Hometown Hero: Gene Oppenheim

When Gene Oppenheim goes grocery shopping in Santa Monica, people often come up to him and stick out their tongues. It’s not a sign of disrespect, it’s because he has been a family doctor in Santa Monica since 1980.

Gene received his M.D. and Master of Public Health in Epidemiology from UCLA. After residency he and his wife, Patricia Hoffman, went house hunting and bought the house they still live in on Harvard Street in Santa Monica.

He decided to open a solo practice and for ten years his offices were on Yale and Wilshire. During those years he also served on the Ocean Park Community Center Board and was a physician for the Sojourn Battered Women’s Center and for Stepping Stone, a center for abused and deserted children. Gene was appointed to the City of Santa Monica Commission for Older Americans and remembers holding a press conference, with then Assemblyman Tom Hayden, but no reporters came! Just as they ended, the reporter from the Evening Outlook rushed in and so they had a redo of their speeches. The next day, the banner headline on the paper read, “Santa Monica Nursing Homes Refuse Medi-Cal Patients.”

At the same time that Gene had his medical office and was doing health care volunteer work, the insurance companies were creating managed care organizations. Gene said, “the work of dealing with the insurance companies was resource and time consuming and doctors formed group practices in order to be as efficient as possible in the administration of their offices so they could focus on the practice of medicine.”

When he looks at medicine today he sees “Wasted money, money that isn’t used for health care. It goes to profits for company executives and stockholders, the costs of underwriting – which are all the expenditures spent by insurance companies to identify only the healthiest people to insure, and administrative costs.”

He saw the managed care organizations as making it more difficult for him to give his patients the quality of care he wanted to provide and he decided to become a Kaiser doctor. “Kaiser is the way medicine should be practiced. It is an integrated system and more efficient. Doctors are on salary and so not paid by the number of patients they see or the number of tests they order. It is a good way for patients to get better care and to save money at the same time.”

His concern for the quality of health care in the U.S. made him decide to join the California Physicians Alliance, part of the National Physicians Alliance. They support single payer health insurance for all Americans as they think it is the only realistic answer to the question of how to deliver high quality medical care and keep the costs of health care from harming the national economy. As part of this group he has visited Congressman Waxman’s office to talk about single payer health insurance. Members of the National Physicians Alliance attempted to testify in the Washington Senate hearings.

All three of Gene’s sons do volunteer work. Jed at the Southern Poverty Law Center, Lucas on Civil Rights and First Amendment cases for Santa Monica Attorney Carol Sobel, and Jonas as a writing mentor for the Virginia Avenue Project. Gene’s wife Patricia currently chairs the Community Corp of Santa Monica, an affordable housing provider and is Chair of Santa Monicans for Renters Rights. She is a former President of the Santa Monica Malibu Board of Education.

Gene remembers looking out the window of a west facing birthing room at Santa Monica Hospital at a spectacular 4th of July fireworks celebration. He is no longer delivering babies, but he continues to practice medicine and to work for high quality health care.

What Say You: Santa Monica Votes for Single Payer

Santa Monica City Council, acting on motions introduced by Council Member Kevin McKeown, voted this year, as they have since 2003, their unanimous support for single payer health insurance. By doing good, they also did well. They voted for all Californians to have health insurance and learned that, if we had single payer in California now, all else being equal, the City would realize a savings of $6.0 million.

So, if offered the choice, would you prefer to give your doctor a State of California Health Insurance Card and have your health care costs be covered with no copayments and no surprises as to what might or might not be included or, would you prefer to keep your current insurance? That choice, according to the organization Health Care For All, is the reason to join with the over 700 professional groups, unions, civic groups, and organizations working diligently and enthusiastically for Senate Bill 810, the “California Universal Health Care Act.”

Originally proposed by former State Senator Sheila Kuehl, twice passed by both Houses of the California legislature and twice vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger, single payer insurance for California has been introduced, in its third iteration, Senate Bill 810, by Senator Leno. Senator, Fran Pavley and Assembly Member Julia Brownley are among the 35 Members of the State Legislature signing on to the Bill.

