By Wendy Koch
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By Wyatt Buchanan
San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco's groundbreaking program to provide health care to all 73,000 uninsured city residents received a major lift this week as more than 700 businesses in the city signed up for the plan. The businesses represent 12,900 employees, more than half of whom are eligible for the Healthy San Francisco program, which currently enrolls 19,000 people. The other employees are eligible for a health-care reimbursement account.

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Four years ago I stood here at City Hall and said “Thank You” to my friends, family and supporters for electing me mayor of this incredible city. I look back now and realize it has taken the experiences of the last four years to truly appreciate the honor that you gave me that day. I knew it before – but now I’ve lived it. This place, our people, make up the finest city in this nation. There are bigger cities. But there are simply no better cities.  Serving as your mayor is the greatest honor I could ever imagine. In the past four years, I have looked at best practices throughout this nation. And I’ve learned – with both a growing pride and a profound sense of responsibility – that the nation is also looking back to us. Read more »

By Adam Tanner
Reuters

San Francisco stores selling high-calorie sodas should pay millions of dollars a year to offset the health-care costs related to obesity, the city's mayor said on Monday. "This is not just hippy-dippy, left-coast, granola stuff," Gavin Newsom said about his proposal to encourage people to drink less Coca-Cola, Pepsi and other soft drinks. "There is a direct correlation between caloric sweetened beverages and obesity." The plan, outlined during an interview at City Hall, seeks to raise to between $1.7 million and $7.1 million a year for anti-obesity programs by having stores pay between hundreds and thousands of dollars a year each. Read more »

By Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross
San Francisco Chronicle

After banning plastic bags from chain grocery stores and bottled water from City Hall, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has set his sights on soda - working up a plan to charge a new city fee to big retailers of sugar drinks. "The bottom line is that there is a direct nexus between high-fructose corn syrup drinks like colas and Big Gulps and obesity among schoolkids," Newsom said Friday. The idea of taxing soda to combat obesity - which is being touted as the first in the nation - has been roiling around in health circles for some time, including backing from the American Medical Association.

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By Kevin Sack
New York Times

The initiative, known as Healthy San Francisco, is the first of its kind in the nation, and represents the latest attempt by state and local governments to patch a broken federal system. It is financed mostly by the city, which is gambling that it can provide universal and sensibly managed care to the uninsured for about the amount being spent on their treatment now, often in emergency rooms. After a two-month trial at two clinics in Chinatown, the program is scheduled to expand citywide to 20 other locations on Sept. 17.

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By Sandra Hernandez, MD and Steve Heilig, MPH

The American health care system is ailing. It is inefficient, expensive, and worst of all, often inhumane. These long-recognized faults are once again receiving serious and widespread attention at the national, state, and local levels. At this point, however, the practical results of current efforts at “healthcare reform” on a broad scale remain to be seen.

San Francisco does not have to wait for broader action to improve healthcare access and quality on the local level. Local efforts have already embodied at least one aspect of true “San Francisco values” - that, as the famous Haight-Ashbury Free Clinics proclaimed exactly 40 years ago – “Healthcare is a right, not a privilege.” Read more »