Senator Kamala Harris joins LA rally to ‘save health care’

Jan. 16--Hundreds of people rallied in front of Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center on Sunday demanding that a quality health care plan be put into place before Republicans dismantle the Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare.

The Our First Stand: Save Health Care rally, which featured U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis and other dignitaries, was one of dozens of similar events held across the nation Sunday. The rallies were spearheaded by Senate and House Democratic Leaders Charles E. Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who spoke at a rally attended by thousands in Michigan, to protest steps taken to repeal President Barack Obama's signature domestic policy.

Attendees held signs declaring "Save the ACA" and "Congress don't take away my insurance" while chanting slogans such as "A-ho, A-hey, we will fight for ACA."

Nancy Marisa Gomez, organizing director of Health Access and a representative for #Fight4OurHealth Coalition, told the crowd that the broad coalition of more than 100 groups would "fight like hell" for their right to affordable health care.

"We're not naive; we know the inevitable is going to happen, but we want them to delay the process and consider and put forth a realistic alternative so people don't lose coverage and have the rug ripped right from under them," Gomez said after the rally, which organizers estimated was attended by at least 700 people.

In the early morning hours Thursday, the Republican-led Senate took the first step toward doing away with the Affordable Care Act by passing a measure largely along partisan lines. The 51-48 vote on the item, which was included in a budget measure, paves the way for repeal legislation to be considered as early as next month. President-elect Donald Trump says he plans to repeal and replace the health care law, though many details are still not known.

The noon rally in L.A. was one of many "rapid response actions" by the coalition in light of votes Congress is expected to take before and after Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, Gomez said. Another Our First Stand rally took place at 5 p.m. in Hollywood with the California Nurses Association at the TCL Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard.

Harris, a former state attorney general and newly sworn in U.S. senator, echoed the late civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s sentiment that access to health care is a basic, fundamental right.

She called it a "pivotal moment" in which the country is collectively required to look in the mirror and ask: "Who are we?"

The country was founded on ideals of freedom of religion and freedom of association, Harris said, as well as the notion that the dignity and individuality of all people will be respected.

"And in allowing the pursuit of happiness, also understand part of that means allowing access to meaningful health care," she said.

Nationwide, some 20 million people have been given health coverage under the law but some have complained of challenges, such as rising premiums and large co-payments.

Nearly 5 million residents in California gained insurance through the health care law, by which the uninsured rate fell from 17.2 percent in 2013 to 8.6 percent in 2015, according to a fact sheet from the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

Rosemary Sova, the parent of a grown child who lives in Koreatown, held up a large placard that explained the precarious health situation she was in a few years ago.

Sova said she had to stay in the hospital for three weeks after falling seriously ill and nearly dying but was covered by health insurance through her work, sparing her more than $300,000 in costs. However, after she lost her job and had no insurance, she had difficulty finding an insurer because of her pre-existing condition until Obamacare came along and gave her the coverage she needed, she said.

"It's something that can happen to anybody," she said before the rally while holding her sign that included the phrase #ACASavesLives. "I got what I thought was a stomach bug ... and it was very serious."

Manuel Campa, a family medicine physician at the LAC+USC Medical Center, said he has seen many patients enter the adult primary care clinic this year for the first time because of the Affordable Care Act. He now worries that people may not get the life-saving care they need.

"What's at risk is people losing the ability to access their primary care doctor, their family doctor, the doctor who they go to for (medicine) refills, sick visits, to get specialist referrals," he said, with his 2-year-old son on his shoulder. "Instead we're going back to a system years ago ... where people were just flooding the ER, accessing things on an as-needed basis rather than a preventive mind-set."

Solis told the crowd that there's been "a remarkable 46 percent reduction" in the number of the county's uninsured because of the Affordable Care Act.

Solis said she's equally concerned with some 150,000 people who are uninsured or "nearly on the brink of no coverage" who have received health insurance under a program called My Health L.A, as well as undocumented children who receive coverage through Medi-Cal under a state Senate bill.

"Right now there are so many people fearing that their health coverage somehow will be gone," Solis said. "We need to make sure somehow that doesn't happen."

Some speakers Sunday called for a single-payer national health insurance, also known as "Medicare for all" whereby all U.S. residents would be covered for all medically necessary services, while others, including Harris, were more vague in how far they would like the nation's health care coverage to go.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

___

(c)2017 the Daily News (Los Angeles)

Visit the Daily News (Los Angeles) at www.dailynews.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.