Thread: San Francisco becomes the NEW New Haven Plus+++!!!

Perhaps it's time ALIPAC issues a new flyer with directions to San Francisco. San Francisco now offers ID cards ala New Haven to illegal aliens AND also offers taxpayer funded UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE to illegal aliens. AAAAAAHHHHHH...it is great to be an illegal alien in America, especially if you live in San Francisco. What do you say activists? Spread the word so all illegal aliens are aware that SAN FRANCISCO WANTS YOU!!!


S.F. focuses on racial, cultural groups in pioneering health plan
Heather Knight, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, November 18, 2007

San Francisco is the first city in the country to find the money and political will to attempt to provide universal health care for its residents, but leaders of the new plan say its success hinges on a notion rarely discussed in the health care debates raging at the state and national levels: cultural competency.

Rather than treating patients using just raw data such as blood pressure levels and cholesterol counts, medical professionals also are taking into account patients' race, gender, age, sexual orientation, native language and other demographics in marketing the plan and providing the best medical care once they enroll.

In a city of distinct neighborhoods often populated by particular racial or ethnic groups, thousands of immigrants speaking more than 100 languages and a significant population of gays and lesbians, those behind the new plan, dubbed Healthy San Francisco, believe it will succeed or fail largely on how well cultural competency is practiced.

"There's a reason we have a clinic in Chinatown and a separate clinic in the Mission and a separate clinic in the Bayview," said Dr. Mitch Katz, director of the city's public health department. "That's because we realize there are cultural differences in the ways people seek care. ... We try to get as specific as we can."

In San Francisco, that means anything from a special clinic for gay and lesbian youths who might find it off-putting to be surrounded by middle-aged gay and lesbian patients to hiring Asian actors to star in public service announcements about health care to run on Chinese-language television stations.

On a recent afternoon, Cantonese-speaking women undergoing chemotherapy as part of their cancer treatment gathered around a conference table at the Chinatown Public Health Center, one of two clinics in the neighborhood to serve as the testing ground for Healthy San Francisco beginning in July.

Lei-Chun Fung, a health educator at the clinic, helped lead a session in which stylists showed the women, bald and gaunt from the treatment, how to apply makeup and find the right wigs to feel attractive again. Myriad pamphlets on makeup application, all written in Chinese characters, sat on the table.

Jin Xuan Yu, a 43-year-old housekeeper who has battled lung cancer for two years, peered into a compact mirror and giggled as she applied pink blush to her cheeks.

"I feel a little bit more uplifted - in higher spirits," she said in Cantonese.

It's a big change from the commonly held views of cancer among Chinese immigrants, Fung said, noting many of them believe that cancer is contagious and means an automatic death sentence. Many Chinese immigrants have never had a mammogram or any other cancer check.

"For some people, they think screening will mean they have it. ... They don't want their friends to know - they don't want them to look at them differently," she said. "But with education, people comply with it. They trust authority, and they're good at following what the doctor says."

Fung said the clinic has strived for years to serve the Chinatown population in a culturally competent way - such as the staff nutritionist compiling a cookbook with healthy Chinese-inspired recipes and working with Chinese restaurants to get them to carry it.

Tak Jam Wong, a retired cook who lives in public housing in Chinatown, recently took a free acupuncture class at the clinic that is intended to help people quit smoking. Wong said he was up to 30 cigarettes a day and is now down to just a few.

"Acupuncture in Chinese medicine is a longtime tradition," Wong explained, adding he also learned Western information about lung cancer and emphysema. "I like that combination."

Acupuncture and cosmetics are not covered by Healthy San Francisco, but are available through free classes for patients at the Chinatown Public Health Center, which considers them important facets of care.

The notion of cultural competency has long been a part of the city's public health department, its neighborhood clinics and San Francisco General Hospital.

But as Healthy San Francisco aims to draw more people into the health care system as regular patients with a medical home - rather than just relying on emergency rooms in a crisis - the idea becomes all the more crucial, especially because so many of them are poor and hail from other countries.

The 82,000 San Francisco residents who are uninsured are a diverse group: 32 percent are white, 32 percent Asian, 26 percent Latino, 3 percent African American and 2 percent Native American. Sixty-three percent are believed to have an income below 300 percent of federal poverty, roughly $31,000 per year for one person.

Only 39 percent are thought to be U.S. citizens, while another 39 percent are undocumented immigrants and 22 percent are immigrants here legally. Healthy San Francisco does not take into account immigration status, pre-existing medical conditions or employment status in offering coverage.

Any uninsured adult living in the city who doesn't qualify for Medicare or Medi-Cal is eligible. Children and youths up to age 24 are already covered under a separate city program called Healthy Kids and Young Adults.