According to the City Finance Office, Santa Monica could see a potential savings of $6.0 million annually. Here’s what the City Finance Office wrote: “If the City were to pay the entire 16 percent of health care costs under the single payer plan, it would incur $21.8 million in annual expenditures. Projected medical costs for FY 2008-09 for the same salary level were $27.8 million, which indicates an estimated savings of $6.0 million over current medical, dental, and vision costs.”

If that is what the City would save, imagine the potential savings to the State, the Country and to each individual American. How is it possible we can have better health care and save money? To begin to understand that, look at SB 810, California Single Payer Health Insurance, “The California Universal Health Care Act.”

SB 810 describes a State in budget crisis with “one-third of California's State Budget devoted to health care insurance and direct payment costs, an estimated 6.6 million Californians uninsured, 763,000 children uninsured and health plans and insurers competing to construct patient pools consisting of the healthiest segments of the population, leaving higher risk patients to public programs or uninsured.

“The U.S. spends more than twice as much as other industrial nations on health care, both per person and as a percentage of its gross domestic product. Yet U.S. healthcare outcomes consistently rank at the bottom of all industrial nations. One-half of all bankruptcies in the United States now relate to medical costs, though three-fourths of bankrupted families had health care coverage at the time of sustaining the injury or illness. More than one-half of all Americans report forgoing recommended health care because of the cost.” Doesn’t it seem that if we solve our health costs crisis we will also be solving a large part of our national economic crisis?

Here’s what Kevin McKeown said, “Single-payer is the clear answer to our healthcare crisis, allowing each of us to choose private doctors and facilities, but routing the payments through one government plan. There's a reason why existing insurance interests oppose even the partial "public option" proposal: they know that the inefficiencies and administrative overhead insurance companies introduce can't compete with universal single-payer.” What say you?

Hometown Hero: Allan Young Boys and Girls Club

Allan Young got his first job at the Santa Monica Boys Club. He had been named the 1963 “Youth of the Year” and a part time job went with the award. 2009 will be his last year at the Club. He has personally worked with thousands of boys and girls and their families. “I’ve loved every minute of being here. I never felt this was a job. I felt this was my family.”

His dad brought him to the Boys Club in 1955. Membership was 50 cents/year and that included everything the club had to offer. Allan went to Roosevelt Elementary and his dad felt Allan needed to play with kids from all kinds of backgrounds and that his elementary school didn’t give him that experience. “My dad was ahead of his time.”

From his “Youth of the Year” job to being Assistant Athletic Director he continued to work at the Club all the way through high school at SAMOHI and college at SMC and Northridge. In 1966 he was drafted and went to the Naval Dental School and then served, as a dental tech, in both Guam and Vietnam.

When he returned, Cyril Gale, a Santa Monica dentist and President of the Boys Club Board, said he would help him go to dental school. But Allan wanted to work at the club. By 1969 he was the Club’s Athletic Director. In 1977 he became the Executive Director.

There are now Boys and Girls Clubs at Lincoln, Samohi, JAMS, McKinley, and at several Community Corps housing projects. Membership is $10/year for all the club has to offer including: homework labs, tech labs, athletic activities and academic counseling. Allan feels it is a “mistake for the schools or the city to try to duplicate the work of the non-profits.”

The first Boys Club, started in 1860 by a small group of socially concerned women, was called the “Dash Away Club”. They wanted to create opportunities for the boys they called ‘the urchins’. For over a hundred years the clubs served boys across the US and on US military bases.

Not until 1990, and then only with argument and challenge, did the Boys Clubs of America officially become the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. When Allan came to realize that he “had to change with the times” he met individually with each of the 45 Santa Monica Board Members to get agreement because he didn’t want to go to court over the issue. Now Allen says, “one of the things I regret most was not serving girls sooner. Girls are in every sport and activity and they make the club a better place for everyone.”

