http://airamerica.com/blog/2009/sep/16/public-option-san-franciscos-got-one-and-it-works-videoPublic Option: San Francisco's Got One And It Works (VIDEO)By Dorsey Shaw
San Francisco, the nation's leading progressive city, is regularly ridiculed by the Limbaughland lot who enjoy disparaging that city's implementation of various cutting-edge social programs. The thing about the liberal bastion that probably drives them so crazy is that these programs actually work.
Take a look at the city's approach to health care and it's use of the much maligned public option. The Healthy San Francisco program for the uninsured offers care in clinics, covers admissions to hospitals located in the city limits and, two years after it started, the results thus far have been amazing. Hospital admissions of plan members have dropped, and the average stay for those who wind up in the hospital has been cut almost in half.
Of course critics will say such a plan if implemented on a federal level would bankrupt the country. One look at the
UC-Berkeley report which shows San Francisco's universal health care program isn't hurting the City's economy would shut down that talk fast (if health care opponents were interested in actual facts). Add the
Kaiser Family Foundation report which reveals that participants in the program are largely satisfied with their care and you've got quite an argument that a universal health care program can actually work for the country.
One Democrat who could lead the charge for support of a national public option is Mayor Gavin Newsom who appeared on MSNBC today explaining that San Francisco's plan did not require the city to raise taxes to cover over 75% of the uninsured population. Watch Newsom in the clip ... also discussing the possibility of plan similar to Healthy San Francisco going federal.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/26/BAB719DL29.DTLHealthy San Francisco rates high in satisfactionHeather Knight, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Ninety-four percent of participants in San Francisco's unique universal health care program are at least somewhat satisfied with it, and 92 percent would recommend it to a friend and think other cities should create similar programs. Four in 10 participants said their care was considerably better since joining the program.
Those are the findings of a new report by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a Menlo Park-based nonprofit that analyzes health issues. It surveyed a random sample of 1,026 participants in Healthy San Francisco over several weeks in March on a range of topics related to their medical care.
"For a new program, I think the data generally suggests that it's gotten off on the right foot," said Mollyann Brodie, vice president and director of public opinion and survey research for the foundation.
MORE
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/21/BA8N19BES7.DTLStudy finds S.F. health plan didn't hurt jobsHeather Knight, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, August 21, 2009
San Francisco's first-of-its-kind universal health care program and its mandate that employers provide health care has not resulted in feared job losses, according to a new study by a UC Berkeley researcher.
Crunching quarterly data from the U.S. Labor Department, the researcher found that since the inception of Healthy San Francisco's employer mandate in 2008, the city's growth rate across all employment sectors was similar to or better than other Bay Area counties. While San Francisco saw its employment rate shrink due to the struggling economy, it actually shrank less than other counties.
This held true in retail, food service, restaurants and hotels, the sectors most strongly impacted by the health care ordinance because they traditionally have a lot of low-income workers and aren't as likely to offer health insurance as higher-paying industries.
"The San Francisco experiment is working, and it's working well," said Ken Jacobs, chair of the university's Center for Labor Research and Education. "There's no evidence of any impact of the ordinance on employment in San Francisco."
MORE