insurance, healthy san francisco has the incentive to cut hours as well as to provide health insurance to the many san francisco residents who will not quality under the affordable care act. all residents deserve health care. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker. >> good evening, thank you for your time. my name's kathy, i'm a part time teacher with the city college of san francisco and i'm a proud member of the activist committee with jobs with justice, as a teacher, i want to talk about our students, i'm aware that many of our students like my god children are lower income workers and i watch my god children, i watch other students struggle if you make 14 to 15 dollars an hour, it's hard to make ends meet and i don't believe that covered california is likely to make health care affordable for them, i believe healthy san francisco is essential to the well being of our lee -- low-income students, make health care affordable and secure, making it secure for students who can't afford it or who won't be eligible under the aca act, my health care has never been so insecure. if i lose one class as a part timer, i'll lose my health care. i noted only lower my income, if i have to pay the affordable health care act, i may be forced into a situation where i have to choose between paying my own premiums or support my niece who doesn't have any health care at all. i had the second job at asf to provide my father with better health care. it's really important, people should not have to struggle for health care, it's a human right. >> thank you very much, next speaker, please. >> hello supervisors, my name is tammy and i'm with the training program director at the women's community clinic where we serve 4 thousand uninsured women, we at the clinic celebrate the opportunity for 2 million california residents so have access to health care and insurance through the affordable care act legislation and we work tirelessly to enroll those who are qualified but we also see the health care security ordinance as an important complement, it provides a cohesive and multi-faceted health care institution that institutions the importance of quality preventive care, let me highlight prevention, the significant financial cost and abuser on all residences, in a recent 2012 needs assessment that focused on the western addition fill mer, they use the er as care, i also want to reiterate to the supervisors, the lack of access to care impacts women, young women, poor communities and communities of color, so this ordinance is a women's health issue, they are the sole providers of their families and allows for their children to thrive, it creates a safety net and values health and wellness which impacts productivity and workplace excellence, it's an important safety net for young people, those who service self-oriented jobs, or have aged out of their present tam coverage and it creates a pathway to continuing to create a healthy and thriving san francisco workforce, a necessity that assure that is we in san francisco continue to be leaders in innovation and excellence. thank you so much for your support. >> thank you. [inaudible]. >> i'm so excited about the affordable care act but so many san franciscans are going to be uninsured and wi need to care for them. i want to see us continue to be a model not only for the state of california, but also for the country and how we provide care to our constituents, thank you so much. >> thank you, next speaker. >> hi, i'm ellen shaffer, i'm with the equal health network, i'm speaking in advocacy for a better health care system, one of the questions i get is how can we live in this great rich country and have such a screwed up health care system and sometimes i try to explain it to people and sometimes i reach back to a couple of lines from my favorite musicals, he's trying to organize some garment workers as their first time out on strike and he says, you have to speak up, you have to fiekt, and he says, things that a human heart would break at such a display at this, warmhearted men with money at stake can turn into heartless misbegun misers, i am so proud on days like this to live in a city where we know how to fiekt, we know what to fight for and i want to thank you supervisors which i know you will do which is to ko*n to fight for us and keep these programs. thanks. >> thank you, ms. shaffer, next speaker. >> supervisors, my name is paul and i'm here representing only myself, i'm an independent health care analyst and someone who is involve ined the development of both healthy san francisco and the health care security ordinance, i want to talk about the history, they are not the same thing, health care security ordinance of which tom miano was the primary author started out as an effort to put a floor underneath the employer offered health insurance to san francisco workers, to stop them from bleeding people out by taking away their incentive to cut it and in an attempt to provide more resources to other san franciscans with other insurance, how they arose out of the niche yatd t*if from pitch cats to make the best of those resources and use the public discussion as an opportunity to reorganize is health care system in a more rational fashion, so let me break this down quickly, this discussion is not about saving healthy san francisco because it would be political suicide to mismantle healthy san france, it's not going to be dismantled, whether it's going to be a money grab from workers, pure and simple, there are tens of millions of dollars that the small minority of the least responsible employers of san francisco stand to lose as they think about it in 2014 which they can no longer claw those dollars back, it's taking money from worker's pockets and gives it back. the employer spending requirement keeps employers from dropping insurance and cutting hours preventing a cascade of [inaudible] that will hurt, not help san francisco's economy so i ask you to please look carefully through the untruths here in the business community and not only save healthy san francisco but save the employer spending requirement, thank you so much. >> thank you very much, next speaker, please. >> edward on [inaudible] i urge you to support healthy san francisco, thank you. >> thank you, sir. next speaker. >> [inaudible], national union of health care workers, we strongly support the health care ordinance and strongly encourages everyone to leave alone the employer mandate to pay for health care, but that aside, i