UCSF Leaders Join Universal Healthcare Council

Two UCSF leaders are offering their expertise as part of Mayor Gavin Newsom's Universal Healthcare Council (UHC), a group charged with developing the parameters of the mayor's proposal to provide health care for all uninsured San Francisco residents.

Mayor Newsom and Supervisor Tom Ammiano on Feb. 7 convened the 41-member task force - made up of representatives from business, labor and nonprofit sectors, hospital administrators, health care experts and consumer advocates - to flesh out a plan within 100 days. Sandra Hernandez, executive director of the San Francisco Foundation, and Lloyd Dean, president and CEO of Catholic Healthcare West, chair the UHC.

Newsom's proposed plan, the first-of-its-kind, would expand access to medical care for the city's uninsured, a number that is estimated at 150,000 people.

UCSF's Mark Laret, CEO of UCSF Medical Center, and Kevin Grumbach, professor and chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine, are part of the 41-member UHC.

Laret's career in health care management spans more than 25 years. He served for 15 years at UCLA Medical Center in marketing and strategic business development and as chief executive officer of UCLA Medical Group, which had a membership of 900 doctors. From 1995 to 2000, he was CEO of UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange, where he led a financial and operational turnaround. He became CEO of UCSF Medical Center in April 2000. Read more about Laret here. "I admire Mayor Newsom for taking on the critical issue of ensuring appropriate access to health care for all San Franciscans," says Laret. "The complexity of the challenge is daunting, but I'm optimistic because of the shared commitment of so many city and regional health care leaders to craft a solution. As one who has had a career-long commitment to equitable access to appropriate care, I'm excited to be named to the mayor's panel." One of the country's leading proponents of a single-payer national health insurance program, Grumbach is well known for his advocacy on behalf of underserved communities and for research on community health, primary care and the health care workforce. He is also the director of the UCSF Center for California Health Workforce Studies and a researcher for the UCSF Medical Effectiveness Research Center for Diverse Populations. Grumbach earned his medical degree and completed his residency at UCSF. Read more about Grumbach's efforts here. Expanding Access
Newsom's proposed plan, the first-of-its-kind, would expand access to medical care for the city's uninsured, a number that is estimated at 150,000 people. Under the plan, enrollees would be provided a defined set of benefits and use the city's system of public and nonprofit health clinics and San Francisco General Hospital. With an emphasis on preventive care, the program would be funded through a combination of government money, employer contributions and co-payments by the people who use the system. The council is now collecting data on how many people could benefit from the expanded coverage, the scope of the benefits and the cost. Mayor Newsom also proposed in February investing $51.6 million in the city's health care system, which will in part expand capacity at neighborhood clinics and help meet his goal of providing health care for uninsured San Franciscans. The proposal includes $25 million for the predevelopment phase of a new General Hospital, including architectural design and engineering plans, economic impact and other initial steps. The council is using proven best-practices methodologies, driven by medical data, to make recommendations for mapping a culturally competent and geographically accessible system of care for uninsured San Franciscans. Photo of Grumbach by Elisabeth Fall Source: Lisa Cisneros Links: Mayor's press release