The case for Universal Health Care

(Clicking the link and watching the video above will immeasurably enhance your understanding and enjoyment of this story.)

How I averted a heart attack and got a mystery illness instead

by Carol Harvey 

In 2027, when Trump’s Big Ugly Bill takes away Medicare and Medi-Cal, what will we all do then? 

Mystery story 

This is a mystery story about my excellent – but not so excellent – medical adventure and the national need for Universal Health Care.

Two questions:

[1] What the heck was wrong with me?

[2] In 2027, when Trump’s Big Ugly Bill takes away Medicare and Medi-Cal, what are we going to do? 

Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026

On a sunny Saturday — Jan. 31, 2026 — I sat in a camp chair in the median of the Embarcadero across from the Ferry Building on San Francisco’s waterfront. A huge metal sculpture of a naked female loomed high on the left.

I was videoing a press conference. Speakers stood at the base of a pedestal on Harry Bridges Plaza. The monument honors Bridges, the Australian labor leader who — following the 1934 West Coast Waterfront Strike — formed the ILWU, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. In a throw-forward to the Trump ICE Era, the United States government called the labor leader a subversive alien and tried to deport him. They failed, and he became a U.S. citizen. 

Steve Zeltzer, journalist and press conference organizer, facilitated five speakers, one of whom was me.

We were calling for Single Payer Health Care (better known as Universal Health Care). The situation was dire. Donald Trump’s Big Ugly Bill had just gutted Medicare and Medicaid. This pre-fascist madman highjacked our taxpayer money and gave it to his rich friends. 

Ana Malinow, MD

The first speaker, Ana Malinow, M.D., retired UCSF pediatrician and lead organizer for The Movement to End Privatization of Medicare, asserted that the capitalist state is profiting off the poor.

“If you don’t think profiting from sickness and poverty is this country’s through-line, think again. Medicaid is a classist, racist, second-tier health care system in the wealthiest country in the world. Apparently that’s what poor people deserve.” 

She said they were offering a series of virtual teach-ins. “We’re trying to teach the people in California about our US health care system and how we can achieve National Single Payer” (better known as Universal Health Care). 

(Look for contact information at the end of this article.)

Valielza Huynh-O’Keefe

Valielza Huyn-O’Keefe, County Council member of the San Francisco Green Party and press secretary for the Butch Ware for Governor campaign, said the Green Party works for the people.

Butch Ware is the only candidate for governor committed to establishing Universal Health Care in California.

“People really want free health care,” she said. “We need to elect independent people who don’t accept money from corporations — grassroots candidates (with) ties to their communities. 

“Malcolm X said Republicans are like a wolf. They make it clear they’re going to eat you. Democrats are more dangerous because they’re smiling. But they’re also trying to eat you.” Gavin Newsom ran on health care, then promised the nurses’ unions he’d pass CalCare in California. When he got elected, he couldn’t pass CalCare. 

“Eighty percent of people who declare medical bankruptcy are covered by health insurance — a racket. Blue Shield-Blue Cross don’t care about human health.

“My wife is a UCSF medical student,” she said. “She had to save thousands of dollars just to apply. We need National Single Payer to ensure that everyone has access, and everyone who wants to be a doctor and take care of their community doesn’t graduate with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt.”

Steve Zeltzer

Steve Zeltzer, journalist and press conference organizer, reported that 32,000 Kaiser health care workers are on strike. “There’s not enough staff to take care of people. People spend days waiting for appointments. They can’t get mental health care in a timely fashion. 

“We need to get insurance companies —- billion dollars a year HMOs — out of Kaiser! Executives are making millions of dollars while people can’t make their payments (and) aren’t getting care.” 

In my mad dash across San Francisco following this press conference, an overworked nurse told me that California Pacific Medical Center purposely understaffs the hospital to save money. 

April Kamlin 

April Kamlin, an insurance agent for a free service called “Ask Ariana” that helps people in California navigate “this labyrinthine system” said she had to join in because she’s been sitting at her desk all open enrollment period talking to people who are crying because they can’t afford health care.

“We’ve had a front row seat to inhumane increases in healthcare prices — $794 a month to $2,709 dollars; $483 a month to $1,263.

“Every day I talk to people at a loss for how they’re going to pay. They’re sick — in the middle of important treatment — and have to sacrifice so they can continue their health care. 

“I’ve talked to people who’ve lost homes to medical debt and couldn’t afford to see doctors. They ended up homeless because they couldn’t pay their medical bills!”

Carol Harvey 

Steve introduced me, explaining that I’m a journalist for the San Francisco Bay View newspaper covering the healthcare crisis on Treasure Island and Hunters Point, both built on radioactive dumpsites. 