just want to issue some concerns that i had about -- that it was the business community talking about this universal health care committee and i want to strongly encourage, if that train has left the station, in her statement saying people should be paid -- naoubl as this committee is going forward, i just want to make sure if it does go forward, i want to make sure there are users involved as well as community organizations and labor involved with na because i don't want the [inaudible] in charge of the hen house at all. thank you. >> thank you very much. is there any other member of the public who would like to speak who has not spoken whether you signed up or not, if so, come forward. seeing none, public comment is closed. and i just want to take this opportunity to thank all of the members of the public who have taken time out of their busy schedules to be here today, and i know that, you know, it was a long hearing, but i think that the fact that people were willing to sit through this hearing and speak tells you how strongly people feel about this, colleague, i want to give you an opportunity to say anything at this point. anyone want to -- supervisor mar? >> i'll just say that i was not looking forward to another long hearing since we started as supervisor cohen said and supervisor campos at 10:00 a.m., i'm always so honored to be here in this city with such great labor and community organizers that give us a sense of history of how we have different policies in our city that expand human rights for people and whether it's young workers speaking up for themselves, immigrants and others, it's such a great experience, connie ford mentioned the years of struggle through the 90's for single parent health care system which i hope we still never give up the fiekt for that but our universal health care system in san francisco cannot be sidetracked by big business efforts here and i think the employer requirement to pay their fair share to me is the key issue so i'm appreciative from ken jacob's initial comments, that really the focus has to be on defending employers to pay their fair share in this process and not let them try to unraveler it under the guise of the affordable care act which is a good step forward for the city but i'm proud we have a city that is closer to an affordable health care system, and from all the struggle coming from the 90's to today, so thank you for educating me more and i look forward to working with you to make sure we expand our health care service for everyone, not just undocumented and the current groups that will be expanded through the affordable care act but for everyone. er >> thank you, supervisor mar, supervisor cohen. >> thank you for sitting with us today and i was struck by ali shaffer's comments about -- she said the heart of a man but i'm going to say the heart of a human, and how we do know how to fielgt. this morning we were trying to fiekt city college and trying to find a strategy to ensure that san francisco city college is back on the right path, and then this afternoon, we get into a hearing about the implementations of the affordable care act and i think this is a testament to the heart and soul of san francisco, i also want to acknowledge our public health representatives, colleen, thank you for staying the entire hearing, this is an interesting time that we're all living in and one thing that is evident is that this is the democratic process at work to the fullest definition where people are able to weigh in even if it is in two minute increments but they're able to weigh in on the process and have the ability to interact and shape the.public policy that we all are going to live by and i want to commend my colleague, the three of us today, whether we were in gio, and what committee is this, neighborhood services and safety committee, all of us are tackling really lofty policy discussions, earlier today, we heard supervisor mar's commitment to ensuring we have healthy and clean safe drinking water in our city and our partners in public health were there at the table, supervisor campos was talking about the affordable health care and i forgot what i was talking about, but i think it was just as important. >> thank you. >> it's really truly been a very long day. i wanted to say thank you to all of our neighborhood leaders, our grass roots organizers, our labor leaders, everyone who comes out and makes this job so full and so dynamic and extremely rewarding, thank you. >> thank you very much, supervisor, i echo all of those comments and i especially want to thank my colleague, supervisors cohen and mar for sticking through this long day. two closing remarks, one, i think that mr. kumar highlighted the fact that -- i don't know that anyone is really going to be talking about eliminating healthy san francisco. i think the focus really will be on the employer spending requirement. i think that's the heart of this issue, and of course, you know, it made sense that there was a couple of women who i think sort of hit the nail in the head, you know, ramagai and supervisor cohen that my hope is that we're moving forward, that we're going to focus on how we expand the system we have right now. i mean, we heard from the city attorney very clearly that the local law is not preempted, that it is actually complementary and that the federal law says expressly that san francisco can do what we have done. i don't know whether it makes sense to have this council meet or not, but it is the universal health council and i would imagine that unless you change the name to the non-universal health council, that you're going to talk about expanding access, expanding coverage, not eliminating requirements that have been in place for years. so, i think that message was very clear today, but the fact that so many people showed up tells me that people are going to pay a lot of attention and my hope that the next hearing that we will have will focus on how do we expand access, how do we make sure that we maximize the use and the affordable care act and that we sign people up. that should be the focus, and i think that we can all work together to make that happen. so, with that, colleagues, i would ask that we have a motion to continue this to the call of the chair. >> so moved. >> so, we have a motion. again, thank you to our clerk and to everyone and to our department of public health for being here the whole time and to everyone who shared their stories. the meeting is adjourned. (meeting is adjourned).