Campaign Launched for Health Care Plan : Medicine: Coalition to lobby for state-run program that would provide access to all residents of state.

A coalition of more than 150 interest groups on Wednesday launched a massive lobbying effort for a state-run health plan that would guarantee medical care for every state resident, including the estimated 6 million Californians who currently are uninsured.

The groups, including Catholic Charities, the Congress of California Seniors and the California Physicians Alliance, announced their plans simultaneously at news conferences in Los Angeles, Fresno and San Francisco, unveiling their vision of how a universal access health system would work. Activists distributed “Health Security” credit cards that under such a plan would be the bearer’s ticket into any hospital, clinic or doctor’s office in the state. These facilities would be paid from a single state fund, ending, proponents say, current disparities in the quality of medical care available to people with comprehensive insurance compared to those with limited or no coverage at all.

The coalition claims a backing of more than 1 million voters, based on membership rosters of its affiliated groups. They include people from all socioeconomic strata, including organized labor, and the powerful senior citizens lobby.

Hadassah Snider, representing the Congress of California Seniors at the Los Angeles rally, said health care remains an important economic and social issue for the elderly since Medicare does not cover many costly necessities such as drugs. Moreover, Snider said, elderly Californians are concerned about access to health care for their children and grandchildren.

The campaign is throwing its support behind a bill authored by state Sen. Nicholas C. Petris, (D-Oakland), which would pool the money from private and public insurance programs in one state-administered insurance plan providing comprehensive medical coverage to all.

The bill, SB 36, has cleared the Senate Health Committee, but is not expected to come before the Senate until next year.

It is the only one of several health insurance reform measures before the Legislature that advocates dismantling the existing health insurance system. The others seek to bring more people into the current coverage network, consisting of hundreds of private insurance plans, government programs such as Medi-Cal and Medicare and various stopgap programs to fund health care for special groups such as children.

But the coalition has rejected these proposals, including one by the California Medical Assn.

“We are past the point where superficial reform measures will work,” said Jane Levikow of the advocacy group Health Access, which is leading the lobbying effort, called Campaign for Health Security.

Levikow spoke at the Los Angeles news conference at the entrance to the city’s newest hospital, USC University Hospital, which opened last month in East Los Angeles. Built by the hospital chain National Medical Enterprises Inc., it was designed primarily for patients with private insurance. It lacks an emergency room, the traditional point of entry for poor people in need of hospital care.

These design features make the hospital “emblematic” of the inequities in health care in California, said Mark Kostopoulos of ACT/UP LA, an AIDS activist group and coalition member. The coalition plans membership mailings and other measures to gather and channel public support for the Petris bill.

Catholic Charities, for example, plans to send a letter asking every parish priest to devote a Sunday sermon to the problems of health care access, according to Msgr. David Cousineau, Catholic Charities’ executive director for the diocese of Los Angeles. In Los Angeles alone, that means 275 priests spreading the word to about 3 million Catholics.