“The San Francisco Health Department held a hearing about health care on these former Naval bases. They said the medical system is not investigating the epidemic of cancers in Hunters Point and Treasure Island,” he said. 

“Plutonium was recently recorded in the air above Hunters Point. If it’s at Hunters Point, it’s in other communities.

“The corporate media don’t want to tell people what’s going on. They want to make money building condos on Treasure Island and Hunters Point.” 

I spoke. “Recently, the Navy said, OOPS! For 11 months we forgot to tell you there’s plutonium in your air. 

“Plutonium was the fuse for the Aug. 6, 1945, World War II Hiroshima bombing that fried 60,000 to 80,000 Japanese into walls. 

Breathing dust alone can stop your heart. Plutonium is a radioactive silver metal dust that stays in your bones producing cancer throughout your life. 

“Hunters Point Naval Base is the center of the strongest emissions. Wind pouring through the Golden Gate is blowing plutonium from Hunters Point over all of us right now. You can’t see the tiny particles floating in the air, but, they’re there.

“Across the US, Black people suffer environmental racism in industrialized zones. Hunters Point is seen as an industrialized zone because people of color live there. After years of fighting, they’re getting a clinic one day a month. 

“In the United States of Money — capital rules. Politicians need money to get elected. Trump controls them with money. 

“The answer is to get rid of capitalism, the gateway drug to the corporate state. Corporatism led to the global corporatocracy we now live under where superrich CEOs like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk literally run the world.

“It’s absurd that we’re the only country in the world without free health care. We need Single Payer in San Francisco partly because generations of Bayview and Treasure Island residents suffer shorter lives and early deaths from plutonium and other radioisotopes in their air. A clinic open once a month where Bayview residents can be tested is simply criminal. 

When the speakers finished, tourists in town for the Superbowl strolled past me giving me the victory sign. Somebody from Michigan or Indiana or wherever may have breathed in my face. Two days later, on Monday, Feb. 2, my not-so-excellent – but interesting — medical adventure began.

My excellent – but not so excellent – adventure: What was wrong with me? 

Around 1:00 a.m., as I sat at home documenting the press conference, I suddenly grayed out. I felt my head spin on my neck like a bobble-head doll. My sight returned, but my blood pressure soared.

Frantic, I called 911. What was happening? I knew high blood pressure could lead to a heart attack or stroke.

At 86, I have a life wish and a lot of stuff to do.

Paramedics from the Fire Department marched into my apartment, looming over me — beautiful young guys in their late 20s, early 30s, two brunette 30-something women. By the time they arrived, my blood pressure was back to normal. 

I asked for an EKG to see if my heart was in normal sinus rhythm. They stuck suckers on me everywhere — chest, back and hips. I pulled them off — literally for days. 

The EKG was fine, so I stayed home. 

Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026

However, I was not spared. Two nights later, Wednesday, Feb. 4, while I was writing, I suddenly became dizzy. I felt a crushing sensation around my chest, shoulders and neck. My blood pressure spiked to 220. I thought, “My god! I’m having a heart attack!”

I stay up writing every other night. I had been awake for 48 hours. I started on a journey that lasted 60 hours with no sleep. It took me two days to recover.

Handsome guys and hot chicks wearing dark blue San Francisco Fire Department uniforms again flooded in. One took my blood pressure, the other an EKG. I decided to go to the ER.

They bounced me hard on a gurney into the back of the fire truck, and sped up and down the hills to the Kaiser ER at Geary and Masonic, where I’d gone many times before.

A huge crowd, mostly Black, sat in the waiting area — a cast of thousands in the cheap seats. I smiled hello. A pretty Black woman smiled back.

They wheeled me to a room.

I lay for hours freezing on the gurney under jackets and heavy blankets. I asked why they kept it so cold. “To kill bacteria,” they said. Yeah, while the patients die of hypothermia!

Like mean Nurse Ratchet in the movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” the nurse stabbed me about 2 million times searching for a vein for blood tests and a CT scan. When she spiked me, I cried out. They actually got a security guard to hold me down. (ICE, anyone?) My roommate behind the curtain only complained once. Nine days later, purple hematoma battle scars march up and down my arms. 

During this ordeal, something happened inside my brain. Everybody looked beautiful! All these young people running around, doing stuff. I admired the hell out of them.

The fun part — not kidding — was being pushed down the hall for X-rays at rattling top speed. 

