potrero view

October 2009

Potrero Hill Health Care Advocates Work for Change

By Mike Stillman

As debates over what to do about federal health care policy rage throughout the country, several Potrero Hill residents have turned their neighborhood into an unassuming center of reform activity. By avoiding the use of scare tactics and wild accusations that have marred the issue, three women have quietly affected the viewpoints of hundreds of individuals.

Margaret Keyes, Bonnie Baron, and Daphne Magnawa all believe that a change needs to be made to America’s health care system. Although they were drawn to the issue for different reasons, and don’t share the same vision for the future of America’s health care system, their activism efforts center on the same principles. These three Potrero Hill residents share the belief that respecting all sides is essential to avoid preaching to the choir.

“You’re not going to change someone’s mind if you hate them,” said Margaret Keyes, who has been involved with health care reform since 1947, when she wrote a high school term paper on socialized medicine.  Still active and articulate at age 80, Keyes sends out group emails about health care reform to a sizable contact list from her home on Wisconsin Street. She also works the telephone, and attends rallies.  Keyes estimates that she’s spoken to 300 people about health care. Her efforts have intensified lately, as the U.S. House of Representatives may vote on a health care reform bill by the end of this month.

Keyes, the daughter of a longshoreman, grew up listening to conversations about union and community issues, such as living wages, adequate compensation, and affordable health care.  Keyes later attended the University of Chicago, where she learned about community organizing, and went on to direct a family service agency.  “I’ve always been concerned about community problems, and health care is the core issue right now,” Keyes said.  In her opinion, the current system is, “manifestly absurd, it does not represent common sense or the common interest or the common good.”

Keyes believes that the best approach would be to establish a single payer system, in which for profit insurance companies are eliminated, and all medical expenses are paid for by the government using a single pool of money that’s amassed through taxes and other sources.  But she strives to create a sense of community and hope amongst all types of health care reform activists.  “It’s not like there’s one winner and it’s a prize fight, it’s a matter of a process, you are working to shift a change in the direction of the values that you hold,” Keyes said.

Although previous attempts at health care reform have failed, Keyes believes that Barak Obama’s election will have a significant impact on reform efforts, both in Washington, D.C. and at the local level. Keyes sees Obama’s victory as a success story for grassroots organizing, an event that will keep American citizens involved with political issues.

Utah Street resident Daphne Magnawa was drawn into health care  as a result of Obama’s election. Magnawa said she’s always been a community activist, but felt jaded by politics and never took part in national causes until she started volunteering for Obama for America.  Magnawa is now a staunch advocate for the creation of a public health insurance option.  In recent months she’s attended and helped organize rallies and letter writing campaigns, gone door to door in Potrero Hill to gather signatures and distribute literature, and gives up part of her weekends to sit at a table in Dolores Park and talk with people about health care reform. Magnawa is not a single payer advocate, but rather wants to see a public health insurance option offered to people who don’t currently have coverage.   

 “The public option is not a take over of the health care industry, it’s just a government run program that will compete with others… it’s for those people that don’t have insurance or are under insured or can’t get insurance because they have preexisting conditions and they need help. It’s insuring those 45 million people [who do not have insurance] so they don’t use emergency rooms as their wellness center,” she said.

Those opposed to the public health care option assert that taxpayers will have to cover the costs of health insurance for the unemployed. However, according to Magnawa, “We’re already paying for other people’s health care, we just don’t know it.”  Insurance companies pass on the cost of hospital care for the uninsured to their customers through the premiums they charge, Magnawa said. Since she’s already paying for the uninsured, Magnawa would rather pay slightly higher taxes and have the issue be out in the open.

Bonnie Baron, a 34-year Wisconsin Street resident, is a single payer advocate who became involved with health care reform efforts after her father, who was suffering from dementia-like symptoms, was dropped from his insurance for missing a couple monthly payments.  “That was just a very bitter pill, it further enlightened me about what happens when there is a profit motive involved in health care, it’s not a very good picture,” Baron said.

Baron has been a member of Single Payer Now for the past six years. In addition to attending the organization’s monthly meetings, she writes letters to politicians and articles about single payer health care for local newspapers, including the View. She also attends demonstrations throughout the Bay Area and in Sacramento.  While working on the issue Baron has encountered a number of misinformed reform opponents. “I can’t tell you how many people have gotten confused about what single payer means. Their reaction changes when they find out it is basically Medicare for all. There are reports of people who have Medicare, who are objecting to a government take over of health care, not knowing it’s a government program. That just shocks me,” she said.

Baron, like Magnawa and Keyes, stressed the importance of showing respect for people on the other side of the issue. When asked how best to change someone’s mind, Baron said, “Education. Educating each other about concerns and needs and fears, but not attacking, that’s terribly unproductive.”

The last attempt at health care reform, an effort lead by the Clinton Administration in 1993, caused a backlash that lead to the Democratic Party losing control of both the House and the Senate in the 1994 midterm elections.  As Congress continues to draft a health care reform bill, activists like Baron, Magnawa and Keyes will soon find out how effective their grassroots efforts have been in determining the future of America’s political landscape and the fate of millions of uninsured Americans.

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