Singlepayer.com is our site of the day

The National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC) and the California Nurses Association (CAN) have created a website, singlepayer.com that has all sorts of information about health care in California and what a “Medicare for all” system would be like for Californians.

There’s a ton of information here and on this single page you can read all sorts of news coverage on health care, read up on California and national legislation, take specific useful steps to contact your legislator, contact the press, tell your healthcare story, and do something about this important issue that will be front and center in Sacramento for the remainder of this year’s legislative session.

You can also watch an innovative series of webcasts that lets patients tell their own stories. This online series exposes the hidden, everyday tragedies of a healthcare system run by insurance companies who make money by denying care--not by providing it. This is a new website featuring the stories of forgotten American patients; patients are able to upload their own text stories and send in their own videos.

Today the site debuts webisode 3 of "Real People Denied Real Healthcare," which features Bonnie Drew, a California resident and former federal government employee who thought she was covered with her Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance. After she got sick, Bonnie tells us how Blue Cross/Blue Shield began denying payments to her healthcare providers and eventually, she says, "They were going to send me home to die because I cost them too much money."

Her story follows those of David Welch, RN, who talked in Webisode 1 about his inability to get insurance following the removal of a minor skin cancer, and Nathan Wilkes, who spoke of his sense of helplessness trying to maintain coverage for his hemophiliac son.

These real life experiences are the reason that nurses and patients across the country are pushing for “Guaranteed Healthcare,” an assurance that all Americans can access the care they need and deserve. The National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association is an endorser of HR 676, Rep. John Conyers' bill to establish single-payer financing in the healthcare system--a "Medicare for All" model that would eliminate the insurance industry middleman and SB 840 by California State Senator Sheila Kuehl.