By Amy Yannello | Sacramento News and Review
For more than 7 million working Californians who currently don’t have health insurance, Congress and President Barack Obama’s attempt to reform health care has been an exercise in frustration. The public option was almost immediately taken off the table, despite the fact that most independent experts agree reform won’t work without it, and after a year of negotiations, no bill is in sight. If the politicians in Washington, D.C., don’t get their act together soon, California just might beat the feds to the punch with a single-payer system of its own.

By Mark Leno | San Francisco Chronicle
As outraged families and small businesses react to the latest health insurance premium increases, Californians are forced to face the fact that insurance companies are not in business to provide health care to people who need it. Premium increases are just part of the concerns - pre-existing condition denials, overturned doctors' decisions, coverage rescissions and other insurance industry abuses are sadly commonplace.

WellPoint's California subsidiary, Anthem Blue Cross, has provoked appropriate outrage in response to its announcement of premium increases as high as 39 percent. Why would they risk creating this potential public relations nightmare when Congress is considering major increases in regulatory oversight of their industry?

SB 810 (Leno), the California Universal Healthcare Act would provide fiscally sound, affordable healthcare to all Californians, give every Californian the right to choose his or her own physician and control health cost inflation.

Ann Troy, M.D. | Letter to the editor | Pacific Sun (San Rafael, Calif.)
If we had real healthcare reform, a single-payer system such as Medicare for all, all Americans would have access to healthcare, we would be able to choose our own doctors, doctors would be able to practice the way they want and would be paid fairly on a fee-for-service basis.

By Sara Reeve | USC News
Students at the Keck School of Medicine of USC are taking an active role in the debate over health care reform.

CLAUDIA CHAUFAN | Letter to the Editor | San Francisco Chronicle
In the Netherlands, the recently introduced for-profit insurance applies only to a small portion of services, and the results are mixed at best. As money is diverted from care to advertising, health care needs go unmet, and costs are steadily rising, as is popular discontent.

by Claudia Chaufan | www.opednews.com
As president Obama recently acknowledged, the need to reform health care is no longer an issue. Indeed, on March 5th the White House convened a Health Care Summit, that so far have been followed by Regional Forums in Michigan on March 12, in Vermont on March 17, in Iowa on March 23rd, and upcoming ones in North Carolina on March 31st and in our state, in Los Angeles on April 6th.

California Nurses Association / National Nurses Organizing Committee
The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee today hailed the California Legislature's passage of a single-payer, expanded Medicare for all, style bill that would guarantee quality health care for all Californians -- and called it a model for the national healthcare reform debate that is sure to emerge in 2009.

By Lisa Girion | Los Angeles Times
The state's largest for-profit health insurer is asking California physicians to look for conditions it can use to cancel their new patients' medical coverage. Blue Cross of California is sending physicians copies of health insurance applications filled out by new patients, along with a letter advising them that the company has a right to drop members who fail to disclose "material medical history," including "pre-existing pregnancies."

The California Democratic Party | Resolution Number ANA07.15
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the CDP strongly supports the drafting and passage of legislation that creates and enacts a single-payer health care program which provides comprehensive, secure, high quality, efficient and sustainable access to health care for all Californians.

By Jamie Court | The Los Angeles Times
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez claim they are close to a deal on healthcare reform that will require every Californian to prove they have a private health insurance policy -- but does not cap how much insurers can charge for it. Hillary Clinton's health plan, released last week, would require all Americans to have health insurance, also with no cap on premiums.

Don McCanne, M.D. | California Progress Report
In a classic example of political irony, Democrats are abandoning their preferred option, single payer reform, in order to reach a compromise with the Republicans and the private insurance industry. They have crafted a model that they believe does not repeat the mistake of the Massachusetts reform program. California Democrats proudly proclaim that they will not require individuals who cannot afford private insurance to be covered by a program that is being inappropriately characterized as universal.