Healthy San Francisco isn't considered insurance because it doesn't follow people outside city limits. It is estimated to cost $200 million a year and is supposed to be paid for with public funds, participants' fees and employer contributions. The latter is being challenged in court.

So far, close to 5,000 people have enrolled in the program, all of them earning less than 100 percent of the federal poverty level. Participants are seen at 14 clinics run by the health department and eight private, nonprofit clinics.

In January, the program is scheduled to throw open its doors to every qualifying San Franciscan.

Participants must pay a quarterly premium assessed on a sliding scale to be part of the program, as well as co-payments.

Katz said a big advantage to Healthy San Francisco is that it isn't a traditional fee-for-service health insurance program in which the clinic or hospital gets paid by the insurance company only when the patient sees the doctor and not when they participate in other beneficial programs like health education classes or support groups.

Instead, once someone has paid their quarterly fee for Healthy San Francisco, they can participate in whatever is deemed best for them - be it classes to teach beauty techniques to Cantonese women undergoing chemotherapy or something else.

"The whole program is funded without the usual you go to the doctor and therefore your insurance provider sends your doctor $68," Katz explained. "Within the Healthy San Francisco model, we can draw more people into the system and make it clear if they need a specific cultural service, we're prepared to do it. We are assuming responsibility to meet the whole person's needs."

Private, nonprofit clinics are given a flat rate for each Healthy San Francisco patient who chooses them as their medical home. Staff at the public health department's clinics are salaried, and seeing Healthy San Francisco participants is a part of their regular job.

Katz said this is particularly important for poor people and immigrants who under the U.S. health care system are increasingly trying to avoid getting medical care in order to save money - and then winding up in the emergency room when they get very sick.

"People typically are putting whatever financial resources they have into their business or into their children, not spending it on themselves," Katz said. "In Healthy San Francisco, once you join there's no separate charge to get a mammogram or a pap smear. You've joined for three months and you can get all the services that are appropriate."

Dr. Albert Yu, who directs the Chinatown Public Health Center, said cultural competency is especially important when it comes to written materials - including marketing campaigns to promote Healthy San Francisco and instructions on how to follow doctor's orders.

Not only do they need to be written in a variety of languages, but they need to be written at a middle-school level or lower, even in English, so people who struggle with literacy can understand them, he said. Another challenging facet of cultural competency, he said, is finding enough staff.

"The entire health system from the front desk to the treating physicians have to have linguistic fluency as well as cultural competency," he said. "It's not easy to hire staff that are bilingual or trilingual. And then to allocate them throughout the system - that's always been a limiting factor."

All the effort will be worth it, though, if Healthy San Francisco lives up to its name, Yu and Katz said.

"Certainly the only way you can change the health of entire neighborhoods is to cover everyone," Katz said. "And Healthy San Francisco is the best shot at that."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... DTD6V1.DTL

Perhaps it's time ALIPAC issues a new flyer with directions to San Francisco. San Francisco now offers ID cards ala New Haven to illegal aliens AND also offers taxpayer funded UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE to illegal aliens. AAAAAAHHHHHH...it is great to be an illegal alien in America, especially if you live in San Francisco. What do you say activists? Spread the word so all illegal aliens are aware that SAN FRANCISCO WANTS YOU!!!

This is a great idea. however, my husband respectfully requests that you issue this invitation after the first of the year. Until then, he will be working in SF.

Washington should crack down on sanctuary cities
By JAMES P. PINKERTON
Special to Newsday

As New York backs down on driver's licenses for illegal aliens, San Francisco rises up, offering new help for illegals.

The deliberate defiance of federal law, coming now from the West Coast, is a test for our nation, and we should respond as one nation. Why? Because the basic principle of national responsibility for national problems -- reaffirmed by, among other events, the Civil War -- must prevail.

New York's Democratic governor, Eliot Spitzer, backed down on his plan for issuing driver's licenses to illegal aliens, ending two months of political hemorrhaging.

"Part of leadership is listening to the public's opposition," he said sheepishly, finally acknowledging the three-quarters of New Yorkers who disapproved of his plan.

But even as Spitzer retreats, the "Sanctuary City" movement -- in which local jurisdictions declare that they will not cooperate with the federal government in enforcing immigration laws -- advances, even metastasizes.

Eight of the 10 largest cities in the United States have become "sanctuaries," including New York. Across the country, hundreds of localities are part of the "sanctuary movement," formally or informally.

Now San Francisco has taken an even more outrageous step. According to Wednesday's San Francisco Chronicle, the City Council has voted 10-1 to "issue municipal identification cards to city residents -- regardless of whether they are in the country legally." Since the mayor, Gavin Newsom, supports the measure, it's certain to be enacted.

Yet public opinion, nationwide, is strongly against such action.

