 tuning back into in the studio here at Davis Media Access in Davis, California. This is a show where we highlight local newsmakers and organizations, topics of interest. We also use it as a hands-on learning lab for our many community volunteers. So a shout out to the volunteers crewing today under the direction of studio manager Diane Dodoschka. Today we're talking about Healthcare For All California, which is an organization based in Nevada that works to advocate for single-payer health care in California. We all know that health care nationally has been nothing but a hot button issue. But in California, we sometimes do things a little bit differently. With me today are Davis residents Dan and Millie Bronstein. Dan is the state chapter chair of Healthcare For All California, and Millie is the Yellow County chapter coordinator or chair. So welcome to you both. Thanks so much for coming in. This interview came about because I've been on your email list for a while. And I know there was a bill, I think it was a Senate Bill 562 that you were doing a lot of work on for a while. So let's get to that in a minute. Let's start with what the organization does and what the bulk of your work has been. I believe you said you've been the chair of the statewide for three years. Yes, this is my third year that I'm completing as statewide chair. And we have nearly 1,000 members from Humboldt County in the north all the way down to San Diego County in the south. And we're divided into 18 chapters. And our goal, it's in our bylaws, is to achieve a quality health care system for all residents of the state of California using a single payer financing system. Let's talk about that a little bit for not everyone may know what single payer means and how it is financed. So can you explain? Absolutely. And this is central to the concept. Rather than having many different private insurance companies, all of whom want to achieve large profits and have substantial administrative costs, we will have one agency that will pay everyone's health care bills. That's the single payer. And this agency could be a special fund outside the budget, the formal budget of the state of California, which would be set up to pay people's bills. So not dissimilar to how things are done in the UK, for example, centralized. Actually, Autumn, I'm going to smile and object. UK is very different. I'm here to learn too. The good example will be our next door neighbor, Canada. Canada has had a single payer system for quite a while. And the system is really quite simple. Everybody pays a certain small tax to their provincial government in Canada. And each province has a fund which then pays everyone's health care bills. So health care is a very confusing issue. And so this is why we wanted to have you in today. So 18 chapters, and Yolo has, I'm guessing, probably a pretty active chapter. Fairly, yes. We have about 50 members and ebbs and flows in terms of people paying their dues. In terms of supporters and people who are on our mailing list, I think we've got about more than 400 or so throughout the year. So how does the work of, say, the policy directors from the statewide level, how does that trickle down and manifest at the county level chapter? Well, we are focusing on education and advocacy. So we're really trying to do outreach to the community in whatever form we can. So there's tabling at the markets at times, or some other areas. There's giving a house party where you might have a small group of people, and we'll be talking about the various things. Or actually doing presentations at organizations and from churches to service clubs and faith groups, and showing the films and having panels. So there's a variety of ways of getting the information out. But then also informing our legislators what the needs are, what their constituents are concerned about, and why we believe that the single-payer system is the way to go. And I opened with, we do things a little bit different here in California. I know there's been some back and forth. You mentioned a column in the B this morning written by Dan Walters that talks about this very issue. What's the gist of what's happened in California and where we might be going? That's a big question, I realize. Yes, well, let's start by saying that about a little over a year ago, actually in May of 2017, the California State Senate passed a bill setting up a policy that the state would work toward a single-payer system. That was 562, I mentioned that. Yes, right. And of course, then since the Senate was the House of Origin, it went over to the assembly. And upon arrival in the assembly, Speaker Rendon tabled it in the rules committee. When it's tabled in the rules committee, there's no action possible. So it's been sitting there in that committee for over a year now without action. OK. Go ahead, Milly. And I'm just going to say there's been a long history in California of activities around single-payer starting back in the 90s when the grassroots movement was formed and then HCA became an organization. And we do have throughout the state. So we've had two previous single-payer bills that were actually passed in 2006 and 2008 that were vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger. Now, Walter's referenced the fact that he said health care for all in California is kind of a foregone conclusion. What do you mean by that? Well, I think just about every politician, including all the ones that are running this fool and are the ones who are the top two, say we must have a universal health care system. But the real question is, how is it going to be financed and how is it going to be administered? And that's where we get into a lot of controversy. My impression is there's been a little bit of a cart before the horse kind of. Let's pass it because it's a buzzword because everyone's talking about it then without getting down in the nitty gritty of, how do you finance something like that? And how do you manage something like that, too? Well, let's take those two questions