[태그:] AB 1400

“Why I Voted No on the Healthy California for All Commission Final Report”

Post author By PANA
Post date 5월 14, 2022
“Why I Voted No on the Healthy California for All Commission Final Report”에 댓글 없음

Carmen Comsti speaking at the Final Health California for All Commission meeting, April 25, 2022

Carmen Comsti is the lead regulatory policy specialist for the California Nurses Association / National Nurses United (CNA/NNU). PANA has had the honor and pleasure of having her join previous forums we have held to address the need for comprehensive healthcare reform. She has also served for the last two years on Governor Newsom’s Healthy California for All Commission on behalf of the nurses in CNA/NNU and our single-payer movement in California, appointed to that body in December 2019.

Gavin Newsom was elected to CA governor, in large part, because he promised to deliver single-payer healthcare reform to all Californians. The purpose of the Commission was to develop a plan for such a major reform “through a unified financing system, including, but not limited to a single payer financing system,” and to deliver a report with its findings by 2021.

The research and discussions held by the Commission occurred at the same time the grass-roots movement for single-payer reform continued at the ground level, a movement that PANA has been a part of since its inception. Our last attempt, AB 1400, fell short of votes needed in the CA Assembly, once again due to the monied interest controlling a majority of elected officials in Sacramento.

Carmen Comsti shares her views on how, despite the forward strides of the larger “Medicare-for-All” movement made in the past few years, the Commission failed to meet the obligations of its mission to move the state towards a single-payer healthcare system. Please read her statement here:

https://medicareforall.medium.com/why-i-voted-no-on-the-healthy-california-for-all-commission-final-report-ccbb019c151f

Tags AB 1400, Carmen Comsti, CNA, Gavin Newsom, healthcare disparities, healthcare reform, Healthy California for All Commission, Medicare-for-All, NNU

Healthcare Uncategorized

PANA Members Lobby CA Assembly Committee on Appropriations Chair to Support AB 1400

Post author By PANA
Post date 1월 15, 2022
PANA Members Lobby CA Assembly Committee on Appropriations Chair to Support AB 1400에 댓글 없음

Following the victorious 11-3 vote in the CA Assembly Committee on Health on January 11, AB 1400 now advances to the Assembly Committee on Appropriations, to be heard in a non-public session on Thursday, January 20, 2022.

In preparation for the Appropriations hearing, PANA member Steven Gibson initiated a meeting with the staff of Appropriations Chair, Chris Holden (AD 41). Holden was “not able to attend the meeting” but constituents from AD 41 and a diverse group of community representatives shared various reasons for why AB 1400 should be supported by the committee and advanced to a floor vote by January 31.

The constituents and community advocates spoke passionately about various reasons for Holden to support AB 1400:

Teachers and mothers described how kids in Pasadena will directly benefit as a result of this bill.

It was pointed out how Asian immigrants and especially elderly Asians and Pacific Islanders will benefit since they have high percentages of seniors and bilingual needs.

Healthcare organizers described how the nurses and healthcare workers in major local hospitals around Pasadena are strong supporters of AB 1400 since their union is one of the initiators of the bill. About 2,500 nurses at Huntington Memorial, Arcadia Methodist, and San Gabriel Valley Med. Center are represented or affiliated with the CA Nurses Association.

Steven Gibson, Democrats of Foothill Pasadena, Progressive Asian Network for Action – Coordinating Committee, 41^st AD delegate.
David Monkawa, Save Our Seniors Network, Progressive Asian Network for Action, Past Organizing Dir. with the CA Nurses Assoc. directed union organizing drives at Pasadena’s
Huntington Memorial and built citywide healthcare coalition.
Tina Fredericks, Former teacher and activist with Pasadena Unified School District, and Democratic Party delegate with 41^st AD.
Max Cottrell, CA Nurses Assoc. Organizer, the CA Nurses Assoc. represents about 2,500 nurses and healthcare workers who work in AD 41.
Julie McKune, retired teacher Pasadena Unified Scholl District, League of Women Voters – Assembly Delegate with 41^st AD
Mindy Pfeiffer, retired teacher, Assembly Delegate for 41^st AD.
Kevin Mulligan, Chief of Staff, Assemblyperson Chris Holden, 41^st Assembly District

