look up a few words in the dictionary to understand your Webster's division. Plainly if you want to present something to the American public though in regards to Healthcare one has to approach the topic with some very simple English without Hippocrates (Hipocriting), lies, cover ups, false advertising, and all the rest that goes along with the Business community. If you can put that into plain English, that is for the abundance of the population who do not have a PHD and studies so they can actually understand it coherently with truth, compassion, understanding then you may actually achieve success with the government.

I was quite interested in what you said about Hawaii though without its illegal immigrants and inflow. I know from experience the overcrowding of the hospital Oliveview where patients wait in long long lines to see a doctor mostly all hispanics and most likely many from across the border. Although the hospital is huge it is filled with immigrants who need medicine, care, surgeries, birth control, etc....etc...etc.... What also happens there is well a person can be bleeding to death and he may have to wait 8 hours to get into emergency if they are filled. I guess that isn't fair to people who let's say are legal citizens here.

Maybe the only answer is what Canada does and I'm not sure what that is. Lol. I did hear that although there may be a high unemployment rate everyone, and I mean everyone gets medical care either way, rich or poor so I guess everyone gets to get to a dentist or get those tests and surgeries if needed.

Just recently I read about a boy dying because his momma was poor, african american, had another son who was having problems and all these medical cost care stuff kept getting in the way whereas he couldn't get the absess cleaned out in time and ended up in emergency getting brain surgery where he died the morning later. Why? Because he didn't get to a dentist to get the absess cleaned out which went to his brain. A small innocent boy. A dentist could know and see that a boy could die from such an absess but if his momma don't have the money well she gotta go look elsewhere. Now who is accountable? The dentist who knew this information or just the blind faced system of no ones when there is a problem like this?

I guess the best thing maybe to do would be to build a whole lot of government owned hospitals, old aged homes where there is no fighting over heirarchies within the system, where big guys don't sit at conference tables with cigars fighting over twenty billion dollar profits and how to split it amongst them profited from sick people or just people who needed medical assistance.

Or maybe like the little old aged home where some Phillipinos bought in hoping to gain a profit and lost site of the well being, happiness of little old people who served well for this country in their youth and just needed to relax, have some people who cared about them, some movies, have their nails done, others to party with and sit next to or hug, a little doggy to touch and pet but the Phillipinos were too busy counting their chances at profits and took the extras away from these little old people who deserved some joys so they could stick it in their fat wallets and drive some very fancy cars with all the extras. This wouldn't have happened if the government owned that little old aged home. In fact the ones that died from the lack of joys and some neglect would have lived a few more years.

I dont' think private enterprise is always that good in a medical care system that is there seems to be someone trying to make a huge profit at the expense of someone else's life.

If that same dentist worked for the government and didn't have anything to lose in taking out that absess in that little boy's mouth (who happened to be American) and would have gotten paid either way and knew there was a chance the absess could lead to brain damage and death the boy would have been living today.

My only real studies are in the arts, music, singing, dance, choreography, ballet, acting for camera. The whole of my life was spent on the arts not academics. I was always alot happier dancing and making music more than anything else really. I never got a headache when I was dancing all day long either.

I'm a Jewish girl. Are you Jewish or Christian?

Debbie