April 1996 Newsletter Table of Contents:

Videotapes of Recent Club Events

NCSC's Battle for Medicare

Initiatives Limiting HMOs on November Ballot?

Universal Health Care Initiative for 1998

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April 1996 GVDC Video Committee Report

Videotapes of Recent Club Events

The GVDC Video Committee has been busy. We have recently produced two short videos. The first was of the L.A. County Committee's John F. Kennedy Awards Dinner, focusing on the JFK Award given to our Club's own Cliff Holliday, still going strong at 97! That video was sent to the Los Angeles County Democratic Central Committee and to the California Democratic Party, both copies on request of those bodies. Former CDP State Chair Bill Press, now doing the "Crossfire" show at CNN, also requested a copy. Bill gave a great speech at the Dinner.

The second video was a synopsis of the event titled "Labor Meets The 1996 Candidates" where more than 2000 people showed up to listen to nearly 40 democratic candidates for office this year. The GVDC was a major co-sponsor of the event. Our video was edited down from three hours of tape to about 9 1/2 minutes. Twelve copies of the video were given to the Labor Planning Committee for the event. More copies have been requested by Committee Chair Dan Foley, who says that the video will be sent to Washington D.C. via the participating unions.

More recently our Club's Video Committee attended the Democratic State Convention at the Bonaventure Hotel_ in Los Angeles. Four hours of film were recorded and the Committee is now in the process of producing two videos from the footage. The first video will be the full speech of the State Convention's highlight, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's speech to the approximately 4000 attending convention delegates and observers. The second video will be a synopsis of the convention from the point of view of the Gardena Valley Democratic Club, which will include scenes from the GVDC Hospitality Suite and other events from the three-day annual convention.

If you are a GVDC member and would like to participate in the activities of the Club's Video Committee, or if you just have an idea that you would like to see worked on by this committee, please contact Co-Chair Bob Tougas at Bob2Gas@aol.com. Your comments and questions about the work of the video committee are also welcome.
Who knows? We might put clips from the videos up here one day!

National Health Committee Report (April 28, 1996):

NCSC's Battle for Medicare

Cliff Holliday showed a new video "The Battle for Medicare," made by the National Council of Senior Citizens (NCSC), at our weekly Club breakfast. Cliff returned Friday night from a Washington, DC, NCSC board meeting. You may not be aware of the fact that the National Council of Senior Citizens was formed in 1960 solely to push for the Medicare legislation. Until the Republicans took control of Congress two years ago, the NCSC had always been non-partisan, now they have formed a PAC to support pro-Medicare candidates, President Clinton in particular.

The video includes film of President Lyndon Baines Johnson signing the Medicare Bill in 1965, with Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey looking over his shoulder. And it also has a clip of President Bill Clinton speaking at the NCSC's 30th Anniversary event last year, saying that he would veto any legislation from the Republican Congress which cut back on Medicare.

The video also showed Senator Bob Dole bragging that he was one of only 12 members of Congress who voted against the original Medicare Bill and that he always knew that it "wouldn't work." (The vote for the Medicare Bill, HR 6675, in 1965 was 307 for Medicare, 116 against.) House Speaker Newt Gingrich was shown saying that he would let Medicare "wither on the vine."

House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt, a strong Medicare backer, is one of those featured in the video. The Trojan Horse that the NCSC brought to Capital Hill is shown along with some of the news coverage of that event. Many demonstrators carried signs saying

Get
Old
People

among others. The video points out that the National Council of Senior Citizens has joined with the AFL-CIO in its efforts to educate Americans on health care legislation.

Copies of the video, which is very well made, are available for less than $8 from:

the National Council of Senior Citizens / Congress of California Seniors
255 South Hill Street, Room 327
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Phone: 1 (213) 626-1903, and ask for Cliff Holliday.

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Two Initiatives Limiting HMOs Complete Signature-Gathering

Bob Tougas reported that, in addition to collecting signatures for the Livable Wage Initiative, he had also -- on different days -- collected signatures for the Patient Protection Act sponsored by the California Nurses Association (CNA) and by Ralph Nader. The supporters held a Press Conference last Wednesday announcing that they had received enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot. But whether the initiative is placed on the ballot depends on how high the "failure rate" is for the signatures it received.

The CNA initiative was given one extra week to qualify by the L.A. Registrar of Voters, because it was "online."

The similar initiative, sponsored by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and by Neighbor-to-Neighbor and by Health Access, also received enough signatures, but qualification also depends on the failure rate of the signatures.

Both initiatives require that Insurance Companies or Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) get a second opinion before they can deny recommended health care, both initiatives ban "gag orders" that force doctors to withhold advice that would cost the insurers more money, and they both ban monetary incentives to health professionals for denying care to patients. Insurance companies and HMOs are opposed to both initiatives, claiming that Legislators -- to whom they donate heavily -- are better able to draft health care legislation.

The Patient Protection Act would, additionally, set up a consumer watchdog board, would charge high fees for insurers which close hospitals or which merge together, would ban mandatory HMO contracts that prohibit legal actions against the insurers, and would limit health insurance premium increases.

Expect big battles similar to those we fought for Propositions 103 and 186.

Californians for Universal Health Care Initiative on Track for 1998

Alan Constantino reported that the Californians for Universal Health Care (CUHC) group's Initiative is on track for the ballot in 1998. Alan passed around a copy of a Florida "Single Payer Health Care" Constitutional Amendment that is getting signatures in that State right now. The CUHC, following the Proposition 186 disaster two years ago, decided that we should not use the term "single-payer," since the vast majority of Californians haven't the faintest idea what that refers to.

But the interesting thing about the Florida Amendment is its conciseness -- it's only half a page long! Many CUHC members feel that we should do something similar to give health insurers and HMOs less of a target. The CUHC Initiative will give every Californian comprehensive medical coverage, similar to what citizens enjoy in every other industrialized country on Earth.