Send a letter of support for AB 1400:

Send a letter to the Appropriations Committee

Send a letter to your Assemblymember:

Send a letter to your Assemblymember

Tags AB 1400, california healthcare, healthcare disparities, healthcare inequality, healthcare reform, Medicare-for-All, Single-Payer, under-insured, uninsured

Healthcare

Asian American young adults are the only racial group with suicide as their leading cause of death, so why is no one talking about this?

Read the article posted on TheConversation.com
https://theconversation.com/asian-american-young-adults-are-the-only-racial-group-with-suicide-as-their-leading-cause-of-death-so-why-is-no-one-talking-about-this-158030

In California, we urge you to support the campaign to pass AB 1400. This major healthcare reform bill would help rebuild the mental healthcare infrastructure destroyed by Ronald Reagan and Republicans in the 1980’s.

Racially motivated violence looks like the mass shootings that killed Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Chung Park, Hyun Grant and Suncha Kim in Atlanta on March 16, 2021. Racially motivated violence also looks like suicide, which is defined as a deliberate act of self-directed violence in order to cause injury to oneself that results in death.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. When broken down by race, suicide is the first leading cause of death among Asian American young adults age 15-24. This is true of no other racial group in this age range in America.

AB 1400 calls for the implementation of policies to ensure that all residents of this state have access to medically appropriate, coordinated mental health services.

This bill is also historic, in that it directly addresses the need for multilingual and culturally-appropriate health services. These are of particular concern for Asian American communities, which are nearly 60% immigrant in demographic composition.

To take action to win mental healthcare-for-all in CA: https://healthcareforall-la.org/wp/take-action/

Tags AB 1400, Anti-Asian racism, Anti-Asian Violence, asian american mental health, asian american suicides, asian american youth, bi-cultural mental healthcare, bilingual mental healthcare, healthcare disparities, healthcare reform

Healthcare

PANA Urges AB 1400 “Aye” Vote

January 5, 2022

Assembly Member Jim Wood, Chair and Members

Assembly Health Committee

RE: AB 1400 (Kalra, Lee, Santiago) – SUPPORT

Dear Chair Wood and Committee Members,

The Asian American community is experiencing an upsurge in hate crimes due to scapegoating of Chinese people as being the cause of the pandemic. Racist violence is not a new thing for Asian Americans as discrimination has been a historical condition – not just on the streets, but through systemic racism, including disparities in healthcare.

In 2018, 25 percent of Korean Americans and 20 percent of Vietnamese Americans had no health coverage. The Affordable Care Act helped alleviate those numbers, but no updates have been conducted after millions lost their jobs and insurance during the pandemic. Asian American data research is lacking and facts, such as 69% of the Thai American community being uninsured, are not well known.

In 2019, the leading cause of death among Asian Americans aged 15-24 was suicide. To this day, suicide is still among the top causes of death for young Asian Americans. In the U.S., this is true for no other racial group in the same age range. The mental healthcare system is inadequate and inaccessible to many.

Last year, over 80 Japanese American seniors in a Los Angeles intermediate care facility were evicted from their home because the corporate owner wanted to convert it to market-rate apartments. Even against the pleas of 10 licensed physicians, the CA government did not keep them safe during the pandemic. No other intermediate care facilities in the U.S. have the same level of Japanese-speaking staff and culturally-appropriate services.

Assembly Bill 1400 would provide groups facing healthcare disparities the help they need. The bill would create a single payer healthcare system that would cover all Californians regardless of citizenship, age, income, or employment status.

Under AB 1400, young people can access mental health services and elders can receive bilingual and bi-cultural healthcare. Non-English speaking people can have difficulty explaining their problems to medical staff, especially if they’re under duress. Doctors and nurses who only know a Western viewpoint, may not know how to communicate with patients of different cultures.

