We said: SHAME ON YOU Mister Bush and SHAME on Congress for not holding you accountable!
I say 3 cheers for that statement. But then I wonder, Ralph Nader is our alternative? Out of all of our good, strong, Green Party candidates, Ralph Nader? Shame on us for not nominating someone who actually reflects our parties ideals!
Comment
by
Robert Stout |
March 7, 2008
Wilma Chan’s speech in El Cerrito on April 14, 2008 at The Sky Lounge. This is the transcript:
Sandra: I’d like to welcome Wilma Chan to this event. Wilma is a Democrat. She is running for Senate. She is running for Don Perat’s seat. I have known..actually worked with Wilma off and on. Years ago in Alameda, we’d go up every may and talk to all the politicians about food sustainability and let me tell you Wilma was one of the people that came out of her office and talk to the people that we brought up who use food pantries and food kitchens. Wed talk to hose people about what it was like to go without food. Wilma was listening. The other people sent their aides or somebody else but Wilma was there. I worked on SB840, Wilma worked on getting AB840 through the assembly in 2006. She, unlike Lonnie Hancock has not turned her back on single-payer. I was appalled that Lonnie was running for Senate and I am delighted that Wilma is also running for Senate.
Wilma: Thank you for inviting me. Sandra has been a big cheerleader for me online, to which I really appreciate. Actually the Senate district doesn’t include El Cerrito so you won’t be able to actually vote for me, but I’d love to have your support because we’re running a pretty much grass roots campaign and we need a lot of volunteers and a lot of help.
Basically, let me tell you a little bit about myself and what I wanna do. A really have been a grass roots person most of my life. I started out running for the Oakland School Board. My kids attended Oakland public schools. One thing we were talking about a little bit is: I’m certainly not a perfect person but I try to live a life that I talk about. When on the school board I lived in East Oakland, my kids attended Oakland public schools. I’m very much a part of the community and I try to fully understand what’s going on to the extent of staying in touch with folks.
After one term on the School Board , I ran for the board Of Supervisors. When I was there I spent a lot of time on Health Care. I spent a lot of time on Social services and dealing with people most in need and to really support those kinds of programs. One of the big things I did was to keep Highland Hospital opened because at that time, the administrator wanted to shut the hospital. It was very unclear what was going to happen to those patients. It was just ridiculous. I also formed when I was up in County, I formed the first Children and Families Commission for the five year old and under because people voted for tobacco tax back in 1998 and Alameda County was the first one to get going. So I have done a lot of programs. Home visiting for people who wanted that. We increased pay for child care workers. There are a lot of other programs that we did I was really proud of that work.
I ran for the Assembly in 2000 and I was there for six years. I really focused on the same kind of issues. Kids, health care, consumer oriented legislation. One thing about me is I will really fight the corporate interests, I’m not just saying that. I can give you a few examples. I never thought twice if there was a bill I wanted to do, what impact that would have on me financially, or in any other way.
A few examples of that I really took on the chemical industries. I passed a lot of bills. Banned toxics from furniture, banned lead from phostex. Someone this year tried to ruin my bill that I have passed on lead. Since I can lobby after a year, I helped kill that bill within the last two weeks. By writing letters, to writing editorials, through getting insight to what the leaders were thinking about.
In terms of health care, I’m probably one of the people who fought the insurance companies the hardest. Not just supporting S840, but I passed a bill to prevent hospitals from overcharging the non-insured or under insured patients when they go through their doors. It took me four years to do that. I went right up against them and we were able to do that. I also passed a bill to make insures put an online site about why they declined coverage to patients. This is for individuals. Individuals who have tried to buy health insurance. Especially if you are in your fifties and you are before Medicare, you’re very vulnerable because people can refuse to sell you a policy. I would have liked to regulate them more but the first bill I could get passed was a least they have to tell people why they are turned down. In the past, they can just turn you down. Even car insurance people have to tell you, I think they have to tell you why. Now you can look online and you can look and see who refuses the most so you can have some idea who is the worst and Who are the relatively better ones in the state.
I also tried to do a bill I couldn’t get passed because my damn colleagues wouldn’t vote for it.
This was to regulate high deductible health plans. These are plans where you pay $10,000 or $12,000 dollars a year. Sometimes it’s for very limited coverage but the problem was a lot of people that that when they pay 10 or 12 thousand dollars they thought they had full coverage. Because again, people don’t even know the way it’s set up. Consumers don’t even know what they are buying. So people pay their 10 or 12 thousand dollars, they went to the hospital for something, they got this big bill and they were told, well guess what, that particular thing wasn’t covered. All I wanted them to do, when you sign a policy, you know what you get. I couldn’t even get enough damn votes to get that bill passed.
