all right my name's georgia davenport i'm the campaign director for whole washington we are a grassroots organization one hundred percent unpaid that is going to get single payer on the ballot here in washington state washington is one of the twenty four lucky states that has an initiative process that can circumvent the legislature i am one of the many people in washington state who is under insured every time my daughter or myself goes to be e r we have to pay thirty percent of the bill out of our pocket until we hit five thousand dollars for the year this is quite a hardship for a family like mine we already have a tough time saving money this is why i'm volunteering for whole washington we need to provide everyone with health care co pay free no deductibles regardless of their employment health or income we are a five a one c four we have thirteen board members activists doctors union we have cindy black who is the head of seven thirty five she's on our board she's our treasure and bill moyer of the backbone campaign those are a few of our board members we have hired gerald friedman who is an economist at the university of massachusetts at amherst and he's agreed to do the funding study for a whole washington so we can answer those important questions like how are you going to pay for it hold washington is very excited to work for him he has completed many different funding studies for states like new york colorado massachusetts we have formed coalitions with local organizations and political leaders whole washington would like to have more supporters to we believe that health care professionals unions activists and organizers should have a seat at the table now instead of after the petitions are written how can you help you can sign up to be an elder you lead we have a sign up form on the table in the front there you can help us do data entry we always need data entry you can sign up to do house party for us i am and we also of course need donations we need to hire a campaign director right now in the interim campaign director and like i said volunteer and we need to hire somebody who has a little bit more experience than i do you can like and share our facebook page and go to our website do we have time for questions or hi i'm ronnie sure and i'm a forty third district democrat i am active in a citizen advocate advocacy group called health care for all washington we have introduced a bill in the house and in the senate our prime sponsor in the house has been sherry appleton and the prime sponsor originally in the senate was jean cole wells but the recent introduction in the twenty seven hundred twenty eighteen biennium the prime sponsor is david frocked our bill it's called the washington health security trust to set up a group within the state to create and to pull together all the hundreds of different health care of financing programs that are going on and to make an offer to include everybody we have a program director a three field workers in eastern washington in in yakima and in vancouver and we have the program director here communication in turn and we are planning to get hearings in the house in twenty eighteen and in the senate we've talked with active members and leaders in both groups and things are happening it's not just editorials in the newspaper it's real grassroots work that is showing up and some very receptive legislators the other point i want to make is that we have four years strategic plan to get this through the house and senate in washington or by two thousand and twenty which is an election year we're working with other states are doing the same things so that we introduce a initiative in that year by two thousand and twenty and working with other groups that are doing that so that the people that are trying to sabotage and create barriers to the program won't be able to pinpoint colorado they'll have states up and down the west coast and all across trying to put a program together we do have our annual meeting coming up number fourth and i have some flyers about that keynote speaker is carmen mendez who's the deputy mayor of yakima thank you physician here in seattle and i'm here representing united for single payer which is a grassroots activist group which has been supporting single payer since two thousand and nine have a monthly meeting where we go into depth on a particular issue and we also plan for activities in the community along with other organizations so i'm supposed to talk about what is our position on single payer at the state and national levels so on a national level there are two bills in congress one is h r six seventy six in the house of representatives which is the improved and expanded medicare for all act which is john conyers is the sponsor of that and there's one hundred twenty democrat co sponsors some more than half of the democrats in the house have supported that we fully support this for for work on single payer also on the national level there was the recently introduced senate bill eighteen zero four which is bernie sanders medicare for all act which has sixteen democrat co sponsors  we welcome this bill as a true medicare for all bill but in its current form we do not support it because there is much weaker than h r six seventy six and it is fatally flawed as currently written we will use it to create an opening to advance the discussions around medicare for all with our senators  and their staff and the public and we hope that the bill will be improved in the future unfortunately was not a companion bill to h r six seventy six which is what we were hoping for on the state level there is the west which ronnie described and there was also the work of whole washington which is working towards a initiative to the  public for having them indoors a single payer bill in in the state and we support and participate in both of these state efforts even the this is not our primary focus  because they enhance the overall movement for single payer and they both work to educate the public my time is  up i'm going to stand up because otherwise you might not hear me well i'm david mcclanahan i'm a retired surgeon i work for twenty five years a packed med and during that time i worked a half a day a week each country doctor an international district clinic where i set up  founded western washington chapter of physicians for a national health program it's a national organization of over twenty thousand members our main focus is on national legislation  to single payer bills out there now we support bernie sanders bill but i do think that h r six seven six in the house is much stronger but sanders has opened up a huge space with his campaign so people know what single payer medicare for all is now a lot more people than before bernie's campaign so we feel like at this point in time we've got a whole lot more people out on the streets we've got look at washington state we've got in the visible and whole washington that we didn't have a couple years ago that are strong single payer supporters so we're pushing the national legislation but we understand that health care involves all sorts of the other social justice organizations and we have to work together we have to get the people who know how to do