Hate crime victims and their families will no longer need to launch GoFundMe pages to pay for medical treatment due to lack of health coverage.

California has 85 percent of Democratic voters who support a single payer system and 61 percent of voters of various political views support it. The public support for AB1400 is there because the need exists. Our current governor was elected partially because he pledged to support single-payer reform. To have 3.2 million Californians without healthcare insurance in our wealthy state is a travesty.

AB1400 will be the safety net for our most vulnerable communities who are suffering in silence due to healthcare racism and inequality. This is why members of the Progressive Asian Network for Action (PANA) back this bill and urge you to vote “Aye” for AB 1400, which will save many lives.

Thank you for your service.

Sincerely,

Steering Committee
Progressive Asian Network for Action

Tags AB 1400, Anti-Asian Violence, asian american suicides, asian-american healthcare, bi-cultural healthcare, bilingual healthcare, culturally appropriate healthcare, healthcare discrimination, healthcare disparities, healthcare equality, healthcare inequality, healthcare reform, Healthcare-for-All, Medicare-for-All, single-payer healthcare, uninsured Thai Americans

Healthcare

Sick Around The World – 2008 Film on Healthcare Around the World Still Relevant

Post author By PANA
Post date 1월 4, 2022
Sick Around The World – 2008 Film on Healthcare Around the World Still Relevant에 댓글 없음

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/sickaroundtheworld/

Four in five Americans say the U.S. health-care system needs “fundamental” change. Can the U.S. learn anything from the rest of the world about how to run a health-care system, or are these nations so culturally different from us that their solutions would simply not be acceptable to Americans? FRONTLINE correspondent T.R. Reid examines first-hand the health-care systems of other advanced capitalist democracies — UK, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, and Taiwan — to see what tried and tested ideas might help us reform our broken health-care system.

This PBS Frontline’s T.R. Reid investigates healthcare systems in five modern developed countries. There are lessons to be learned from England, Japan, Germany, Taiwan, and Switzerland.

Taiwan developed their modern healthcare system in 1995 by studying 10-15 countries. Taiwan wanted a system that gave access to healthcare to everyone (not un-affordable to tens of millions like the U.S.), gave people a choice of doctors with no waiting times (not having most be inaccessible due to the structure of private insurer networks), and one that encouraged competition among medical providers.

Switzerland had a system similar to the U.S. in 1994, with healthcare tied to employment. In 1996, a referendum was held and they passed the Swiss Federal Health Insurance Act of 1994. Switzerland now has guaranteed comprehensive medical treatment to all its residents and healthcare is no longer tied to employment.

Bankruptcy due to medical expenses is unheard of in these countries. Overall rates of satisfaction with healthcare among the populations run high.

The United States is the wealthiest country on earth, but the only aspects of it’s healthcare system that compares to the superior systems of some of these other countries is the Medicare system and the Veterans Administration. Nearly 30 million lack healthcare coverage and 70 million are under-insured.

PANA supports the call to expand Medicare and eliminate the monopolistic control of private insurers over most of the healthcare delivery and administrative system. We hope you will do the same:

TAKE ACTION TO WIN HEALTHCARE FOR ALL IN CALIFORNIA: https://healthcareforall-la.org/wp/take-action/

Tags AB 1400, healthcare in england, healthcare in Germany, healthcare in Japan, healthcare in Switzerland, healthcare in Taiwan, healthcare reform, healthcare tied to employment, Healthcare-for-All, Medicare-for-All, PANA, U.S. healthcare system

Healthcare Uncategorized

AB 1400 Would Finance Expanded Patient Care Rather than Corporate CEO Salaries

Post author By PANA
Post date 1월 2, 2022
AB 1400 Would Finance Expanded Patient Care Rather than Corporate CEO Salaries에 댓글 1개

The current private-insurer-controlled healthcare system is one of capital extraction.
The rising premiums and deductibles we pay finance political corruption to the demise of patient care.

This is why it has been a challenge to win healthcare-for-all even in a Democratic Party Supermajority state like California and why we must build increased grassroots power.

