Public Option: San Francisco's Got One And It Works

Run time: 04:08 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQUdaX5n6yc   Posted on YouTube: September 16, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: September 18, 2009 By DU Member: Hissyspit Views on DU: 1523

 
http://airamerica.com/blog/2009/sep/16/public-option-san-franciscos-got-one-and-it-works-video

Public Option: San Francisco's Got One And It Works (VIDEO)

By Dorsey Shaw

San Francisco, the nation's leading progressive city, is regularly ridiculed by the Limbaughland lot who enjoy disparaging that city's implementation of various cutting-edge social programs. The thing about the liberal bastion that probably drives them so crazy is that these programs actually work.

Take a look at the city's approach to health care and it's use of the much maligned public option. The Healthy San Francisco program for the uninsured offers care in clinics, covers admissions to hospitals located in the city limits and, two years after it started, the results thus far have been amazing. Hospital admissions of plan members have dropped, and the average stay for those who wind up in the hospital has been cut almost in half.

Of course critics will say such a plan if implemented on a federal level would bankrupt the country. One look at the UC-Berkeley report which shows San Francisco's universal health care program isn't hurting the City's economy would shut down that talk fast (if health care opponents were interested in actual facts). Add the Kaiser Family Foundation report which reveals that participants in the program are largely satisfied with their care and you've got quite an argument that a universal health care program can actually work for the country.

One Democrat who could lead the charge for support of a national public option is Mayor Gavin Newsom who appeared on MSNBC today explaining that San Francisco's plan did not require the city to raise taxes to cover over 75% of the uninsured population. Watch Newsom in the clip ... also discussing the possibility of plan similar to Healthy San Francisco going federal.


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/26/BAB719DL29.DTL

Healthy San Francisco rates high in satisfaction

Heather Knight, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Ninety-four percent of participants in San Francisco's unique universal health care program are at least somewhat satisfied with it, and 92 percent would recommend it to a friend and think other cities should create similar programs. Four in 10 participants said their care was considerably better since joining the program.

Those are the findings of a new report by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a Menlo Park-based nonprofit that analyzes health issues. It surveyed a random sample of 1,026 participants in Healthy San Francisco over several weeks in March on a range of topics related to their medical care.

"For a new program, I think the data generally suggests that it's gotten off on the right foot," said Mollyann Brodie, vice president and director of public opinion and survey research for the foundation.

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/21/BA8N19BES7.DTL

Study finds S.F. health plan didn't hurt jobs
Heather Knight, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, August 21, 2009

San Francisco's first-of-its-kind universal health care program and its mandate that employers provide health care has not resulted in feared job losses, according to a new study by a UC Berkeley researcher.

Crunching quarterly data from the U.S. Labor Department, the researcher found that since the inception of Healthy San Francisco's employer mandate in 2008, the city's growth rate across all employment sectors was similar to or better than other Bay Area counties. While San Francisco saw its employment rate shrink due to the struggling economy, it actually shrank less than other counties.

This held true in retail, food service, restaurants and hotels, the sectors most strongly impacted by the health care ordinance because they traditionally have a lot of low-income workers and aren't as likely to offer health insurance as higher-paying industries.

"The San Francisco experiment is working, and it's working well," said Ken Jacobs, chair of the university's Center for Labor Research and Education. "There's no evidence of any impact of the ordinance on employment in San Francisco."

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Major news item.

in the coffin for the Republicans

I wish the conservatives could just realize that any notion of private enterprise is totally flawed. The history of mankind is ripe with examples of how for-profit organizations have beaten down society. We're more primitive now than in the entire history of the human race.

:toast:

woot!! :hi::applause: :woohoo: :applause: :applause::applause: :woohoo:

And you have a great mayor who seems to know exactly what government is for and who it's for.

San Francisco is a great place to be (unless you're looking for a parking spot).

But if they did it in Oakland Ca, or in Los Angeles where it has a lot of poverty, it would dive,
otherwise they would have done it.

Excuse me for using slang in such a manner as reference for San Francisco, but That's my "hometown" and even though I no longer reside there, I routinely frequent many of the inhabitants.

"The Sco" is one of the most progressive city's in the USA. Enacting (or implementing with ease) such passages as recognizing marijuana as medication, mandatory sick time for all workers, fully supporting the LGBT community and providing health care to all just shows they do "walk the talk".

While Oakland and Los Angeles may have supported the public option on the federal level (I'm not sure of the public trend), I do suggest they never have tried to "effectively tackle" the issue on a county/city level. To compare "The Sco" to Los Angeles or Oakland in relations to poverty level on creating and sustaining health care for all programs does not do any justice to the overall argument of providing health care to all.

"where most there are well off" --- uh, no, not really. You may have to have oddles of $$$ to buy here in SF, but the rest of the working slobs (SF is bulging with us) rent and live 2-3 in a house.

I would hazard to say that most SFers are not well off, just working class people trying to get by in a very expensive city.

This guy is a good speaker, and I really hope he ends up running for governor.