grassroots organizing and direct action to work with people who are more comfortable with policy and electoral politics so i think that's about enough for right now hopefully the big questions because a lot of people say well single payer it's not politically feasible at this point in time and we hear that from politicians all the time they say yes i'm a single payer supporter but we've got other things we've got to deal with and that's for later just but we believe that to really get where we need to be with health care as a human right we need to transform the system from a for profit private insurance model to a public system where everybody is involved every resident of this country from birth  hi i'm jessica goldman and i'm here on behalf of indivisible north seattle and we support all of the above at the moment we're dealing with the dumpster fires which are coming from washington d c and so i want to just briefly tell you a couple and one of them is hot off the press phone lines down so and has shrunk the enrollment period we have created a flyer that we're distributing in libraries all over town and i'm going to send it to viv's so you guys if you want to make copies of it and just post it on your facebook or you know your groups please do so we also have in spanish the news tonight as you know there was an executive order signed by president trump last week in which he ended the c s r s which are the cost sharing  n reimbursements by the federal government to insurance companies to compensate them for the reduced rates that they have to give to low income people to reimburse for deductibles and co pays and out of pockets which they do on the front end and then the federal government reimburses so that has he terminated that immediately a lawsuit was filed the next day and there are nineteen states attorney generals who are bringing that lawsuit it's it's in the northern district of california and washington is a party to that lawsuit and so i'm expecting that there should be a motion for injunctive relief immediately on that but tonight our own senator patty murray and senator alexander republican came up with an agreement which has seventy seventy votes in the senate to create a stopgap resolution for the c s our funding issue it doesn't solve the problem and it's a messy compromise but what it does is it allows for would be waived in some circumstances there would be allowing of catastrophic plans for many more people which creates a issue where there are not enough healthy people in the pool  for everybody else but advertising money would be restored and doubled and there would be explicit protections for low income people and people with serious illnesses trump has indicated tonight that he supports it so we expect that this will pass the senate the question is the house of representatives where there is a lot of concern that it might not pass so our efforts right now as of two hours ago are directed squarely at the house of representatives and to think patty murray for her staying with this despite all of the turns this has taken and so we urge people to reach out to the house members of our delegation in the state of washington and to reach out to people particularly in red states that you know who you can lobby to get them to lobby their own members of congress in the house it is the policy of indivisible that we not call representatives who do not represent us because it has an effect of watering down the voices of the people who actually are represented in that district when they see the two zero six area code showing up but do reach out to the people you know in states where there are red representatives i will also say  that the house is in recess this week so this is a great time to kind of mobilize so that when paul ryan and his friends come back next week they have a clear sign from us that this needs to happen it's not perfect by any means the democrats are having to step back on protections but it's a compromise and it's frankly the best we can do at the moment short of an injunction thank you for action to take so there is a lot of momentum building around expanding coverage and thinking more about what the path to universal coverage health care coverage in washington can look like and there are a universal coverage what we often call single payer i do want to say we have some recent polling that was done i think over the summer that shows that people don't know what the heck single payer is so we should really try to not use that phrase anymore but that medicare for all is polling really really strongly across washington street state both amongst democrats and republicans at well over a majority so over sixty five percent washingtonians want to have a universal coverage strategy that includes a single payer single purchaser so we have to work on the branding so how security trust is a good example of that  so those bills remain in play in washington state there is building momentum around public option bill specifically a medicaid buy in  bills would that we could potentially implement more quickly and a number of members in the house and senate are interested in matt as ronnie said earlier we are working hard to get a hearing on the two bills in the house and senate the health security trust we expect there will be hearings as well medicaid by an options  what i want to ask you all to do is to make sure you're talking to people in other districts to make sure that their representatives are aware of all of these bills and that there is  urgency for us to have a have hearings on these bills during our short session that these are priority policy issues for all washingtonians i am carrying a bill that i sponsored in currently are not eligible for medicaid or are not on their parents health insurance yet so this is an important bill particularly for immigrants in our state and washington has said  a big example for many years in making sure when we say universal coverage we mean universal coverage and coverage for everyone and so i'm hoping that all of these bills will get a hearing and get some movement through the lead to this year i think we're so grateful to patty murray and i'll say one thing in that bill that was dropped today and could potentially make it easier for us to get the required waivers we need to move things from the federal government to expand universal coverage so we're going to q and a so i'll pass the mike to whom to be in any question so i don't have the bill numbers off the top of my head right now but i'll tell you the prime sponsor so i hope the security trust bill sponsor in the house is sherry appleton i do know the bill number there which is h b ten twenty six any the prime sponsor in the senate of that bill is david frocked and that one is fifty seven zero one the medicaid expansion by and bill the prime sponsor in any other questions just bernie how much time do i have for this oh let me just give you the down and dirty here the bernie sanders bill has no provision for long term care which is a big deal so long term care will be left in medicaid which means that you have to become impoverished in order to get it and that is really a violation of human rights as i mean there's just no reason for it bernie