Instead of public financing of exorbitant CEO salaries, AB 1400 would help redirect this capital into local economy health infrastructure development and direct our monies towards patient-centric healthcare services, including multilingual and culturally-appropriate care in our communities.

In addition, (nationally) the current system drains $228-280 BILLION into wasteful, bureaucratic administrative costs to take away healthcare decisions from doctors, putting this power into the hands of private insurers. The multi-payer system is overly complex and wasteful by design. It needs a complete overhaul if we are to win the healthcare that other modern countries provide with single-payer systems.

Today, patient care in the United States is one of capital extraction, not one that is centered on the well-being and health of people. It views disease and illness as a source of profits and for the most part, it opposes preventative care. Pharmaceutical unregulated price-gouging that also contributes to great financial stress for working-class families, and contributes to medical debt remaining one of the top reasons for personal bankruptcy.

This is why Progressive Asian Network for Action (PANA) supports the fight to win a single-payer, Medicare-for-All healthcare system and legislative reform such as AB 1400 in California. Of particular note, it is the first healthcare reform bill that acknowledges the need for linguistically and culturally appropriate healthcare. Until the loopholes that give control over the government to the private corporate interests are closed, we will continue to have millions in the U.S. face unnecessary suffering both in terms of poor health outcomes and financial stress.

AB 1400 Benefits — Click HERE for an AB 1400 Fact Sheet PDF

Watch this video to learn more about AB 1400 from Carmen Comsti of the California Nurses Association and National Nurses United. She is the writer of AB 1400 and serves as a commissioner on CA Governor Newsom’s Healthcare Commission:

https://youtu.be/wFVbvin44uk

Please send a letter to your CA Assemblymember to urge them to advance AB 1400, the CalCare Act, which would guarantee healthcare coverage for ALL Californians: https://bit.ly/calcareletter2asm

Tags AB 1400, bi-cultural healthcare, bilingual healthcare, California healthcare reform, Carmen Comsti, CNA, culturally-appropriate healthcare, for-profit health insurers, healtcare CEO salaries, healthcare equality, healthcare reform, Medicare-for-All, multilingual healthcare, NNU, PANA, single-payer healthcare

Anti-Asian Violence Medicare-for-All, single-payer healthcare, universal healthcare, healthcare disparities, healthcare inequality, corporate Democrats, healthcare insurance Solidarity

Win Justice for Christian Hall!

“A Mental Health Crisis is Not a
Death Sentence”

On December 30, PANA and Neighborhood Safety Companions (NSC) were not deterred by rain as they joined calls for justice in downtown L.A. on the one-year anniversary of Christian Hall’s murder by Pennsylvania State Police. Organized by Answer Coalition, Los Angeles, other attendees included Anti-Asian Violence community safety allies from Asians with Attitude and Pan Asian Harmony Society. We heard recorded statements from Christian’s parents and his best friend. Solidarity statements included members of Party for Socialist Liberation, Roofers Union Local 36. Music by @taevinmusic.

PANA and Neighborhood Safety Companions taking a stand for Justice for Christian Hall on 12/30/2021

Reggie Wong of PANA and NSC advocates support of CA AB 1400 which would finance increased mental healthcare for all Californians

Please support the campaign to win Justice for Christian Hall, which is the intersection of killer cops accountability, the lack of mental health services in the U.S. and the challenges faced by adoptees and their families.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/…/christian-hall-police…#JusticeForChritianHall

@justiceforChristianHall

https://linktr.ee/justiceforchristianhall

Tags AB 1400, healthcare reform, Justice for Christian Hall, killer cops, mental healthcare, PANA, police brutality

Healthcare Medicare-for-All, single-payer healthcare, universal healthcare, healthcare disparities, healthcare inequality, corporate Democrats, healthcare insurance

US Ranks 36th Out of 37 Nations on COVID-19 Mortality

Post author By PANA
Post date 12월 21, 2021
US Ranks 36th Out of 37 Nations on COVID-19 Mortality에 댓글 없음

https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj-2021-066768

A new study quantifies the loss in life expectancy due to COVID-19 in nations around the world. The US is in the worst tier, with a drop of nearly two years. Blame lays at the feet of mishandling by Trump, but also long-term degradation of public health and primary care access. Both must be rebuilt.

