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| Sheila Kuehl and Jackie Goldberg PNHP Medicare for All Event July 24 Santa Monica photo credit Susan Cloke |
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| the Billionaires photo credit Susan Cloke |
Celebrating Medicare’s Birthday &Wishing Medicare for All
Susan Cloke
Columnist
Dressed in tails and evening gowns the singing
group, “The Billionaires” poked tuneful barbs charging profiteering by Health
Care Companies in the United States.
Listening, sometimes singing along, sitting in a
beautiful Santa Monica garden, were a large group of people who had come to celebrate
the birthday of Medicare and to support the work of the PNHP CA (Physicians for
a National Health Program CA) to open Medicare to all Americans.
Council Members Ted Winterer and Gleam Davis
welcomed everyone to the event and spoke of the City Council official statement
in support of Single Payer in CA.
State Senator Ben Allen spoke about the
successful work of the State Legislature to extend Medicaid to the children of undocumented
workers in CA and their ongoing work with the Federal Government for a waiver
to allow undocumented workers to be able to buy insurance on the Health Care
Exchange. He also spoke about data
showing health care high costs and poor outcomes in the U.S. as compared to
Countries with National Health Care.
Sheila Kuehl, now Los Angeles County Supervisor
and formerly a several time Member of the State Legislature, spoke about the
history of health care, the beginnings and growth of Medicare and her Bill to
establish a Commission responsible for the program for Single Payer Health Care
in CA.
Her Single Payer Bill was introduced several
times, to wide support, but was not realized. She reminded the audience that even if it had been
successful it would have needed to go to the voters for approval.
Kuehl continues to be optimistic saying that she
believes incremental changes will continue until “Single Payer becomes
inevitable.”
MedicareResources.org outlines the history of
Medicare in the U.S from the 1912 platform of President Teddy Roosevelt, which
included the idea of a national health plan. President Franklin Roosevelt had wanted health care to be
part of the Social Security Act.
§ In
1945 President Harry Truman called for the creation of a national health
insurance fund to be open to all Americans.
§ President
John Kennedy made an unsuccessful push for a national health care program for
seniors.
§ Finally, in
1965 President Lyndon Johnson signed legislation that started Americans
receiving Medicare health coverage.
President Truman was at the ceremony and received the first Medicare
card.
§ The retirement wave of baby boomers was once
expected to cause Medicare to become a budget buster. The Congressional Budget
Office is now projecting lower increases than once
thought, thanks in part to cost savings embedded in ObamaCare.
§ MedicareResources.org
records 49,435,610 people as receiving health coverage through a Medicare
program in 2014.
PNHP CA focuses their action on creating Medicare for all
and works to support every effort to increase access to health
Jackie Goldberg, former State Assembly Member, former Los Angeles City Council Member and
former Los Angeles School Board Member, attended the event to show her support
for PNHP and Single Payer and ably led a successful fundraising from the stage.
I believe universal health care, like universal
education, will make our democracy better and stronger. I’m grateful to PNHP and to all the
people and organizations working to make quality health care for all a
reality. I am grateful to all the
Presidents from Teddy Roosevelt to Barack Obama who moved the cause of
universal health care forward.
In this election year our health care is a front
and center issue. I am grateful to
Bernie Sanders. We have all benefited from his commitment to health care for
all and for helping our nation to focus on this issue.
I am grateful to Hillary Clinton. We have benefitted as a nation by her successful
work to make a reality of the plan to insure millions of American children and
by her long-standing commitment to achieving health care for all.
& like Sheila Kuehl, I think it’s
inevitable.
What Say You?