separately, financing and management. For one thing, a distinguished professor at UC, now he was moving to the University of Massachusetts where he has a special organization that looks at health care financing. Name is Robert Pollan. He did a study more than a year ago now showing that we can finance a single payer system with a relatively small and carefully constructed sales tax which would eliminate the taxes on food. We don't pay sales tax on food. And would have a floor where the low income people would not have to pay it. But with that tax level, it would be about two and three quarter percent, we could finance all the health care that Californians need. And that means everyone from infants to seniors. And do it for 40, and I'm gonna use the word carefully, billion with a B, less than the state of California now pays. Wolters in his column today mentions 400 billion. Professor Pollan and his research crews felt we could do it for 360 billion. Wow. So it would essentially replace what exists now as MediCal and other programs and become one big umbrella. And on what's very important and every listener should know this, it would replace all health care premiums, all deductibles. For example, some people have insurance that requires a four or $5,000 deductible, which they often have difficulty paying. It replaces copays. All the ways we typically spend money out of pocket would be replaced by this simple sales tax. Yeah, my family pays close to $1,000 out of pocket to cover a self-employed person and a couple of kids. And part of the, it's almost like a smoke screen that, what's in the media, because this has been an issue that has been extensively studied, and we certainly have the healthcare policy people and the economists that are capable of figuring out there's a lot of technicalities in being able to work with the federal government to implement the financing of it. But what the tabling of 562 does is takes the public debate away, where you cannot work on a bill and actually hash out the details of it. Yeah, yeah. Furthermore, I'm going to add that in today's column, Walters mentions the potential of a new bill, which was added to the state budget process just a few weeks ago. And it's an assembly bill? Yeah, it's an assembly bill that would create a new commission that would take three or four years to report on the kind of system we need. Meanwhile, we have a terribly inhumane system right now, not only do patients of abhorred, but any healthcare professional also finds it completely unconstructive, not helpful. Sure, I think they would really like to spend more than five minutes with each patient. I'm not staring at a computer the whole time. And not having to get permission from the insurance company to send somebody to a specialist or run a test or anything like that, right? So thank you for circling back to the bill that had been SB 562 that had been tabled. Because where do you go from here as advocates? What are your next steps going to be? Well, I think this goes back to our education and our advocacy. And we certainly got a real boost when during the presidential race, when Sanders kept bringing it up because over the 20 some odd years that California has been working on it, the media does not cover any of the advocacy actions. And so that we are getting more public than knowledgeable and getting out there. And what's really holding up is the political will and the only way to change political will is for the constituents to then let their legislators know that this is what's going on with me and this is why we need it. And we need it earlier than later because it took a good four years to even get the Affordable Care Act implemented in California. So if we were to have passed 562 this year, we're still looking at time to put that in. And so there's a sense of urgency. So to try, I'm really pleased that you're having this conversation so that people can really start thinking about, yes, I can be part of this movement because I need to have my voice included. There's nothing more powerful than people telling their own stories. This is something I say often here in the context of community media. People telling their own stories isn't incredibly powerful. So sharing them with the legislator, how difficult their path has been, how hard it's been to get coverage, how expensive it is and all the hardships. And to that, I'll also add what we need on every level right now is people need to register, they need to vote, then they need to continue to do that and follow through with their legislators. We're running out of time. We're gonna have you back again though. We're gonna keep following up on this and so we can kind of keep it in front of the Davis community. I wanna mention your website, healthcareforall.org. And there's a lot of information there that you can find out about services, you can find out about how to get involved and you can find out about educational events. The second thing is I wanna invite you to keep sending me notices of your educational events so that I can promote them through DMA's channels. And then, Milly, you also mentioned an email you wanted to share. Yes, for the local email, you can go HCAYOLO at Comcast.net. Okay, and that will route to you, HCAYOLO at Comcast.net or healthcareforall.org. I wanna thank you for the, you two really represent for me a very quiet but persistent advocacy. You've never, as long as I've known you, you've worked on what you believe in, you don't give up and you're continuing to do this work in your retirement. Thank you very much for that. And please come back and fill us in a couple months down the road. You look forward to it. Thank you, we look forward to that. Thanks so much and thank you for tuning in to in the studio here in Davis Media Access. We air this on DCTV, Channel 15, Comcast in Davis, but we also put it online, promoted on social media. There are lots of ways to find our info and you can find our full archive at DCTV.Davismedia.org. I'm Autumn Lab-A-Renau and thanks so much for tuning in.