Early this past Saturday morning, over 150 Californians came out to a town hall meeting in San Diego, sponsored by the Health Care for America Now! campaign, for the purpose of winning quality, affordable health care for all America.
Her San Diego district, with a 26% uninsured rate, has been hard hit by the health care crisis. After signing on the Health Care for America Now principles last year, she recommitted to the goals of working for health reform this year.
Her district is there, too–it voted 54% to support Proposition 72 in 2004, a requirement that employers contribute to the health care of their workers. That’s one important issue of many that she and the rest of her committee will face, as keys component of any health reform. Many other issues came up as well, from cost containment to a public health insurance option, showing how thorny the details of health reform will be.
We were also pleased to have Professor Rick Kronick of UC-San Diego, who also was a senior health policy analyst for the Clinton White House during the last effort at health reform. He offered thoughts about the urgency of reform, and about what we need to do differently this time to win.
Here’s Congresswoman Davis with representatives of the sponsoring organizations of the town hall, including ACORN, California Partnership, Health Access California, SEIU State Council and SEIU Local 221.
These groups and others, as part of Health Care for America Now!, are doing other events and town halls throughout the summer. We have a limited window to pass health reform, and so we need to express our opinions now. For more information on the HCAN campaign in California, contact Patrick Romano, at promano@health-access.org.