We had a form of expanded Medicaid in Los Angeles prior to the Affordable Care Act.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

It was called Healthy Way L A and was available to all people below the poverty line. The only difference is that it was administered through clinics but hospitalization and prescription drugs were covered.

I thank god I don't live in a red city or state.

[roamer65]

1. I expect California to pass single payor Medicare soon.

California usually sets the trend that the rest of the country follows. Hell, get OR and WA to follow and call it Pacificare.

[mopinko]

2. in chicago we have county care.

we had a waiver to start mediciad expansion a year early. it is an hmo, and is free to cook county residents below the poverty line.
a big part of the impetus was to get people insured so that cook county's public hospital could expand services, and so that people would have mental health care. we really wanted to keep mentally ill people out of the cook county jail, and to end useless, bandaid help. and to manage people's chronic illnesses before they ended in the er.

i think illinois is a good candidate for a single payer system, if we can get the ruiner out of the gov's mansion.
we had high risk pools here, too. they were a disaster.