Participatory Democracy event CaliforniaSpeaks taking place this weekend

SF Chronicle Editorial from Monday, August 6, 2007:

"This was supposed to be the year of "health care reform" in California. But there has been minimal input from average Californians into the most ambitious reform of the state's health-care system ever attempted.

Regrettably, much of the debate has taken place behind closed doors in Sacramento.

Part of the lack of public involvement has been by design. Key players in Sacramento feared that the complex issues being discussed there circulated in the public domain, they would immediately be pounced on and chewed up by competing parties.

The public will have a chance to weigh in on the issue on Aug. 11, when hundreds of Californians will participate in a sweeping exercise in "deliberative democracy" that the state's founders could never have anticipated.

More than 3,000 Californians - carefully selected through random telephone lists so that they will represent the diversity of the state - will gather at eight sites to deliberate on various aspects of health-care reform - and to let legislators know what they think of key proposals being considered in Sacramento. Should everyone get health coverage, or just some? Should there be an "individual mandate" requiring every Californian to buy insurance? Whose money will pay for the system - employers, hospitals, doctors or individuals?

These and other issues will be debated at a far-flung, high-tech, version of a traditional town hall meeting. In the Bay Area, hundreds of "deliberators" will meet at Oakland's Merritt College. They'll sit at tables in groups of 10 and 12 people. Each table will have a wireless laptop - which will be linked by satellite to other meeting sites. Each participant will have a polling key pad that will allow them to "vote" on various aspects of the health-care reform package.

By the end of the day, the cyberspace assembly will have come up with recommendations to present to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state Legislature.

"If a consensus emerges, these 3,000 Californians will have an impact on the deal that the governor and the Legislature will ultimately cut," said Steve Weiner, co-chairman of Common Sense California, a nonpartisan organization promoting democratic involvement in state decision-making. "We hope that the process will be sufficiently legitimate, clear and public that our representatives in Sacramento will pay some attention.""

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