Dellums considering health care options - Mayor-elect wants to find way to cover city's uninsured

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 6/26/6 | Christopher Heredia

[SmithL]

While San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has proposed a plan for universal health care in his city, Oakland Mayor-elect Ron Dellums is beginning to explore a similar plan across the bay.

Dellums, who was elected this month and takes office Jan. 1, has yet to put forth a plan for how the city would insure Oakland's estimated 80,000 uninsured residents. But his spokesman said Friday that Dellums will rely heavily on the recommendations of a task force he is assembling.

Alameda County and Oakland city officials -- and the president of a nonprofit health care philanthropy, the California Healthcare Foundation -- say Newsom has very different resources at his disposal.

As both a city and county, San Francisco owns and operates San Francisco General Hospital and several community clinics, and Newsom can combine those resources as part of a universal health plan.

In contrast, the Alameda County Medical Center and public health clinics in the East Bay's largest city are run by the county -- and Dellums does not control them.

San Francisco and Alameda County already have health plans that enable residents to buy coverage. But Alameda County's plan doesn't insure anywhere near the 160,000 county residents lacking private health insurance.

Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente and Councilwoman Nancy Nadel, both of whom ran for mayor this month, put higher priorities on providing safe and clean streets, jobs and fixing the city's troubled school system than on providing universal health care.

But other East Bay leaders understand Newsom's and Dellums' desire to fix a major social problem -- uninsured residents who show up at county emergency rooms with health problems that might have been better addressed if preventive care had been available, and the higher costs associated with that emergency care.

[Michael.SF.]

How about charging an exit tax?

Any capitalistic pig that sells his house, at a profit, and is moving out of Oakland will be taxed 5% of the net profit of the sale.

Should work for a few years at least.

Or maybe a view tax. if you can see water from your house, you get charged based on the quality of the view:

180 degrees = $1,800 $/yr

1 degree = 180 $/yr

[sgtbono2002]

In San Francisco I would think that just the AIDS medication would break the city.