Where do politicians stand on universal care?

After reading the sad news about the young Cal Poly Humboldt student so gravely injured in Eureka traffic recently, I reflected on the continuing absurdity and callousness of our health care system which should now be called GoFundMe. Like Blanche in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” relying on the “kindness of strangers” is predictably ineffective and demeaning.

Why do we persist in pretending bad things “won’t happen to us” when they reliably can and do? Why must we be condemned to merely hope whatever form of private health insurance we’ve been able to afford will ultimately come to our rescue? We all see endless examples of denials of care, fraud and abuse from insurance agencies whose bottom line is profit, not health care.

Why have we not been able to exert the political will to provide, at great financial savings, a system that will automatically grant access to care to every resident in need? Instead, corporate interests continue to buy and manipulate the votes of our electeds.

It’s time to apply a litmus test to every political candidate: Where do they stand on a universal, single-payer, equitable health care program? In California, that means saving $150 billion and 4,000 lives each year, according to the Healthy California for All Commission Report of 2022. The majority of the American people support a publicly financed and privately delivered system. To find out what such a system would save you personally go to https:// healthyca.org/medicare-for-allsavings-calculator/

— Patty Harvey, Willow Creek