In terms of social issues, I brought a resolution back in 2005 to pull the troops out of Iraq. So I’m very much against the war. I want to get back to the senate because frankly I’ve seen it get more and more corrupt over the years. Even from the time I started back in 2000 to now. I don’t know if it’s the term limits, I don’t know if it’s leadership, I don’t really know, I wasn’t there. But i see more and more people doing bills just to grab headlines and jumping from one bill to another and not being serious. You have to be serious if you want to get something done. You have to believe in it. You want to really have to do it. And even if that particular thing is not in the headlines today, so what. that’s not what you’re supposed to be there for. You’re supposed to be there to serve people to really fight for those things. I see too few people like that. I also want to reintroduce single-payer. There are very few people left in the Capitol right now who understand health care. Sheila’s leaving, unfortunately. They don’t want to understand or take the time to really get to know it or do it. I have that experience.
I want to work on education, I think the public schools in California are not doing well by our children. We are 47th in the nation in terms of funding. We have large class sizes. Teachers are underpaid. Those are some of the reasons and I’m in a very competitive race. I think that we have a great chance of winning if I have the troops and I have the money. I feel like being out in the community, at least parts of the district I represented some people actually do remember and appreciate the good work you’ve done.
My opponent’s race is all about I’m endorsed by this person, I’m endorsed by that person. I don’t know if that’s what people want to hear. People right now are having a hard time with their lives. Mortgage crisis, go to the grocery store, a hundred dollars doesn’t buy you anything. Gas, violence, worrying about the children, taking care of our elderly. All of these things My message is: I’m gonna be a person who is there for the people. That’s where I came from. That’s always what I want to do. It’s not about insider stuff for me. It’s about doing the right thing. So I’d love to have your support.
About 2 or three weeks ago, people weren’t even aware there was another primary. When we started knocking on doors and calling about 2 or three weeks ago people said they had already voted. I said yeah You did. Bu there is another one coming up. There is yet another one coming up. Now that a little time has gone on, We did one piece of mail so that helped a little bit. Now people are starting to focus on it a little bit more. I don’t think the turnout is going to be very high. California has held too many elections. That awful, recall, the special election went through two primaries this year. So that Mr. Numes and Mr. Perata can keep their jobs. That’s what the whole thing was about. It cost taxpayers a whole bunch of money and they failed. That made people more cynical. It’s depressed the turnout. For the people we actually get to talk to, it’s fine.
Question: You were talking about people and people and problems with health care, I’m a disabled person, What are you going to do make sure the ADA is enforced in California, so that people with disabilities don’t get swept under the carpet.?
Answer: From the time I was on the BOS, through the Assembly, we actually did a lot of work with the council, I actually did a bunch of bills not all of them were successful. For instance, I did a bill on this Medicare part D drug plan. If you’re on Medicare and Medi-Cal you really got screwed. Up to that point you actually didn’t have co-pays, under the new drug plan, which was supposed to be better, you ended up with co-pays. I co-sponsored a bill to make sure that when the plan first went in, when people went into pharmacies, if they didn’t have ll their paperwork together they can get their drugs first and then deal with the paperwork later. Also, I did another bill, which I would like to reintroduce, for people with disabilities, If your income goes over one dollar the level, you , you lose all of your Medicare and medi-cal benefits, which is totally unfair. Because the minimum, if you’re one dollar over, you should pay one dollar more. We had people living on $12,000.00 a year, they went one dollar over the limit, they were supposed to pay full freight for their medical. It’s just totally outrageous. I want to reintroduce that bill. I wasn’t able to get it through the first time.
Q: Another thing you just mentioned was co-pay. A woman I know is on disability & has to pay a lot of money per month for Medicare, taken out of her SSDI check. On top of that, she’s expected to pay extra per month for Medicare Part D as well as a co-pay for it! So instead her prescriptions are filled at Costco, as it’s cheaper that way. This isn’t right!
A: That’s horrible. I actually made a proposal…I went to that committee because I wanted the legislature to pick up the co-pay for people on Medicare, but no-one on the committee supported it!
