Healthy S.F. extolled
By: Brent Begin
Examiner Staff Writer
May 8, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco’s universal health care system is continuing to pique curiosity around the nation.
As federal lawmakers look to reform the nation’s health care system, The City’s own program, Healthy San Francisco, garnered a lot of attention this week during Mayor Gavin Newsom’s Washington, D.C., trip.
Newsom will continue that conversation in an interview with Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, set to air on the mayor’s Saturday radio show. On the show, Harkin tells Newsom that federal legislators are looking at Healthy San Francisco, which took effect in 2007, as a national model for universal health care.
Harkin, a longtime advocate of universal health care, once tried unsuccessfully to ban sugary foods in vending machines at schools nationwide. He now leads a public-health work group that’s helping draft health-reform legislation.
“I’m going to use what San Francisco has done as an example for a public plan and all the things you’ve done in your schools and stuff, again, thank you,” he told Newsom in a preview of the show made available to The Examiner. “You’re way ahead of the curve.”
According to Harkin, a federal bill could hit the Senate floor by the end of the year, although lawmakers are divided on whether the best option would be a public plan administered by government or a federal mandate requiring everyone in the country be covered.
San Francisco officials are also warning that it’s important to take a community approach to health care.
Department of Public Health Director Mitch Katz and Healthy San Francisco Director Tangerine Brigham have been telling health care leaders nationwide that programs work better when they are crafted to serve smaller communities.
“There are some common things we think would help anyone who is working to reform health care, but it has to be tailored to the community,” Brigham said.
Providing a single place where patients can find primary and preventive care is the most important aspect of a successful system, she said.
The mayor’s radio show airs at 11 a.m. Saturday on Green960.
bbegin@sfexaminer.com