sanders bill has a transition period of four years which if you by public options for medicare in the exchanges it's it will be a disaster and it'll just be totally trashed by the republicans as being something that's completely unworkable department you just you know they have a budget and they run it you get a card you need care you go and get it and nobody should be making a profit off it there are no global budgets for hospitals or large providers which is like a big deal because this is a tremendous source of savings by giving hospitals and large providers global budgets so they just have just like the fire department again say ok here's ten million dollars run your fire department but hospitals because they don't have that they have to bill for every band aid in tylenol that you get and the whole thing becomes so complex and expensive it just you know it gets to be absurd and also there no separation of the budgets for hospitals and large health care organizations between their operating budgets and their capital budgets and this would lead to tremendous over expense  it when group health was founded its founders were ardent supporters of the national health care system that was long ago and much has happened since then of course now it's part of kaiser permanente but i question is has kaiser permanente taken a stand on any of these bills are they supporting as far as i know i don't think they have and i think they're afraid to ask their constituents or their patients as patients they cover about it within the national single payer bill is kaiser permanente would still be and the funds national funds national insurance would be given to kaiser permanente to you know they'd be given a lump sum for their budget but as jim said the capital budget is separate and the capital budget is where patients are empire building goes on among the hospital centers they want it everybody wants and have the latest m r i and so on so you can get a place like seattle where there are no one city there is you know thirty or forty m r i's in out in the countryside you gotta go fifty miles to get one or more so in a rational efficient system the the technology like that would be spread around based on the need permanente and every hospital in the state of washington has come to the support of those cutbacks in advertising for the health benefit exchange for the extension of the fordable care act because it certainly benefits them and reduces the charity care that they were often stuck with they are big supporters of moving action forward they are on the forefront and even insurance companies are not as much a barrier is we wanted their hidden agenda is if healthy people buy inch health insurance if everyone is involved it's good for them because that's how insurance pays for itself complete to have a seat at the table so we've contacted disability organizations homeless advocates indivisible our revolution basically and all these organizations we've been talking to as well  if you have a specific organization that you think should have a seat at the table take one of our flyers and we will get to you once we have the initiative kind of drafted and we want sure we want  so that later on we're not saying well we have this initiative written it might be problematic but you have to get on board because it's set in stone we don't want that focus on getting those stakeholders to come talk to us and tell us what's important to them so that where assured that that's in the initiative and then they have ownership and buy in so that later they might want to volunteer for us take other some signatures you know i can add one thing to that we've talked about barriers to medicare for all but washington state is one of the most active  like that we have a really powerful support so where colorado initiatives failed because they didn't have support from groups like that we have really gotten that support in washington state  time once again for community form and we're very lucky to have with us live in the studio this morning roberto mendoza perez and sorry your menace roberto mendoza perot's is a member of mexico's for peace international team member based in wa mexico so roberto start out tell us a bit about your your organization your work and what brings you to seattle for those of us who live in mexico which is a context which is in a context of generalized systematic repression yes the most sinister moment  violations to human rights so this these acts of violence that have happened between from two thousand and six to the present the victims of these crimes have been workers so with this the u s with this militarization of the country the u s government gave weapons training to the armed forces of mexico and as well as economic so we say also that definitely the mexican and the mexican and u s governments are responsible of course the mexican government responsible for these crimes committed but also the us is responsible because there so what are the consequences of this militarization with the a few so of combating narco trafficking said so really narco trafficking isn't being combated those who are being combated are the people who are the people of mexico who are trying to organize to address their conditions of misery in mexico given but there are thousands of more cases but family members are too afraid to denounce these cases and crimes because they are afraid that they themselves will also become victims of forced disappearance so the government intends to have these cases under silence and impunity these cases of force disappearance and also extra judicial killings  can't remain silent we must announce what we have calculated to be more than three hundred thousand cases of forced disappear these that more than ninety percent of the victims in these cases have no connections to organized crime or narco trafficking so that is to say they are completely innocent don't decent work and also land of finance are fought for  mexico was known as the biggest graveyard in the world ourselves those of us who dare to denounce this case to some has we are we point to the responsibility of the mexican government in all of the crimes against humanity perpetuated in mexico  as soon as the military so their case cases that prove the complete participation of all of the different institutions within the mexican government who were disappeared in may two thousand and seven with the participation of all of the i'll of the entities of the police and military involve in mexico the process of displacement of people in lance has accelerated say so but expl although the mexican has signed the mexican government has signed most of the international treaties regarding human rights they do not respect them they do not fulfill years there is impunity for the high ranking officials in the military police and police forces as well as government hiring government officials  eye in the thousands of crimes against humanity that occur in mexico so that the people of the united states can also learn about the great human rights violations that are occurring in mexico so for more information folks can go to f and ls dot may first dot org and also the witness for peace website whitney's for peace dot org