FEATURING DR. PAUL SONG - California voters are in the thick of a high-stakes primary race for governor, in which “single payer” healthcare, an issue that was once central, has been pushed to the sidelines. Of the top five candidates, only one has unequivocally adopted a model of healthcare that would put the United States on par with the rest of the industrialized world.
Billionaire Tom Steyer, running as a Democrat, says single payer is the only way to bring down spiraling healthcare costs. But in 2020, Steyer ran for President on a platform touting a “public option,” and attacking Presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders’ single payer healthcare plan. Now, Steyer has reversed that position, earning the coveted endorsement of the California Nurses Association (CNA), one of the state’s most aggressive proponents of single payer.
Dr. Paul Song is a member of Physicians for a National Health Program and the former co-chair of the Campaign for a Healthy California. He spoke with Sonali Kolhatkar about what it would take to make single payer healthcare a reality in California.
ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:
Sonali Kolhatkar: So let's first talk about the fact that it seems as though single-payer has not really been a huge issue in the governor's race as maybe it has been in previous years. For those people who work on it, it's the issue, but in the debates, it's just come up a little bit. The main issues are affordability, which of course, healthcare is a part of that, but it doesn't come up as much, and homelessness has been raised quite a bit, and then, of course, the war in Iran. Why do you think this has not been such a big issue? It seems as though everybody in the establishment has kind of given up and said, "Well, it's never going to be practical." What do you think?
Dr. Paul Song: I think there are two reasons for that. One is that actually, ironically, uninsured as a percent of our California population is at the lowest it's been in a long time. It's only two million people right now that lack health insurance, so I think for that reason, a lot of people feel that it's less of an issue than it was before.
And secondly, for those of us like myself who've been involved in the single-payer movement for most of our lives, it's easy to have become discouraged based on the false promises of Gavin Newsom when he ran and said he was going to run as a single-payer candidate, and the numerous attempts where activists have tried to advance legislation only to see it just killed in Sacramento and not even be brought up for a vote.
So putting all those things together, I think a lot of people have sort of soured, not on the idea of it, but just on the feasibility of having people that are really dedicated in Sacramento to make it happen.
