Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to leave a legacy of great healthcare for the next generations, and for ourselves, now?
And wouldn’t it be awesome, for all of us across the USA, if California led the way in implementing healthcare as good or better than the healthcare provided around the world by wealthy industrialized nations, many of which aren’t nearly as large or as wealthy as California?
VITAL NOTE before returning to the topic of healthcare:
I want to say I find it both heartwarming and heartbreaking to see how many people are doing/thinking/saying/writing whatever they can to stop the genocide in Palestine. I agree with the title of an article in Ralph Nader’s print newspaper Capitol Hill Citizen, “One day, everyone will have always been against this.” How to help? Consider attending this webinar, “Emergency Call to Global Action that CAN End the Genocide Now!” on Friday, September 5, at 7:00 AM Pacific time, 10:00 AM Eastern. Click here for info and registration.
Healthcare in California — improved Medicare for All, also called Single-Payer — would empower people. What dis-empowers people is what we have now: expensive, inadequate and inaccessible healthcare, in combination with a toxic environment and unhealthy food, drink, and other substances. Keeping people worried about health is an effective strategy for oligarchs who want to weaken and dishearten people, and keep them from working toward a better world for themselves and their children.
Gavin Newsom has US presidential ambitions. Meanwhile (in preparation I guess) he has had eight years as governor of California after eight years as Lt. Governor during Jerry Brown’s second governorship. Newsom has a veto-proof Democratic Party super majority in both houses of the legislature, and has no excuse for failing to have California lead the way to healthcare as good or better (not worse!) than other industrialized countries.
Just in case you ever wondered why Green Party activists and candidates sometimes seem to heap more criticism on the Democrats than on the Republicans, when there seems to be more hope in the Democratic Party, here’s what I think. First, let’s differentiate the Democratic Party leadership from the rank-and-file voter base. I believe people focus criticism on the Democratic Party leadership because they sell hope toward progress, but they don’t follow through. A great example is that during the seven years of Republican governor Schwarzenegger (2003-2010) the Democratic majority put a healthcare bill on his desk twice, even though he had promised he would veto it. In the 14 years since, did the legislature ever put the bill on the desks of Democratic governors Brown and Newsom? No. Their false hope has kept us stuck with worsening systems for healthcare, education, social benefits, immigration, the list goes on. People lose heart and lower their expectations, every four years.
Divide and conquer continues to work. People can be provoked by methods open or covert into splitting along lines where our traumas and fears can be manipulated: citizen or immigrant, gender identity, ethnicity, beliefs, voting history, whatever. We are conditioned and provoked into splitting apart, when what we really need is solidarity in the areas where we agree.
Healthcare in California. Get it done. Will it be done by legislation that Newsom signs, or will it be by the arduous process of a ballot initiative? In either case, the powers-that-be in Sacramento need to stop stopping progress. No excuses.
What can we do? There is a coalition called California United for Single-Payer, which is having an all-day webinar in southern California on Saturday, September 6, and zoom meetings in the future. You might want to check it out at CUSP.