[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By State Senator Sheila Kuehl

It's been over a year since Governor Schwarzenegger decided to join the decades-long debate on health reform, and I'm actually quite pleased that he's indicated he will continue to focus on health reform in the years remaining in his administration. It may not have been clear to the Governor, but we always knew that the sheer magnitude of the needed reforms would take more than just one year to achieve. Any success to be gained on his "second try," however, will require a very different approach, both in terms of policy and in terms of politics.

Predictably, a number of interests in Sacramento have attempted to characterize the failure of the Governor's and the Speaker's bill as the victim of uncompromising single payer proponents on the left and powerful insurance companies on the right, as though the Governor's plan was "just right" in a three-bears, middle of two-extremes, spin. In fact, the Governor's plan appropriately fell because of the Governor's own reluctance to make the difficult policy decisions necessary for the plan to be in any way affordable to the state as well as to businesses and individuals, but which would have stirred up strong opposition from insurance companies.

by Lucas O'Connor [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

I'll let folks draw their own conclusions and pick their own fights for the most part, but I thought this poll was pretty interesting (favorable/unfavorable/net):

California Nurses Association/Nurses: 53/15/+35

California Hospital Assn./Hospitals: 33/30/+3

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger: 40/40/0

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez: 20/29/-8

Chamber of Commerce/Business Groups: 25/36/-11

News Media: 28/46/-18%

Republican State Legislative Leaders: 22/48/-26

Health Insurance Companies: 16/55/-39

I will throw a few rather obvious ones out along with one that may be less so. One- people don't care much for politicians. Two- they care even less for the media, which is interesting as the media keeps cutting back on news coverage. Three- they HATE insurance companies, which makes me wonder why anyone keeps trying to keep them in the equation.

Also, CNA's numbers are pretty darn impressive. Some of that is that people just like nurses I would imagine. But average Californian on the street, if they have an actual opinion of CNA proper, it's likely to be an opinion on single-payer. Which makes me think that, given the opportunity, people might be pretty supportive of single-payer.

by Dante Atkins (hekebolos) [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Well well...after a marathon 4+ hour session in room C3/4 of the San Jose Convention Center, we have a working platform draft that will apparently be up for more discussion Saturday night.

You may be interested in hearing what happened on the more controversial issues:

Death penalty: All motions tabled pending completion of a questionnaire.  Every delegate has a "death penalty questionnaire" in the convention bag.  When the results of the survey are finally tabulated, we'll have some sort of consensus for moving forward.

Assisted suicide: Untouched by consent of everyone involved.

Single Payer: Publicly funded, privately delivered.

Any other questions, please put them in the comments.  As soon as I get a full draft of everything I'll post it for your review (provided it's not in a PDF).

by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Another day, more bloggers.  I began the day hanging out at the "blogger boulevard." The Cafepress folks came by with news that Obama is clinging to his lead in the random buying-stuff primary (with a substantial lead in the T-shirt and thong(huh?) categories).  Dave Johnson, Chris Bowers, Gina Cooper, and lots of other cool people were haning out there.

I'm now sitting in a health care session with Jacob Hacker, Ezra Klein and a few others.  Oh, and Jack Layton, the leader of the NDP in Canada is here. It's quite interesting hearing these people together. You have single payer, PDA folks arguing for their plan. You have Hacker and, to a greater extent, Klein arguing for political realism. Take Back America is a really interesting mix of old style activism with new school communications. I'm looking forward to some of these sessions this week.

by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Obama needs to learn how to actually defend the term "liberal." Hey Barack, being "liberal" is a good thing, not a slander. Yes, it is liberal to want to protect the health of all Americans. Yes, it is liberal to want to to do something smarter with our health care system. Hey, why don't you think about single payer out there in DC? It's the system that actually works.

SoS Debra Bowen notes that in 57 of 58 counties, election results were on time despite the decertification of some of the machines.

Got anything else?

by Kevin Shaw [courtesy of Blog for America]

By Sara Robinson On ourfuture.org

In the previous post, I looked at ten of the most common myths that get bandied about whenever Americans drag Canada into their ongoing discussions about healthcare. In this follow-up, I'd like to address a few of the larger assumptions that Americans make about health care that are contradicted by the Canadian example; and in the process offer some more general thinking (and perhaps talking) points that may be useful in the debates ahead.

Government-run health care is inherently less efficient -- because governments themselves are inherently less efficient.
If anything could finally put the lie to this old conservative canard, the disaster that is our health care system is Exhibit A.

America spends about 15% of its GDP on health care. Most other industrialized countries (all of whom have some form of universal care, either single-payer or entirely government-run) spend about 11-12%. Canada spends about 8-9% -- and most of the problems within their system come out of the fact that it's chronically underfunded compared to those other nations. If they spent what the UK or Germany do, those problems would mostly vanish.

by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]