On September 28th, Pacifica Institute added another one to its series of luncheon lectures featuring renowned speakers. Edward Hernández, California State Senator representing the 24th district, gave an insightful speech on health care reforms at Los Angeles branch. As the health care and insurance policy issue arouse interest when an upcoming election draws closer along with promises, Pacifica Institute followers ranging from the academicians to health care sector employers took their places in the hall with a high expectation to be enlightened on the issue.
The Senator started off expressing his gratitude to Pacifica Institute for the opportunity of addressing the audience in such a unique Turkish-American setting and reaching out the different populations from different segments of life.
Before explaining what is awaiting California in in case of their re-election, the senator shared his motives behind his current engagement. As once actively optometrist Senator put it, he chose to involve in politics upon seeing the government’s role in changing community’s life. “My responsibility is to oversee anything that has to do with healthcare in state California.” says the Senator.
Briefly covering the early stages of the care plan, the senator referred the act signed in 2011 by the President Obama as the most important piece of legislation that the country has seen since the time of Johnson.
Well aware of the probable challenges to implement the act and controversy surrounding the issue, Mr. Hernández put an emphasis on the California’s position of leadership and accomplishments in various innovations. Yet, as an inefficient component of health care plan, he elaborated on the lacking preventive measures to keep people healthy. The senator made a claim saying: “In my world, my direction would be towards paying providers to keep people healthy instead of paying to heal the disease when it is too late. We should make a shift to change the society and have the parents responsible for their kids eating habits”.
Upon an inquiry by the audience, Hernández assured all in the hall of the significant amount of education to let people know about the details such as insurance exchange, access to medical care and a particular product and so on. However, the senator admitted that the current effort on educating people to live a healthy life does not meet the need. He noted that more effort is required at prevention level.
To illustrate the likely reasons and results of failure in prevention, he portrayed the kids’ eating habits at schools despite the implementation of certain measures. Furthermore, Hernández stated his strong belief in the importance of family when educating people is in question. “Education should begin in the family, when with the parents. Government cannot legislate that but parents can do” continued the Senator.
All in all, the senator’s speech considerably offered comfort and assurance to those who were anxious to learn about the current and post-election legislations on health care.