Better Healthcare for California?

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87148736394?pwd=OUR6U2hYc01lUkZLenBMUEw2V2VhUT09

Meeting ID: 871 4873 6394

Passcode: 535502

Baffled by the conflicting claims of Medicare Advantage plans and traditional Medicare? Doctor Mary McDevitt will review the structure of Medicare and its sources of funding as well as the differences between Traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage. She will also review State efforts to pass a Single Payer Healthcare bill.

How, exactly, do Medicare Advantage plans work? How are they funded? What are their benefits and drawbacks? What about all those deductibles and co-pays? Many seniors find themselves lost in the woods of all the plans, claims and promises advertised on TV and in their mailboxes. What are the differences and how do they really work?

Dr. McDevitt has become an expert at analyzing those claims and the complexities of the system. She is a retired Internist/Pulmonary physician with experience in hospital administration from her positions as Medical Director of San Jose Medical Center and Marin General Hospital. She is also Chair of the Sonoma/Napa Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), and she will explain the efforts to create CalCare, a single payer healthcare system in California.

The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that at the present time 2/3 of bankruptcies are related to medical bills. They report that over the last 10 years, employer insurance deductibles have risen 111% while wages have increased 27%.  Covid-19 has shown the need to separate health insurance from employment.   Among other things, the proposed CALCARE program would include expanded services including dental, vision, hearing, long-term care and in home health support.

Should Americans continue to pay more for their health care than other similar countries? The United States devotes more of its national income to healthcare relative to other OECD countries. On average, healthcare spending across those countries has remained in line with overall economic growth in the past decade. Between 2010 and 2019, health spending across the OECD averaged about 8.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) annually. Healthcare spending in the United States, however, rose from 16.3 percent to 17.0 percent of GDP in in that same period.

Though the Federal government is unlikely to create a national single payer program at this time, California is big enough to create its own.

Dr. Mary McDevitt, originally from Philadelphia, came West to finish her medical training at Mt. Zion Hospital in San Francisco. After 14 years in her San Francisco practice of Internal Medicine and Pulmonary Disease, she became the Medical Director of San Jose Medical Center. In 1995 she took the position of Medical Director of Marin General Hospital. After retirement in 2009, she moved to the town of Sonoma.

We will meet in the East Rec center for a wine & cheese social at 6:30, and Dr. McDevitt's presentation.  Please feel free to bring light appetizers and libations to share.  Because Covid is still with us, we encourage people to wear masks during the presentation if comfortable doing so.  The meeting will also be available on Zoom, link below: