Close to 19 percent of California residents live without health
insurance, and State Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Los Angeles, will lead a
discussion today at UCLA on the availability of health insurance
for all Californians.
Kuehl is currently trying to promote a bill that would offer
health care for all California residents, and her speech will focus
on a resident’s right for health care.
Kuehl’s discussion will be followed by testimonials from
four working people who are currently without any health
insurance.
Mary Brent Wehrli, founder of Social Workers for Social and
Economic Justice and one of the event organizers, said though
Kuehl’s speech is presented by the department of social
welfare, students who are not in the department can still
attend.
“This speech is open to the entire campus. Many
students’ personal and professional lives will be impacted by
this topic, and so future lawyers, doctors, teachers and all others
should consider coming,” Wehrli said.
“Sen. Kuehl will be talking on how to create something
new, a whole new system,” she added.
Kuehl, a UCLA alumna, was the first woman in state history to be
named speaker pro tempore of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, as
well as the first openly gay or lesbian senator elected to the
Legislature. Her achievements as a Bruin include starting the FEM,
the campus feminist newsmagazine and serving on the undergraduate
student government.
She graduated from Harvard Law School in 1978 and went on to a
successful career as a civil rights lawyer and professor before
being elected to the state Assembly, and then to the state
Senate.
This is the third annual event organized by the Organization of
Social Workers for Social and Economic Justice with funding by the
UC Institute for Labor and Employment.
The event will take place today at 6:30 p.m. in Dodd Hall 147
and is open to the public.