The League of Women Voters of the Los Altos-Mountain View Area has scheduled a forum of experts to explore how health-care reform might affect people’s lives 7 p.m. Tuesday at Graham Middle School, 1175 Castro St., Mountain View.
California and several other states are considering universal health care. Two bills before the state Senate, S.B. 840 and S.B. 1784, set up a single payer system where a government-run organization would collect all health-care fees and pay all costs. The debate centers on how the state would pay for the plan and how the change would affect hospitals, doctors and families.
Some forum panelists support the single payer proposal, others advocate technology as the most efficient path to broad access to health care at low cost. Others have mounted successful volunteer and community efforts.
The panelists are:
Richard Levy, former CEO of Varian Medical Systems and a trustee of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, is co-chairman of the Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Smart Health initiative.
The initiative brings together the region’s health-care providers, doctors, pharmacies, insurers, employees and health-care consumers with the goal of using technology to expand access to health care, reduce costs and improve outcomes.
Andrew McGuire, a leading injury control expert, is executive director of Health Care for All - California (HCA). The group’s goal is to ensure that all Californians have comprehensive, reliable health insurance. HCA is working to pass California’s single payer bill.
Christine Nichols is executive director of Northern California’s nine RotaCare Free Clinics. RotaCare is a coalition of more than 1,500 Rotarians, physicians, nurses, pharmacists, social workers, interpreters and other volunteers who provide free medical care to the medically underserved in collaboration with hospitals, clinics, community and social service organizations and service groups.
Jessica Rothaar is the Northern California organizer for Health Access California, which works at the state level to promote universal health care and with more than 200 local organizations to provide immediate health-care services to California’s most vulnerable populations.
For more information, contact Delia Ybarra, 941-4846, or visit www.lwvlamv.org.
