Poly club tries to raise respect for health care

The Cal Poly club Raise the Respect rallied at the Universal Heath Care Lobby Day in Sacramento on Wednesday.

Students joined from across the state to kick off the reintroduction of the California Health Insurance Reliability Act, a bill to provide all Californians with health insurance coverage.

“Basically right now what we have is private health care insurance,” said Jim Fung, an electrical engineer senior at Cal Poly and Raise the Respect representative. “Under this bill, the government will assume all responsibility for basic health care treatment. Instead of consumers paying premiums to private companies it would be paid into a single government entity.”

The bill was introduced last year and passed by the assembly and senate, but was vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006.

The rally marked the reintroduction of the bill to the assembly and senate and kick-started the awareness of single-payer health insurance, Fung said.

“Right now 6.6 million people are uninsured in California,” said Jacqueline Chan, co-director of Raise the Respect and microbiology junior. “That is 20 percent of our population in California. Most of them are late teenage years to adults. The majority fall between the ages of 24 and 34.”

Ninety percent of uninsured adults in California don’t qualify for Medicare or Medi-Cal and the majority of children without health insurance have parents who work full-time but cannot pay for health insurance, Chan said.

Lobby Day is an annual event organized by California AMSA for legislative Actions (CALA).

Students from Cal Poly attending the event were able to learn more about the bill during a training session provided before the rally, Chan said. They were also able to discuss the California Health Insurance Reliability Act, along with other health care concerns with state legislature. These students included Jacqueline Chan, Jim Fung, Brian Seo, John Alexander, Lydia Mendoza and Victor Hoang.

“The rally was definitely a success and the meeting with the legislature went very well,” Fung said. “We got support from a lot of them.”

After speaking with different assembly members and senators, Fung said that many of the legislators agreed to look at the bill again with fresh eyes.

Chan said there will be additional opportunities locally for students and community members to become more educated on statewide health care.

The Student Community Services of Cal Poly will hold the conference Change the Status Quo on Feb. 23 and 24. One of numerous conference workshops will focus on the awareness of universal health care.

“It’s a conference built of workshops targeting the current issues going on today,” Chan said. “It’s inspiring students to make a difference in their community.”

Raise the Respect will also hold meetings every other week beginning Jan. 22, at 7 p.m. at Backstage Pizza.

Raise the Respect is a program in Student Community Services that concentrates on educating students of current injustices and providing an outlet of action, Chan said.

Prior to Lobby Day, Raise the Respect also held a health care awareness event in the University Union to help educate students about current issues.

“I think it is really important for students to educate themselves about all of the bills right now that have to do with the health care system,” Chan said. “They are at a very high risk of falling into that uninsured group.”