This summer Allan is taking twelve, 16-18 year old, teenagers, of diverse backgrounds, to Kenya on a program run by “Free the Children”, a Canadian organization where his daughter works. “The purpose is to teach our kids that they can make a difference. But I believe this experience will change them in a good way. The kids will build a school and the adults will build a medical clinic. Real progress gets made one person and one project at a time: one more school, one more clinic, one more water purification plant.”

Retirement doesn’t mean not working for Allan. He will be at the Pacific Youth Foundation working on global problems of youth, poverty and education. “In Brazil there is an estimated population of 15 million street children. Tupperware employs about 10,000 people in Brazil. Their CEO has talked with us about starting Boys and Girls Clubs in Brazil. That is a project I intend to work on. I intend to keep working on the same issues and toward the same goal of educating children. The only way out of poverty is through education and respect – whether you live in Africa, South America or the US.”

What Say You: The Council on the Budget

‘City Staff scrambles to meet required 5% reduction in department budgets on top of previous 3% reduction.’ ‘Residents worry about safety and services during hard economic times.’ These might be headlines in articles about the City budget debate. While the State is reeling from huge shortfalls and our nation is grappling with bank and corporate failures, high housing foreclosure rates, and higher unemployment numbers, the City of Santa Monica seems to be coping comparatively well in spite of downturns in standard sources of income such as auto sales taxes, hotel occupancy taxes and property sales taxes. How can that be and what is the City going to do about the reductions it needs to make? Here’s how City Council Members answer those questions and what they say about how they’re going to decide where to make cuts. To contact Council Members with your concerns and suggestions email:>council@smgov.net

Ken Genser.

“For me, public process is a very important part of the process. But people have been surprisingly quiet on this issue and that says to me that, at least so far, there are no apparent, major problems with the proposed budget. I feel we need to look at the entire City Budget and make sure it is in the black at the same time fee increases should not be such that make it harder for people, especially young people, to participate and we need to be extremely careful.”

Richard Bloom.

“The City wisely put 8.2 million dollars into a rainy day fund and we now plan to use that fund over a 2 year period hoping that the national economy will recover sooner than that. That will allows us to maintain essential services such as police and fire and keep any necessary cuts as far away from where residents will feel them as possible.”

“We are very lucky that the City is not in the same desperate straits as the other cities in California because our sources of income are so diversified.

Although we do have to make certain reductions and we have instituted a hiring freeze, reduced the use of consultants and limited other expenditures, that is preferable to eliminating services to residents. If the economy remains bad then the next budget cycle will be more difficult.”

Bob Hollbrook.

“This is the most difficult financial year in all my 19 years of being on the Council and we don’t know how long this recession/depression will last. Right now we can do what we need to do with hiring freezes, less frequent rotation of the 600+ vehicles in the City fleet, longer intervals between tree trimming, alley repaving and other non-essential services. My idea of the last place to cut is public safety or services like the public library. We need to get through the next couple of years by relying on the City’s rainy day reserves and by keeping things going so that we protect the people of Santa Monica.”

Kevin McKeown. “Unlike the State we are, at least, partially protected by previous prudence and are able to draw upon short term reserves. I think we need to take this as an opportunity to think through how we can provide needed resources in a sustainable way. We also shouldn’t price out valuable services through fee increases. We wouldn’t, for example want to want to raise fees that would price out the 12 step programs that save lives, increase public safety, and save the city money. We need to keep good programs viable so we don’t lose experienced and dedicated staff and so that we continue to serve the needs of the people of the City.”

Hometown Hero: Joel Reynolds

Say Joel Reynolds; think music, family and the environment.It was his family, especially his generous mother, who taught him a sense of service but it was Bobby Kennedy who most influenced his political beliefs.“He conveyed values and a sense of purpose with a charisma that reached across barriers.I admired him and planned to work for his election when I returned from our family’s sabbatical year in Copenhagen.” Landing at LAX, Joel learned of the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. It was 1968.Joel was in high school.He still knew what he believed but he no longer knew what he was going to do.

College was at UC Riverside where his father was a founding member of the Music Department. Joel majored in music and political science. It was when he interned at EPA that he decided to become a lawyer. "I wanted to be able to pursue my own ideological agenda and the practice of law would enable me to act on the issues I cared about.”

After graduation from Columbia Law School he soon focused on environmental law and his work at the Center for Law in the Public Interest and the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant case.In 1989 he joined the National Resources Defense Counsel (NRDC). www.nrdc.org He is currently Director of its Southern California program and one of eleven lawyers working at the Robert Redford NRDC Headquarters Building in Santa Monica.

He didn’t win the victory he wanted in the Diablo Canyon case but when NRDC joined the international campaign, started by the Mexican poet Homero Aridjis, to defend the breeding ground of the California Gray Whale at Laguna San Ignacio in Baja California, it was an all out win.

At NRDC he sued the US Navy to block a five-year underwater explosives program near the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. Joel successfully argued that the “Navy could test and train in an environmentally responsible way that would both protect our national security and the environment.”

He also won when he sued the Los Angeles County Sanitation Department.In a case that marked the beginning of an ongoing series of legal and political battles to clean and protect Southern California coastal waters, County Sanitation was required to meet secondary treatment standards before discharging to the ocean.

The Cornfield and Taylor Yards, located between downtown and East Los Angeles, are part of US Government land grants given to Union Pacific to support the development of the railroad and were recently proposed for industrial development. The proposed development would have further divided Los Angeles and caused environmental harm. NRDC sued the City of Los Angeles and the Yards are now 72 acres of dedicated parkland.

Continuing the land conservation strategy, NRDC and other environmental groups negotiated the largest conservation agreement in California with the Tejon Ranch Partnership. Its importance comes not only from its scale but from the fact that four major ecosystems, the southern Sierras, the Coastal Range, San Joaquin Valley and the Mojave Desert, come together in Tejon Ranch.

“Having a child often opens up your creativity,” is how Joel introduces the songs he wrote for his children, Sam, Ellie and Amelia.He and his five siblings and all eleven of the cousins get together often and making music is a continuing family tradition.

But he fears for the future. “Scientists disagree about how much time remains to prevent an irreversible shift in our global climate. We have no time to lose and we know where to begin. “From the mundane to the grand, act as if the environment matters.From choosing a job, to raising your children, to joining an environmental group, to buying a fuel efficient car, to voting for candidates who take the environment seriously, act as if the environment matters.”

What Say You? City Budget Uncertainty

“We’re responding every day to new information,” said Santa Monica City Manager, Lamont Ewell, about the economic uncertainty that surrounds this year’s budget. “We’re building wings as we jump off the cliff.” The budget will be a clear expression of our values. It goes without saying that there will be difficult decisions. There could also be potential opportunities and benefits.

Hard facts. Fewer tourists are staying in hotels. The transit occupancy tax was minus18 percent in December and minus 28 percent in January. Fewer people are eating in restaurants. Receipts from auto sales and leases, which account for over 20 percent of our sales tax revenues, are down. Business incomes are down and so business fees are down. Only 40 percent of homes on the market have sold, many at reduced prices, and so the property transfer tax is down. Unemployment rates in Santa Monica were at 4.3 percent one year ago and are now at 7.2 percent. Budget problems at the State Government level mean reduced funds for Santa Monica.

City response. The City Manager required departments to reduce budgets by 3 percent in 08-09 and by an additional 5 percent in 09-10. 70 percent of the city budget goes to salaries and benefits. Cuts will come in hiring freezes, except for sworn personnel (fire, police) with exceptions made on a case-by-case basis and the same holds for hiring consultants. City employees aren’t traveling to conferences. Building inspectors are on contract and, if there is less building, there will be a reduction in building inspection staff. Cuts will also come from deferring maintenance and deferring projects that are funded through City funds.

