As our Representatives head back to Washington - we need to send the resounding message that it’s time to focus on the real issue at hand:

we need quality, affordable health care for everyone and we can’t wait.

Join Health Care for America Now, Community, Labor, Faith, and Business Leaders in telling our members of Congress:

• We expect Members to side with their constituents and support quality, affordable health care for everyone and side against the private insurance companies, their lobbyists, and their disruptive mobs.
• We want health care reform that meets our principles as embodied in HR 3200 and the Senate HELP bill;
• We expect Members to keep provisions in the bill such as the Public Plan Option strong and vote yes for a strong bill on the Floor.

September 1st: Fresno

Senator Feinstein/Representative Costa Action

Tuesday, September 1st @ 5pm
Fresno Amtrak Station
2650 Tulare Street - Fresno, CA

RSVP/Info:  Linda Leu at lleu@health-access.org or 510-873-8787 x101

September 2nd: Modesto

Senator Feinstein/Rep. Cardoza Action

MODESTO
Wednesday Sept 2 - 7:30pm
Rep. Cardoza’s Office
1010 10th Place, Modesto

RSVP/Info:  Linda Leu at lleu@health-access.org or 510-873-8787 x101

September 2nd: San Francisco

Wednesday, September 2nd at 5pm
San Francisco City Hall
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place,
San Francisco, CA

***RSVP/INFO: David Sharples at dsharples@acornmail.net or 415-377-9037

September 3rd: Los Angeles

Thursday, September 3rd at 5pm
Los Angeles State Park Cornfield
1245 N. Spring St., LA, CA 90012

RSVP/INFO: Mari Lopez at mlopez@communitychange.org or 213-385-8012

As summer draws to a close, there’s still a lot of work to do. With congress returning from its August recess, HCAN California and its partners will be hosting a number of events all across the state, asking our legislators to stand up strong for national health reform as they prepare to get back to work.

Find an event in your community!

Simply click on the link above and enter your zip-code to find an upcoming event nearest you. Sign up today to become part of the winning team as we battle the private insurance industry and their right-wing lackeys in this historic battle for national health reform.

California can’t wait! Now is the time for real reform that lowers costs, increases competition, guarantees access to quality, affordable coverage for all Californians and helps keep the private insurance industry honest.

California Healthcare in the News

August 13 - 14, 2009

Los Angeles Times: California board votes to drop healthcare coverage for 60,000 children

The announcement by state officials that California has enough cash to stop paying bills with IOUs did little to take the sting out of other budget news Thursday: Tens of thousands of poor children are about to lose their healthcare coverage.

Capitol Alert: Despite First 5 funds, Healthy Families expected to roll back coverage

Children’s health care advocates got both a boost and a blow Thursday as the California First 5 Commission announced it would contribute $81.4 million to the state’s Healthy Families health insurance program.

Press-Enterprise: Low-income children on brink of losing health insurance coverage as state budget cuts hit home

Several hundred thousand low-income children face losing their health insurance beginning Oct. 1 under a decision Thursday by the state panel that oversees California’s Healthy Families program.

McKnight’s: Appeals court again sides with healthcare providers over state cuts to Medicaid

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit again has ruled that California’s lawmakers cannot cut reimbursements to the state’s Medicaid program solely because it needs to reduce expenditures.

Sacramento Bee: California lawmaker seeks adults-only restriction on smokeless ‘cigarettes’

Sidestepping laws against smoking in public, Californians now can puff nicotine without lighting up from “cigarettes” that contain no tobacco.

Sacramento Bee: Marysville town hall meeting hears health care opinions

As Republican Rep. Wally Herger told an overflow crowd “this is the greatest threat to our democracy that I’ve ever seen,” a raucous Marysville gathering argued Thursday over whether a national health care system overhaul will insure Americans and curb spiraling medical costs or lead to inferior care and government oppression.

Press-Enterprise: Health forum rallies against Obama plan

Hundreds of supporters cheered and applauded as Rep. Jerry Lewis expanded his criticism of President Barack Obama’s health care plan to include warnings about the federal government’s growing debt.

Daily Breeze: Forum health care clinic needs volunteer dentists, optometrists

More volunteer dentists and optometrists are needed to meet the demands of thousands of patients who have lined up for free medical and dental care offered at The Forum in Inglewood, organizers said Thursday.

Columns and Editorials:

• California Progress Report: Mixed News For Health Families Program
• Calitics: Not-So-Healthy Families
• Los Angeles Times: The sick status quo
• Sacramento Bee: Dan Walters: Smoke tax on Legislature’s agenda as fiscal noose tightens
• Los Angeles Times: President Barack Obama could learn from Franklin D. Roosevelt

National News:

• Los Angeles Times: Senate committee scraps healthcare provision that gave rise to ‘death panel’ claims

As you may well know small, unruly mobs of right-wing fanatics and anti-reform ideologues have been attending congressional town-hall meetings across the country in an effort to obstruct and derail real health reform.

Representative Pete Stark is holding three town-hall events this Saturday August 15th, and we need you to attend to help counteract the extremist tactics of the fringe right-wing who, according to their own internal documents, plan to “stand up and shout and sit right back down,” and “yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early” in an attempt to “rattle” and intimidate them and “disrupt the events.”

The radical right-wing knows that support for HR 3200 is growing every day, that’s why it feels compelled to employ disruptive, fundamentally undemocratic tactics to silence the voices of everyday people who favor real reform to our nation’s health care system.

Please join us on Saturday August 15th at as we stand up against the undemocratic tactics of these small gangs of right-wing activists and show our support for Rep. Stark.

