San Francisco's Bold Foray into Health Care

[AtomicKitten]

Have I mentioned how much I love this city?

San Francisco Chronicle
S.F.'s bold foray into health care ready to start
Heather Knight, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, June 28, 2007

As the national debate rages over how to fix the country's broken health care system -- with 2008 presidential candidates offering up their solutions and Michael Moore's documentary "Sicko" opening Friday -- San Francisco will become the first city in the country to actually try to solve the problem itself.

Starting Monday, the city will roll out Healthy San Francisco, designed to eventually provide local medical care for all 82,000 city residents who lack health insurance. Recently renamed, the initiative received unanimous Board of Supervisors approval last summer.

It will start with just a few hundred patients in Chinatown but is designed to ramp up to full citywide coverage within 18 months.

* snip *

To qualify, an individual must be an adult (children are already covered in San Francisco through another program), uninsured, live in the city and be ineligible for Medicaid or Medi-Cal. It is not being called an insurance program because medical care is only available within the city limits.

Employment status, immigration status and pre-existing medical conditions won't be factors in coverage. For example, someone who is unemployed, in the country illegally and suffering from cancer would have the same rights for coverage as anybody else.

"(People) are shocked by that," Newsom said. "We're taking care of all residents of San Francisco."

Participants pay a quarterly premium to be part of the program, as well as co-payments. Those making less than 100 percent of the federal poverty level won't have to pay anything. Others will pay on a sliding scale. On average, Katz said, participants will pay a total of about 5 percent of their income to participate.

more at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/06/28/MNGGIQNA701.DTL

[AtomicKitten]

1. bump for SF

I think this is fabulous even if nobody else does.