Rose Olazcoaga is a San Jose legal secretary who starts every weekday by sending her 15-year-old son to school before she heads into the one-attorney office where she works part time. Her life is typical, except for one thing: She has no health care insurance.
"Everyone should be eligible for adequate health care," said Olazcoaga, whose employer doesn't provide insurance, but who makes slightly too much money to get public aid. "We work hard, we pay taxes and we should be entitled to universal health care."
The issue will take center stage Tuesday as part of a town hall forum hosted by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists that will tackle the issue, not only for Latinos, but the estimated 47 million Americans without health care insurance.
Association leaders chose the issue to launch its 25th annual journalism conference this week in San Jose because, more than any other social problem, "health care impacts everyone" regardless of ethnicity, said conference co-chair Veronica Villafañe.
But Latinos are among ethnic groups affected the most, with roughly 28 percent of California's Latino population lacking health care insurance coverage - more than three times the percentage of whites without coverage, according to the University of California-Los Angeles Center for Health Policy Research.
That, coupled with a shortage of Spanish-speaking doctors, and a disproportionately higher rate of diabetes for adults and the highest rate of invasive cervical cancer for women in the state, makes the group vulnerable, especially when they are trying to acquire health care that might help prevent such diseases.
Everyone involved admits the obstacles sometimes seem too big to overcome.
But forum participants hope to at least pinpoint solutions for policy-makers as they begin discussing reform, particularly in California where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing universal health care coverage to help up to 6.5 million uninsured state residents.
"This has to be solved," said Kim Roberts, chief executive officer of the Santa Clara Valley Health and Hospital System that serves some 65,000 uninsured people, mostly through its 10 clinics each year.
Attempts to reform health care have long eluded policy-makers for several reasons, but one major reason is that no one has been able to develop a plan that everyone can agree on.
Schwarzenegger's plan, unveiled six months ago, mandates businesses with 10 or more employees provide health care or pay 4 percent of revenues into a state insurance fund. The plan is already drawing fire from some corners.
Small-business owners, among others, have stressed concern about their ledgers, saying the the expense could put their books in the red.
Supporters, meanwhile, argue health care shouldn't be about dollars, but about providing what they call "a basic necessity like food and water" to people who work yet aren't insured.
"This is really, really a huge issue," said Lupe Alonzo-Diaz, director of the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California, who will be among the panelists Tuesday. "We need to continue pounding the drum for change."
The coalition is a non-profit organization designed to improve the health of the state's Latino community.
The issues can be fixed, but only if policy-makers are willing to acknowledge that change will take time, she said. A solution should begin with children, she said.
Alonzo-Diaz suggests extending care to children by expanding health services in public schools, where kids could turn when they're sick.
Leaders could then begin broadening the plan, which she believes would need to include fixing cracks in the system that go beyond insurance coverage, including a shortage of doctors who speak Spanish.
While Latinos make up 33 percent of the state's population, they make up less than 5 percent of working physicians - fueling cultural and language barriers that could affect care, she said.
This could be fixed by introducing school-age students to the possibilities of medical careers early on and starting a mentoring program that would link them with professionals who'd see them through the educational process, Alonzo-Diaz said.
Most people don't know what it takes to enter the field, she said, noting there's a need for physicians' assistants, a job that requires only an associate's degree and about two of years of additional training.
There also is a shortage of nurses in the public health and hospital system, which includes 10 clinics across Santa Clara County.
Roberts has seen the effects of the uninsured on her coffers, which the county subsidized in 2006-07 at a tune of $91 million and is expected to increase by $60 million in 2007-08.
Roberts, who will participate in Tuesday's discussion, said the problems that surround uninsured people amount to a "multidimensional equation" that needs to be solved.
"Health care reform is long overdue," said Roberts, adding that health care is a "basic necessity like food and water."
She is hopeful, but also realistic about how long reform would take.
"It will take decades," she said, noting that there are too many moving parts for it to be fixed over night.
Olazcoaga, meanwhile, is keeping her fingers crossed that changes will happen sometime soon.
"I'm a single parent," she said. "I need to make sure I'm healthy. I can't get sick."
Contact Javier Erik Olvera at jolvera@mercurynews.com or (40...


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Peter S. Lopez ~aka Peta
Sacramento, California, Aztlan