Assemblywoman Fiona Ma (San Francisco)

When Democrats have a town hall meeting it's unscripted and informative.  That's why I am so pleased Speaker Fabian Núñez came to my district to discuss the best way to deliver health care to all Californians.  Instead of hearing sound bites from actors, we listened to real people who offered real solutions to our ailing health care system.

The event, which was held this past Saturday at UCSF Children's Hospital in San Francisco, was the second in a series of town halls that the Speaker is hosting across the state.  Before we began the town hall, UCSF doctors took me, the Speaker and Assemblymembers Jim Beall, Mary Hayashi, John Laird and Mark Leno on a tour of the pediatric intensive care unit.  That tour renewed my commitment to making sure all children are included in our health care fix.  Assembly Democrats won't let extremists deny health care to our most vulnerable children.

Many people in the audience expressed their strong support for Senator Sheila Kuehl's single-payer health care plan, which was vetoed by the Governor last year.  When an activist from San Francisco for Democracy asked me about it, I restated my strong support for single-payer.  I also noted that our Assembly Democratic plan brings us closer to that day by providing quality care at a lower cost while protecting patient choice.  Most important, I noted that our Assembly Democratic plan helps those Californians with pre-existing medical conditions secure and retain quality health care.

As a member of the Assembly Health Committee, I look forward to a day when single-payer health care comes to California and to the months ahead where we work with the Senate and the Governor to move toward that goal.

Comments

[Justice]

California Democrats ought to be ashamed of themselves with their plan to legalize suicide in this state. The party posts pictures of Cezar Chavez on the site and talk about helping the common folk but seem to be just whores for the HMO industry. I have been a Democrat all my life and Im not conservative or religious, but I am going to leave the party if Democrats pass assisted suicide here.

There is no question medical supervised killing of terminally ill, chronically ill, disabled, and elderly will eventually become legal. The proposed legislation is just a foot in the door to medically supervised killing because the flawed law does not provide trained assistance for the "patient" once he goes home with the prescibed death drug and their are frequently complications.