Q:I mentioned I have done a lot of telephoning and people aren’t aware there’s another election. They’re kind of out to lunch. It doesn’t take much into talking to people to find out they do not people in power who take a lot of money from corporate interests. It is a no-brainer. And of course for the green Party, we don’t take money from corporate interests. When I’ve been emailing around the Oakland, Berkeley, El Cerrito an d Richmond, people instantly know they’re going to support you. It’s an instant type of thing. They know Wilma Chan’s name. They know Lonnie Hancock’s name…and they know the difference. As you are calling around, do you find that is something in people’s mind, that they are aware that people are taking money from corporate interests are not going to be able to work as well for their interest?
A: I think some people do and some people don’t. Some people don’t even know who their officials are. There’s a real divide between real active people and real people voters. I don’t mean that in any derogatory way. Especially younger people don’t always pay that much attention to every last nuance of who’s doing what. In terms of the question you asked, sure, do they want someone who is serving them or do they want someone who is beholding to one or two special interests? I think that’s pretty clear.
The follow Up: If you decide to support me, which I would love, what I would ask you to do is: We’re really emphasizing phone banking a lot right now. I’m walking myself but you can’t reach enough voters. There’s so many voters in this district that walking is a little bit slow. What we could do is if you decide to endorse me, we have a whole bunch of cell phones we rented and we could even bring them out here with an organizer. And if you could do one evening for me, you could sit together, chat, you could drink, I would really appreciate that. We’re doing pretty well. We have phone banks four nights a week now including Sundays. It’s pretty critical. The elections are only seven weeks away. I don’t know if people realize this. We’re really close.
Q:Wilma!? It can be difficult for one party to ENDORSE a candidate from a different party, There are levels of support. There’s a little bit of a problem with people unregistering to vote. It’s one of those nuances.
A: Whatever you think is right for you. We could really use the volunteer help right now. That’s what we could really use. I think what I’ll do is after tonight you could let me know what you decide. If you want to do a night of phone banking we could arrange that. We will bring the phones to you.
Vote Wilma Chan for Senate if you want to keep corporate interests under control. Chan’s opposition is Lonnie Hancock who takes money from Chevron, Developers, Bayer, Pfifer, Union Pacific, Waste Management and more. Hancock turned her back on Single Payer Health Insurance/SB 840 last Dec. and voted for a terrible bill suported by Arnold Schwartenegger that would have required all Californians to buy health insurance; would have made the insurance companies very happy and even richer!!! VOTE FOR WILMA CHAN FOR CALIFORNIA STATE SENATOR!
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We said: SHAME ON YOU Mister Bush and SHAME on Congress for not holding you accountable!
I say 3 cheers for that statement. But then I wonder, Ralph Nader is our alternative? Out of all of our good, strong, Green Party candidates, Ralph Nader? Shame on us for not nominating someone who actually reflects our parties ideals!
Wilma Chan’s speech in El Cerrito on April 14, 2008 at The Sky Lounge. This is the transcript:
Sandra: I’d like to welcome Wilma Chan to this event. Wilma is a Democrat. She is running for Senate. She is running for Don Perat’s seat. I have known..actually worked with Wilma off and on. Years ago in Alameda, we’d go up every may and talk to all the politicians about food sustainability and let me tell you Wilma was one of the people that came out of her office and talk to the people that we brought up who use food pantries and food kitchens. Wed talk to hose people about what it was like to go without food. Wilma was listening. The other people sent their aides or somebody else but Wilma was there. I worked on SB840, Wilma worked on getting AB840 through the assembly in 2006. She, unlike Lonnie Hancock has not turned her back on single-payer. I was appalled that Lonnie was running for Senate and I am delighted that Wilma is also running for Senate.
Wilma: Thank you for inviting me. Sandra has been a big cheerleader for me online, to which I really appreciate. Actually the Senate district doesn’t include El Cerrito so you won’t be able to actually vote for me, but I’d love to have your support because we’re running a pretty much grass roots campaign and we need a lot of volunteers and a lot of help.
Basically, let me tell you a little bit about myself and what I wanna do. A really have been a grass roots person most of my life. I started out running for the Oakland School Board. My kids attended Oakland public schools. One thing we were talking about a little bit is: I’m certainly not a perfect person but I try to live a life that I talk about. When on the school board I lived in East Oakland, my kids attended Oakland public schools. I’m very much a part of the community and I try to fully understand what’s going on to the extent of staying in touch with folks.
After one term on the School Board , I ran for the board Of Supervisors. When I was there I spent a lot of time on Health Care. I spent a lot of time on Social services and dealing with people most in need and to really support those kinds of programs. One of the big things I did was to keep Highland Hospital opened because at that time, the administrator wanted to shut the hospital. It was very unclear what was going to happen to those patients. It was just ridiculous. I also formed when I was up in County, I formed the first Children and Families Commission for the five year old and under because people voted for tobacco tax back in 1998 and Alameda County was the first one to get going. So I have done a lot of programs. Home visiting for people who wanted that. We increased pay for child care workers. There are a lot of other programs that we did I was really proud of that work.