From abstract:

“Reduction in life expectancy was estimated as the difference between observed and expected life expectancy in 2020 using the Lee-Carter model. . . .

Results: Reduction in life expectancy in men and women was observed in all the countries studied except New Zealand, Taiwan, and Norway, where there was a gain in life expectancy in 2020. No evidence was found of a change in life expectancy in Denmark, Iceland, and South Korea. The highest reduction in life expectancy was observed in Russia (men: −2.33; women: −2.14), the United States (men: −2.27; women: −1.61), Bulgaria (men: −1.96; women: −1.37), Lithuania (men: −1.83; women: −1.25), Chile (men: −1.64; women: −0.88), and Spain (men: −1.35; women: −1.13)”

[Note: All figures are in years; confidence intervals deleted to enhance readability]

Comment and Graph by David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler via http://healthjusticemonitor.org

COVID-19 Death Rates and a Healthcare System Designed to Profit From Illness and Suffering:

These data provide further evidence of the criminal mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US. By another measure – years of life lost per 100,000 population – the US was better only than Bulgaria, Russia and Lithuania. Donald Trump’s denialism and malfeasance bear much of the blame for the US’ sorry record on COVID-19. But the gutting of public health capacity, which occurred under both Democrats and Republicans, and our defective health care system, which obstructs access to care and discourages trusting relationships, were and remain major contributors.

6% of health spending should go for public health, double the current proportion. Further, we need to erase access barriers, and build a real and universal primary care infrastructure.

The Current U.S. Healthcare System Seeks to Discard Those Most in Need and is Inherently Discriminatory:

The Democrats, not Trump, continue to lead efforts to dump COVID-19 positive hospital overflow to willing privately-operated nursing homes. And, they are also involved in data coverup and tactics of failing to dis-aggregate data. We know this because of involvement in dealing with Los Angeles County Department of Public Health and the high-death rates at Kei-Ail Los Angeles, a nursing facility traditionally in service of Japanese American and Japanese seniors in Lincoln Heights, Los Angeles:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-03-01/hospital-transfers-spark-covid-surge-la-nursing-homes

See more at https://saveourseniors.network

Tags AB 1400, COVID-19, COVID-19 disparities, Medicare-for-All, PANA, single-payer countries, Single-Payer vs multi-payer healthcare, U.S. healthcare crisis

Healthcare Medicare-for-All, single-payer healthcare, universal healthcare, healthcare disparities, healthcare inequality, corporate Democrats, healthcare insurance Political Power

PANA Members Join “Knit the Revolution” Podcast on Medicare-for-All

Post author By PANA
Post date 12월 21, 2021
PANA Members Join “Knit the Revolution” Podcast on Medicare-for-All에 댓글 없음

https://youtu.be/9LCAw07zvH0

Tsukuru Fors, Reggie Wong and Taiji Miyagawa share experiences from their work to win healthcare-for-all, including AB 1400 in CA.

How efforts by PANA to address the larger issue of inequality faced by Asian and Pacific Islander Americans are an example of how to build a broader, more diverse and powerful grassroots movement to win the change we all need:

E.g. https://bit.ly/HealthcareForAPIs
E.g https://safetywalks.org

E.g. https://saveourseniors.network

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3Ky5VNAup2t0HaxIJR8kw8dE2KwDqoP4

Tags AB 1400, healthcare equality, healthcare inequality, Knit the Revolution, PANA, win medicare-for-all

Healthcare

US Surpasses 800,000 Pandemic Deaths

Post author By PANA
Post date 12월 15, 2021
US Surpasses 800,000 Pandemic Deaths에 댓글 없음

More than 800,000 Americans have now died from the coronavirus, the highest recorded national death toll from the global pandemic.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59645307

The 800,000 total exceeds the populations of cities such as Boston or Washington DC. The milestone means nearly twice as many Americans have died during the pandemic as in World War 2.