PVP Democrats Monthly Meeting

Our first speaker, State Senator Ben Allen, will talk about “The Future of Obamacare.”  Allen, who was first elected to the 26th state senate district seat in 2014, is completing his first legislative session and has a number of accomplishments under his belt.  Some of the bills he authored that were chaptered into law dealt with elections reform, vehicular air pollution, underground gas leaks, theater and dance teacher credentialing, University of California construction contracting, storm water compliance, and more.  He’s obviously taken on a myriad of issues on behalf of us, his constituents.  You’ll have a chance to ask him about his record and what he plans to put forth in the coming legislative session.

The second part of our program will deal with healthcare.  We’ve been hearing reports about the unraveling of the Affordable Care Act.  Is this great accomplishment of the Obama presidency in peril?  We’ve invited a health care policy professor to answer our questions.

According to the UCLA website “Shana Alex Charles, PhD, MPP, joined the Department of Health Sciences at California State University, Fullerton in 2015 after six years as director of the Health Insurance Studies Program and nine years as a senior research scientist at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.  Her talk is entitled: “Obamacare at the End of the Obama Administration: Successes, Challenges, and Looking Ahead.”

Charles’s research focuses on discontinuous health insurance, particularly among low-income children, and its impact on access to care, and underinsurance among those with coverage. She also specializes in political issues surrounding health care reform at both the state and the national levels. Her most recent work includes an examination of the differences of access to care between Medi-Cal enrollees and those with private health insurance; an evaluation of the availability of job-based coverage following the first wave of the Great Recession; and a new conceptual framework of underinsurance that includes access to care.

Charles regularly appears on numerous NPR and other talk radio programs to discuss health care reform issues and their impact, including Take Two, Air Talk, Which Way L.A.?, The Pat Morrison Show, and Money 101. Her work has received national media attention, including NBC Nightly News, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Politico.com.”  Charles received her master’s degree in public policy (health and regional development) from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and her PhD in health services (health policy) from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

So, please join us for this special program or come for the delicious goodies and the chance to socialize with like-minded Democrats on the Hill.