I ran for the Assembly in 2000 and I was there for six years. I really focused on the same kind of issues. Kids, health care, consumer oriented legislation. One thing about me is I will really fight the corporate interests, I’m not just saying that. I can give you a few examples. I never thought twice if there was a bill I wanted to do, what impact that would have on me financially, or in any other way.
A few examples of that I really took on the chemical industries. I passed a lot of bills. Banned toxics from furniture, banned lead from phostex. Someone this year tried to ruin my bill that I have passed on lead. Since I can lobby after a year, I helped kill that bill within the last two weeks. By writing letters, to writing editorials, through getting insight to what the leaders were thinking about.
In terms of health care, I’m probably one of the people who fought the insurance companies the hardest. Not just supporting S840, but I passed a bill to prevent hospitals from overcharging the non-insured or under insured patients when they go through their doors. It took me four years to do that. I went right up against them and we were able to do that. I also passed a bill to make insures put an online site about why they declined coverage to patients. This is for individuals. Individuals who have tried to buy health insurance. Especially if you are in your fifties and you are before Medicare, you’re very vulnerable because people can refuse to sell you a policy. I would have liked to regulate them more but the first bill I could get passed was a least they have to tell people why they are turned down. In the past, they can just turn you down. Even car insurance people have to tell you, I think they have to tell you why. Now you can look online and you can look and see who refuses the most so you can have some idea who is the worst and Who are the relatively better ones in the state.
I also tried to do a bill I couldn’t get passed because my damn colleagues wouldn’t vote for it.
This was to regulate high deductible health plans. These are plans where you pay $10,000 or $12,000 dollars a year. Sometimes it’s for very limited coverage but the problem was a lot of people that that when they pay 10 or 12 thousand dollars they thought they had full coverage. Because again, people don’t even know the way it’s set up. Consumers don’t even know what they are buying. So people pay their 10 or 12 thousand dollars, they went to the hospital for something, they got this big bill and they were told, well guess what, that particular thing wasn’t covered. All I wanted them to do, when you sign a policy, you know what you get. I couldn’t even get enough damn votes to get that bill passed.
In terms of social issues, I brought a resolution back in 2005 to pull the troops out of Iraq. So I’m very much against the war. I want to get back to the senate because frankly I’ve seen it get more and more corrupt over the years. Even from the time I started back in 2000 to now. I don’t know if it’s the term limits, I don’t know if it’s leadership, I don’t really know, I wasn’t there. But i see more and more people doing bills just to grab headlines and jumping from one bill to another and not being serious. You have to be serious if you want to get something done. You have to believe in it. You want to really have to do it. And even if that particular thing is not in the headlines today, so what. that’s not what you’re supposed to be there for. You’re supposed to be there to serve people to really fight for those things. I see too few people like that. I also want to reintroduce single-payer. There are very few people left in the Capitol right now who understand health care. Sheila’s leaving, unfortunately. They don’t want to understand or take the time to really get to know it or do it. I have that experience.
I want to work on education, I think the public schools in California are not doing well by our children. We are 47th in the nation in terms of funding. We have large class sizes. Teachers are underpaid. Those are some of the reasons and I’m in a very competitive race. I think that we have a great chance of winning if I have the troops and I have the money. I feel like being out in the community, at least parts of the district I represented some people actually do remember and appreciate the good work you’ve done.
My opponent’s race is all about I’m endorsed by this person, I’m endorsed by that person. I don’t know if that’s what people want to hear. People right now are having a hard time with their lives. Mortgage crisis, go to the grocery store, a hundred dollars doesn’t buy you anything. Gas, violence, worrying about the children, taking care of our elderly. All of these things My message is: I’m gonna be a person who is there for the people. That’s where I came from. That’s always what I want to do. It’s not about insider stuff for me. It’s about doing the right thing. So I’d love to have your support.
About 2 or three weeks ago, people weren’t even aware there was another primary. When we started knocking on doors and calling about 2 or three weeks ago people said they had already voted. I said yeah You did. Bu there is another one coming up. There is yet another one coming up. Now that a little time has gone on, We did one piece of mail so that helped a little bit. Now people are starting to focus on it a little bit more. I don’t think the turnout is going to be very high. California has held too many elections. That awful, recall, the special election went through two primaries this year. So that Mr. Numes and Mr. Perata can keep their jobs. That’s what the whole thing was about. It cost taxpayers a whole bunch of money and they failed. That made people more cynical. It’s depressed the turnout. For the people we actually get to talk to, it’s fine.