In August, a Rasmussen poll found that by a 2-1 ratio, the American people were even willing to cut off federal aid to "sanctuary cities." Indeed, since the failure of the open-borders immigration "compromise" earlier this year, concern over illegal entry has reached critical political mass.

What was once a vague worry about disorder and bilingualism has crystallized into a specific realization: Our homeland security and national sovereignty are threatened by unknown intruders.

But the elites, of course, have been either clueless or actively hostile to this reassertion of our border integrity. This odd alliance of left-leaning multiculturalists and right-leaning business lobbyists has done its best to ignore, even scorn, legitimate popular apprehensions about unchecked inflow.

Happily, the Internet has changed the political power equation, enabling the grass roots to become grass fires. This columnist, for example, first got wind of the San Francisco story from an activist e-mailer, pointing to a posting at Lucianne.com, which helpfully cited a federal statute that's being violated: Section 274 of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which forbids "bringing in or harboring" aliens and prescribes five years' imprisonment for each offense.

Lawyers might pettifog their way through differing interpretations of immigration law, but it's obvious that San Francisco is deliberately seeking to flout federal authority and national norms.

So now the question: What will happen next?

The Bush administration has little interest in immigration law enforcement; one of Spitzer's few enablers during his two-month crash-and-burn was Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who was happy to cooperate on the failed ID card plan. And top Democrats, kowtowing to their core George Soros/Daily Kos constituencies, seem equally blasé about immigrant lawbreaking.

But beneath the bipartisan crust of elite power consensus, a groundswell of public indignation has erupted. Ask Spitzer.

The American people, having struggled and bled to preserve their national unity for more than 200 years, naturally expect their leaders to preserve that union -- including uniform law enforcement on vital concerns -- into the 21st century.

San Francisco is challenging that basic principle. So the nation must respond to that challenge by electing leaders who will enforce the law -- everywhere.
http://www.star-telegram.com/245/story/308854.html

Hold that invitation, Zeezil. We are 650 miles away but the spillover could still reach here.

Maybe an ICE traffic stop into the City would help.....

I am only 200 miles from Frisco, but I think anyone who lives in a state or city that is enforcing the immigration laws should hand out these flyers. I would like to see the smug SF liberals go bankrupt from this plan. These are the same people who used to have the "Height-Asbury Free Medical Clinic". That is long gone, so will be the illegals when this plan collapses.

I am just hoping that the message gets through the thick skulls of our elected officials before it it too late.

Originally Posted by Bowman

I am only 200 miles from Frisco, but I think anyone who lives in a state or city that is enforcing the immigration laws should hand out these flyers. I would like to see the smug SF liberals go bankrupt from this plan. These are the same people who used to have the "Height-Asbury Free Medical Clinic". That is long gone, so will be the illegals when this plan collapses.

Serves them right if the sity goes d-O-W-N, they want to help illegal immigrants, cut off ALL Federal Funding to them. Let them sink, see how long they keep the practice if every illegal goes there! The illegal's are on the move everywhere and a road map is what they need.
Perhaps a short commercial would help them to get more than they ever wanted!! hahaha I feel evil :-0

Segregated Health Care????? Isn't that illegal under the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Where is the American Civil Liberties Union when you need them?

Definitions of Segregated on the Web:

Set apart; isolated from the main part or group (as in racial groups, social facilities).
www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/lbjforkid ... ssary.shtm

In reference to ethnicity segregated means set apart or separated from others of the same kind or group, restricted to members of one group or one race by a policy of segregation.
mollybrown.org/forstudents/FireGlossary.asp

separated or isolated from others or a main group; "a segregated school system"; "a segregated neighborhood"

No government can help the destinies of people who insist in putting sectional and class consciousness ahead of general weal.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

NOOOOOO!!!! DONT SEND THEM HERE PLEASE. BUT I AGREE IN CUTTING OFF FUNDING TO THIS CITY. IT WOULD BE BETTER FOR US. AND IF THE FUNDING WAS CUT OFF, THEN I BELIEVE THE SANCTUARY STATUS WOULD CHANGE OVERNIGHT.

Originally Posted by redpony353

NOOOOOO!!!! DONT SEND THEM HERE PLEASE. BUT I AGREE IN CUTTING OFF FUNDING TO THIS CITY. IT WOULD BE BETTER FOR US. AND IF THE FUNDING WAS CUT OFF, THEN I BELIEVE THE SANCTUARY STATUS WOULD CHANGE OVERNIGHT.

redpony, then they would claim to be victims of hate. This is the same city it took decades to admit that people defecating on their streets and in their lawns is not a good idea. I say send them all to the city by the bay and pray for the big one to hit. It won't take long before the illegals push out all of the law abiding citizens and all that will be left for "the big one" is nuts, flakes and illegals.