See below for more details on the events:

Rep. Pete Stark Community Town Halls

When: Saturday August 15, 2009 at 9:00 am
Where: Fremont Senior Center - 40086 Paseo Padre Pkwy., Fremont, CA 94538

When: Saturday August 15, 2009 at 10:30 am
Where: San Leandro City Hall - 835 E 14th St., San Leandro, CA 94577

When: Saturday August 15, 2009 at 12:00 pm Noon
Where: Alameda City Hall - 2263 Santa Clara Ave., Alameda, CA 94501

Rep. Spark has been a vocal champion of real health reform. We need you to come down and help show your support! Join us as we stand up to the right-wing and their corporate allies in this critical struggle to win real reform in 2009!

California can’t afford to wait any longer - and we’re not about to give in to those who want to keep the current, failing system the way it is.

Thanks in part to the HCAN coalition in California and its partners, supporters of health care reform showed up by the hundreds to Representative Adam Schiff’s town hall meeting last night.

The event featured a panel of speakers who support health care reform and comments by the Congressman.

Though many of the event’s attendees opposed health care reform, they were not allowed to hijack the meeting or derail the discussion, as has happened in other town hall meetings recently. We want to thank health care reform supporters for making their voices heard in peaceful ways.

We want to commend Rep. Schiff for taking the initiative to host the event—he is the only congressional representative in Los Angeles County to have a town hall meeting about healthcare so far this month!

Thank you to all health care reform supporters who showed up, and we hope to see even more of you in the future!

California Healthcare in the News

August 10 - 12, 2009

Los Angeles Times: Super-clinic finds super-need in L.A. region

Remote Area Medical Foundation provides free care with volunteer doctors and dentists for unemployed and poor people at an eight-day event at Inglewood’s Forum arena.

Sacramento Bee: Kaiser announces California job cuts

Kaiser Permanente eliminated 1,850 jobs in California on Tuesday, serving notice that the recession is sickening the health care industry at long last.

Inland Valley Daily Bulletin: Religious umbrella group to lobby Congress for health care reform

Area members of a national network of faith-based community organizations on Tuesday vowed to push congressional delegation members on health-care reform.

San Gabriel Valley Tribune: Hundred of protesters, supporters show up to Schiff’s health care meeting

Hundreds showed up to a town hall discussion on health care Tuesday night, but by the crowd’s own admission, few came to learn more about the federal health-care legislation.

Sacramento Bee: Don’t forget us, underinsured say

While much of the American health care discussion has focused on providing coverage to the country’s 46 million uninsured, there is growing concern about millions more who are underinsured, or whose policies require them to pay thousands of dollars out-of-pocket before coverage kicks in.

Columns and Editorials:

• Los Angeles Times: Steve Lopez: Doctor has common-sense fixes to healthcare crisis
• San Francisco Chronicle: Editorial: On Deadly Medical Mistakes: Error report
• San Francisco Chronicle: In business’ best interest - universal health care
• Ventura County Star: Herdt: Fallout from a broken deal
• San Francisco Chronicle: A deal with bad side effects

National News:

• Gallup: Amid Debate, Obama Approval Rating on Healthcare Steady
• Rasmussen Reports: Support for Congressional Health Care Reform Falls to New Low
• Los Angeles Times: Many seniors aren’t sure healthcare system needs repair
• Sacramento Bee: Health care alone can’t make nation healthier, experts say

Have a great day,

Full Court Press Communications

California Healthcare in the News

August 1 - 3, 2009

Sacramento Bee: Sacramento-area parents fear Healthy Families cuts

Cuts in the program could be further deepened by a loss of federal matching funds, which provide two dollars for every state dollar spent on Healthy Families. In total, the program may lose more than $500 million.

(Also check out the Sac Bee photo gallery, Families Cope With State Health Cuts.)

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: The health care safety net

Even as private family practices close and some hospitals struggle to stay open, Sonoma County’s seven community clinics are undergoing dramatic growth as they take in even greater numbers of patients who can’t afford care.

California Progress Report: Legislators Challenge Governor Over ‘Crippling, Cascading’ AIDS Cuts

While AIDS service providers met statewide yesterday to grapple with their “extreme shock” over Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s last minute cuts to the state Office of AIDS budget, Democrats were publicly challenging the governor’s right to “blue-pencil,” or veto, existing appropriations, while one legislator took aim at the administration’s chief-of-staff for betraying an LGBT community to which she belongs.

San Jose Mercury News: San Jose could save millions by trimming employee health care

With San Jose facing a staggering $90 million deficit in the coming year, city auditors have found a way to save about $20 million a year. But it won’t be popular with city employees.

Santa Rose Press Democrat: Hundreds turn out for free health checkup in Santa Rosa

Hundreds of uninsured children received free checkups, immunizations, dental exams and health care information Sunday at Kaiser Permanente’s fourth annual Neighbors in Health day in Santa Rosa.

Orange County Register: 300 gather to pray for affordable health care

About 300 people from throughout the county got together Sunday and prayed for affordable health care in a vigil that included Christian pastors and a public official.

Columns and Editorials:

• Sacramento Bee: Sandra Lommasson: Health care system isn’t just broken, it’s shameful
• Santa Rose Press Democrat: Editorial: The price of health
• Sacramento Bee: Editorial: Boom in charity care shows why we need reform
• Los Angeles Times: Michael Hiltzik: What’s so great about private health insurance?
• Los Angeles Times: A Canadian doctor diagnoses U.S. healthcare
• New York Times: Editorial: Curbing Runaway Health Inflation

National News:

• New York Times: Two Sides Take Health Care Debate Outside Washington
• Rasmussen Reports: Confidence in U.S. Health Care System Has Grown in Recent Months
• Gallup: Americans on Healthcare Reform: Top 10 Takeaways