Categories
Healthcare

PANA Urges AB 1400 “Aye” Vote

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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

Categories
Healthcare Uncategorized

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

Capital Extraction CEO Salaries

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

Categories
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

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
Categories
Healthcare

Noon, Dec. 11 – Winning Healthcare Equality for All Asian/Pacific Islanders

FB Event Banner 211211 AB1400 Event
In-Person Town Hall about winning equality in healthcare for Asian/Pacific Islander communities

 

Facebook Event Page:
https://www.facebook.com/events/834849197249482

Send a Letter QR Code Rev
bit.ly/calcareletter2asm

Event Flyers:

211211-English-BandW-halfsheet 2111211-Korean-BandW-Halfsheet 121211-Spanish-BandW-halfsheet 211211-EnglishHalfsheetsX2 Flyer with Thai photos 2 Flyer with Thai photos 1 Flyer with Thai photos 3 2111211-EnglishHalfsheets-BandW-x2 211211-Korean-halfsheets-X2 211211-Spanish-halfsheets-X2
Categories
Healthcare

Win Healthcare for All: Send a Letter to Your CA Assemblymember


Send a Letter QR Code Rev

Take 2 minutes to send this PREWRITTEN letter to your assemblymember:
bit.ly/calcareletter2asm

The historic CA healthcare reform bill,
AB 1400 will be reintroduced in January!
AB 1400 will deliver healthcare to ALL Californians. AB 1400, for the first time in history, will address INEQUALITY in healthcare services.

Let’s get this grassroots people lobby effort going NOW! Send a message to your Assemblymember NOW, urging them to pledge to vote YES on AB 1400!

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