New income. The City is working with Senator Feinstein, Senator Boxer and Congressman Waxman to aggressively pursue Federal Economic Stimulus Package funds. Eligible Santa Monica projects include the California Incline and the Palisades Park bluff stabilization. These projects would bring jobs and income to Santa Monica.

Opportunities. We have talented staff supervising the work of consultants. Now is their opportunity to show their skills and expertise. We have places in City Hall where there is too much bureaucracy. Cleaning up the process of applications and decision-making could result in a financial savings and in making life easier for a lot of people – both in and out of City Hall.

Benefits. An unexplored, at least publicly, set of possibilities might exist in opening up City Staff benefits to the community as long as it doesn’t add an expense line to the City budget. One thought is to open the City fiber optic system, where possible, to residents. This was done in Vermont, which provides free access in many areas. Another possibility is to allow residents to buy into the health care the City offers employees, such as the City contract with Saint Johns. And more.

Opportunities. The Community could take care of their own street trees and parkways, with advice from the City Forester. Neighborhood Watch Groups could find out what to do to be helpful to the Police and Fire Departments. Volunteer more in the schools and at the library and hospitals and the animal shelter. And more

Benefit. We’ve had a tension between City Hall and City residents that a lot of folks would like to see mended. Finding ways to help each other and working together to keep the City whole and healthy during difficult times might just be a good start.

Hometown Hero: Karen Blanchard M.D.

The office of Karen Blanchard M.D. and Associates opened in Santa Monica on July 13, 1977. The decision to start her own practice came after no one in Santa Monica would even interview her. Her medical degree from Johns Hopkins and being Chief Resident at UCLA weren’t enough in 1977. She was told, “women wouldn’t go to a woman doctor.” The President of Santa Monica Bank, Joe Walling, must have believed she would be a success. With only her signature as collateral he gave her a loan. But even docs who thought she was a good doc told her, “be prepared to sit on your hands for up to 2 years because there are so many well known docs with medical prestige in Santa Monica that no patient will want an unknown woman doctor.”

By the time she’d been in practice for 6 months she was delivering 20 -25 babies a month. All the predictions about the failure of her office had proven false. But Karen was having so many problems with the hospitals that other people worried she would leave. Instead, she, with the support of the nurses, worked to change the hospital culture. “There are three things I tell the Residents I’m training. One is that they must care. Two is that they must listen. Three is that, if they don’t care and can’t listen, then they need to do something other than be doctors. I wanted to follow my own rules.”

“I had planned to go into academic medicine. I was a Fellow in Maternal-Fetal Medicine. I had trained Residents. But I wanted to change the way hospitals cared for pregnant women. I went into private practice wanting to find out if my ideas had merit. I wanted to center medical care on what my patients really wanted and really needed.

“Time has passed and now having fathers present at the birth of their child, having fathers cut the umbilical cord, having comfortable rooms with beds for family members to sleep over, letting siblings come to see their new baby are all taken as a matter of course. To me they were part of the proper practice of medicine, but they were hard fought ideas when we first began to put them into practice. I am very grateful that I happened to be in the right place, at the right time, to help make the difference in how babies are delivered.”

Soon, Karen had privileges at St. Johns and Santa Monica/UCLA and served on and chaired the Bio-ethics Committees at both hospitals. “Almost every issue we faced came up against the question of what treatment could we give and what treatment should we give. We often choose to stave off the natural progression of death at great emotional, personal and physical cost to our patients and to their families. These are not decisions based on economics, nor should they be. These decisions are part of the ethical practice of medicine and providing the best care possible for the patient.”

Karen will now leave her practice in the able hands of her partners and move to New York with her life-partner, Anne. She hopes to be a hospice doctor in New York. “I see Hospice Care as the last frontier of medical ethics. To be by the side of the dying patient, to care about them and their families is a gift I, as a physician, can bring to this vulnerable group of patients.