Guaranteed Healthcare

Maybe I’m seeing things too optimistic, but stepping back from the details of the healthcare reform movement, and looking at the big national trends, there is reason to hope that the movement in California for guaranteed healthcare will lead the nation along a path to progress.

Obviously in many ways the situation is different…labor unions are stronger in California than they are nationally, (and led the way in defeating the insurance industry-backed fake healthcare reform bill offered last year by Arnold Schwarzenneger and former Speaker Fabian Nunez), and the healthcare grassroots might be more developed as well.

But the underlying economics are the same…workers, families, employers and the state budget alike are all being crushed by out-of-control costs for insurance premiums, deductibles, and co-pays, all for a service that places us last in the industrialized world, and to subsidize a health insurance industry that plays no role in the delivery of patient care.

So let’s just take a look at the evidence that suggests California is leading the nation:

   With the holidays in full swing, a lot of the young patients I see in San Francisco, are depressed, stressed-out and down-right sick.  Between working crappy going no where jobs that pay little,  sky-high rents, going to school full-time and trying to pay down loans and no chance of health insurance from either work, parents or school, this generation should be called "the stressed out gen". 

   Most of these patients wait until it gets so bad, either the pain or the self-treatment from multiple trips to the OTC counter at Walgreens doesn't work anymore. 

   They usually delay their medical care until it gets so bad there really isn't a choice but the public sector. 

The UAW’s strike against GM is not just about their members' healthcare…but also about the healthcare of millions of people not represented by a powerful union.  We’ll look at the potential impact of this historic strike and what it means for workers and the nation that is healthcare increasingly becoming the central issue for labor, both in bargaining and activism…