San Francisco leads the way - - again

Well, in addition to moving to trains and installing wireless downtown, it looks like the City by the Bay is leading us in another way as well - - universal health insurance.

SF Mayor Gavin Newsom wants his city to be the first in the nation to provide coverage for the uninsured.  In SF that's 82,000 people. In the USA, that's 45.8 million. Newsom the cost of the uninsured on hospitals and other care providers is too great.  More primary care will cut health costs. As Newsom puts it, "Let's not wait until the ulcer bursts to go to the doctor."  Two other interested quotes/trends from a recent USA Today story on it:

* No federal leadership. "This is a case of filling a vacuum at the federal level," says Stephen Shortell, dean of the school of public health at the University of California-Berkeley.

* Democrats no better.  "Shame on both parties. It's complete abdication of any real responsibility." Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Universal health care, an essential for the 21st century. Go Mayor Newsom. Go San Fran.

Comments

[Stephen Downes]

Best of luck to them.

It's worth keeping in mind that where there is universal health care insurance - in Canada - the public is so great (>85%) that no government, not even right ring governments in Alberta, dares revert to a private system.

In the U.S. myth aftr myth is spread about health care in Canada. Here are the facts:
- we spend much less per capita on health care
- but every Canadian receives health care for free
- the quality of Canadian health care is the same as in the U.S.
- or maybe better - Canada has much lower rates of infant mortality, much longer life expectancy
- Canadians also have a great deal of choice and control - we can choose our doctors, choose our hospitals, have a major say over procedures
- nobody has had to mortgage their house or spend their inheritance for lifesaving procedures; even heart transplants and major surgery is covered by health care

Don't believe what your media says about the Canadian system. Your American insurance companies have been trying to undermine our system for years. But we still support it, still love it, and would never settle for what you have in the U.S.