Letters to the editor Time for AB 1400 and real healthcare access

BIG NEWS. There is a new single-payer, improved Medicare for All bill before the state Legislature. AB 1400 is the best yet with access to care for every medical need including: hearing, vision, dental and longterm care, even alternative treatments like acupuncture and chiropractic. It is guaranteed for life regardless of age, employment status, income, race, immigration or marital status, sexual orientation or pre-existing conditions— with free choice of doctor, hospital or clinic.

Sounds like a lot? Wondering how to pay for it? We ALREADY are paying for some 70% of what is needed in existing tax subsidies for current programs like Medicare, Medicaid/MediCal, the VA, children’s health, etc. This bill means insurance premiums, deductibles, out-of-pocket fees and co-pays, doctor and hospital bills will be GONE. Forprofit health insurance companies that answer only to Wall Street and do everything they can to pay as LITTLE as possible for health care: GONE. Let’s stop wasting our money on corporate profit and overhead now costing $.30 on the dollar. That money would go to actual health care and SAVE (not cost) the state of California billions of dollars.

Call our District 2 Assemblyman, Jim Wood. Encourage him to back this urgently needed bill — going in the next two weeks FIRST to the health committee he chairs and over which he wields great influence: 707445-7014. Let’s remember the words of Sen. Everett Dirksen: “When I feel the heat, I see the light.” Let’s heat up Jim Wood! — Patty Harvey, Willow Creek