Back in my room, I slept. A long time later, a guy rolled me on a wheelchair to an empty room for a CAT scan. The tech slid me through a huge ring-shaped tube on a platform and said, “Lie still and do what the voice says.” The ring spun around me faster and faster. A voice commanded, “Inhale and hold your breath.” They’d injected warm contrast into my arm. The ring stopped whirring and slowly wound down. The tech said, “You’re a nice person.” “Thank you,” I said, wondering why. Maybe he was lonely in that big white room. Maybe I’m a nice person.

Back in the ER, a doc shocked me awake with good news. No heart attack. The chest pain was caused by pleural effusions, whatever that was. 

I rode home by ambulance and immediately conked out. Next morning, I read Kaiser’s After Visit Summary. It said, in addition to pleural effusions, I had small and large scattered lung nodules. Lung cancer, anyone? I screamed in my head at the smoker next door. 

I had no idea what pleural effusions were. It took four days of wild rides across the city to find out. 

Thursday, Feb. 5, to Friday, Feb. 6, 2026 

From Thursday, Feb. 5, to Friday, Feb. 6, I’m pretty sure I got nine hours’ sleep because I was rested for a friend’s visit.

I continued to feel chest pressure, so UCSF arranged a video visit with a nurse practitioner. After that, I still felt “wrong.” Pain was developing around the top of my head. A UCSF general medicine doctor said the combination of chest pressure and a headache worried him. I should go to their outpatient clinic in Mission Bay.

It took what seemed like a million years for my friend to navigate slow-and-go Super Bowl traffic past brightly lit San Francisco restaurants. 

I thought we were racing through the streets to outpace a heart attack. But, when we arrived, the nice Chinese doctor said his clinic was not equipped for cardiac problems. I should get myself to an emergency room. Oh, Brother!

Dreading another horrible Kaiser ER visit, I asked for an ambulance ride to the California Pacific Medical Center on Van Ness at Cathedral Hill.

Friday, Feb. 6, to Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026

From Friday, Feb. 6, to Saturday, Feb. 7, I stayed overnight in the CPMC ER. They did a second CT scan and X-rays. The doc said I had untreated “sort of pneumonia.” I assumed that “sort of” meant I was in the early stages and could catch it with antibiotics. 

Before sending me home by ambulance, CPMC gave me Levofloxacin and phoned a prescription to Walgreens. 

On the trip home, the paramedic, Miles, who was very smart, said he had wanted to be a reporter. I told him about my story, “Murdering Good.” 

Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026

On Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, Doordash delivered more Levofloxacin. It gave me dry heaves. 

Back to the CPMC Pediatric ER 

Three sweet young guys from the Fire Department drove me back to CPMC AGAIN! I told them I was going to write an article, so they let me take their photo. 

At the Pediatric ER, a female doctor changed Levofloxacin to Doxycycline, which was milder, and called in a prescription.

On the way home in the ambulance, my now-friend Miles said he read my article, “Murdering Good.” I was really pleased!

Monday, Feb. 9, 2026

On Monday, Feb. 9, I asked myself — and eventually my doctor — why they stuck me in both arms so many times, and did double CAT scans and x-rays without giving me a definitive diagnosis. 

Why did I have nine days of running around exhausted to San Francisco emergency rooms and clinics before the CPMC doctor finally told me I had untreated “sort of pneumonia” that I could have caught early with antibiotics? 

Trying to puzzle it out, I resorted to Siri, “Are pleural effusions associated with pneumonia?” “Yes,” she said. “If pneumonia is left untreated, fluid may build up around the lungs, causing pleural effusions.” 

If pneumonia comes first and pleural effusions are the result, why didn’t someone tell me I had pneumonia? 

Actually, on my first ER run, Kaiser had begun to see it. The Wedesday, Feb. 4, report read, “Moderate left and trace right pleural effusions … clinical concern for pneumonia.”

Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026 

After my nine-day mad dash through San Francisco, on Thursday, Feb. 12, during a video visit, my UCSF doc — the best doctor of my life — finally explained it. Fluid in my chest cavity from the pleural effusions had blocked the pneumonia on the x-ray.

The kicker

I received world class health care covered by Medicare and Medi-Cal at three San Francisco Medical Centers. 

Next year in 2027, when I’m 87, and Trump’s Big Ugly Bill comes due taking away Medicare and Medi-Cal, what will happen to me then? 

If not wanting to die from lack of medical care isn’t a convincing argument for Universal Health Care, I don’t know what is!

For information about Single Payer workshops, email nationalsinglepayer@gmail.com.

Carol Harvey is a San Francisco political journalist specializing in human rights and civil rights. She can be reached at carolharvey1111@gmail.com. 

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Source: https://sfbayview.com/2026/03/the-case-for-universal-health-care/