Question: You were talking about people and people and problems with health care, I’m a disabled person, What are you going to do make sure the ADA is enforced in California, so that people with disabilities don’t get swept under the carpet.?
Answer: From the time I was on the BOS, through the Assembly, we actually did a lot of work with the council, I actually did a bunch of bills not all of them were successful. For instance, I did a bill on this Medicare part D drug plan. If you’re on Medicare and Medi-Cal you really got screwed. Up to that point you actually didn’t have co-pays, under the new drug plan, which was supposed to be better, you ended up with co-pays. I co-sponsored a bill to make sure that when the plan first went in, when people went into pharmacies, if they didn’t have ll their paperwork together they can get their drugs first and then deal with the paperwork later. Also, I did another bill, which I would like to reintroduce, for people with disabilities, If your income goes over one dollar the level, you , you lose all of your Medicare and medi-cal benefits, which is totally unfair. Because the minimum, if you’re one dollar over, you should pay one dollar more. We had people living on $12,000.00 a year, they went one dollar over the limit, they were supposed to pay full freight for their medical. It’s just totally outrageous. I want to reintroduce that bill. I wasn’t able to get it through the first time.
Q: Another thing you just mentioned was co-pay. A woman I know is on disability & has to pay a lot of money per month for Medicare, taken out of her SSDI check. On top of that, she’s expected to pay extra per month for Medicare Part D as well as a co-pay for it! So instead her prescriptions are filled at Costco, as it’s cheaper that way. This isn’t right!
A: That’s horrible. I actually made a proposal…I went to that committee because I wanted the legislature to pick up the co-pay for people on Medicare, but no-one on the committee supported it!
Q:I mentioned I have done a lot of telephoning and people aren’t aware there’s another election. They’re kind of out to lunch. It doesn’t take much into talking to people to find out they do not people in power who take a lot of money from corporate interests. It is a no-brainer. And of course for the green Party, we don’t take money from corporate interests. When I’ve been emailing around the Oakland, Berkeley, El Cerrito an d Richmond, people instantly know they’re going to support you. It’s an instant type of thing. They know Wilma Chan’s name. They know Lonnie Hancock’s name…and they know the difference. As you are calling around, do you find that is something in people’s mind, that they are aware that people are taking money from corporate interests are not going to be able to work as well for their interest?
A: I think some people do and some people don’t. Some people don’t even know who their officials are. There’s a real divide between real active people and real people voters. I don’t mean that in any derogatory way. Especially younger people don’t always pay that much attention to every last nuance of who’s doing what. In terms of the question you asked, sure, do they want someone who is serving them or do they want someone who is beholding to one or two special interests? I think that’s pretty clear.
The follow Up: If you decide to support me, which I would love, what I would ask you to do is: We’re really emphasizing phone banking a lot right now. I’m walking myself but you can’t reach enough voters. There’s so many voters in this district that walking is a little bit slow. What we could do is if you decide to endorse me, we have a whole bunch of cell phones we rented and we could even bring them out here with an organizer. And if you could do one evening for me, you could sit together, chat, you could drink, I would really appreciate that. We’re doing pretty well. We have phone banks four nights a week now including Sundays. It’s pretty critical. The elections are only seven weeks away. I don’t know if people realize this. We’re really close.
Q:Wilma!? It can be difficult for one party to ENDORSE a candidate from a different party, There are levels of support. There’s a little bit of a problem with people unregistering to vote. It’s one of those nuances.
A: Whatever you think is right for you. We could really use the volunteer help right now. That’s what we could really use. I think what I’ll do is after tonight you could let me know what you decide. If you want to do a night of phone banking we could arrange that. We will bring the phones to you.
Vote Wilma Chan for Senate if you want to keep corporate interests under control. Chan’s opposition is Lonnie Hancock who takes money from Chevron, Developers, Bayer, Pfifer, Union Pacific, Waste Management and more. Hancock turned her back on Single Payer Health Insurance/SB 840 last Dec. and voted for a terrible bill suported by Arnold Schwartenegger that would have required all Californians to buy health insurance; would have made the insurance companies very happy and even richer!!! VOTE FOR WILMA CHAN FOR CALIFORNIA STATE SENATOR!