RE: Moderator's welcome

[Karyn Gill <KarynGill@aol.com>]

I am from California, so am entering this "threaded" conversation 
fairly late in the day.  My story relates to a state initiative 
campaign I worked on in 1994.  The Clinton health proposal had 
just failed, and a coalition of health consumer groups in 
California put a single payer health care system (like Canada's) 
on the state ballot.  We thought it had a good chance of passage 
because one quarter of our population had no insurance.  One out 
of three children had no insurance.  Managed care had just begun 
in earnest, and many physicians and other medical providers were  
unhappy with a "market-based" health care system.  The end result 
was that we lost the initiative campaign by a lop-sided 3:1.  We 
found out later that our opponents (the insurance companies who 
own managed care plans) outspent us 7:1.  This experience was an 
eye-opener for me.  

The crisis in health care continues in my state, and not much can 
be changed because of the increasing amounts of campaign dollars 
being funneled into the Governor's and other politicians' pockets 
to maintain the present health care system.  Today, for-profit 
managed care plans claim over 90% of the insured patients in 
California, and some take upwards of 30 cents on the dollar for 
administrative costs (that leaves only 70 cents for direct 
medical care spending).  There are more uninsured now than before 
because employers, especially small employers, do not offer 
health benefits to their employees.  Those in public programs, 
like Medicaid (MediCal here in California), have lost their 
public insurance with the advent of welfare reform.  
This is a good example, I think, of a crisis of public policy 
(just like our current electricity crisis) that is difficult to 
solve because of the present campaign finance system, with its 
financial incentives to keep those who support the status quo
in power forever.