When Assemblyman Alan Nakanishi's family was interned during World War II, they lost everything they had. The experience thrust them deep into poverty, and when they were released, Nakanishi decided he wanted to be a doctor.
Nakanishi, 67, said he knew he wanted to be a doctor from the first time a doctor cared for him. He fell ill as a child, and said he’s had a passion for health care since that day.
Now he still wants to keep people healthy – or, rather, he wants to create incentives for people to keep themselves healthy.
Nakanishi, R-Lodi, is a large proponent of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), which would work similar to Roth IRAs. People would contribute money into an account that would earn interest and grow over time, and could be used to pay for medical costs that aren't covered by insurance companies.
He has authored several bills to introduce HSAs since he began his assembly term in 2002. He has been largely unsuccessful, and blames it on Republicans being the minority in the Assembly.
“What happened is, last year when we had the health message, we had what we wanted to do, but the Democrats were in control, so all of the bills were kicked off the committees and their ideas came forward,” Nakanishi said in a phone interview.
Nakanishi still practices medicine as an opthalmologist – an eye surgeon – for about half of every Friday at the practice he helped found in 1973, Delta Medical Eye Group, Inc. Cindy Daasch, 18-year manager of the practice, said the atmosphere in the office is very different when Nakanishi is working.
“He's a man with a lot of energy,” Daasch said. “He talks fast, moves fast. He likes to be busy.”
Nakanishi’s work as an assemblyman is his way of using his experience as a medical doctor to give back to his community and the public sector, Chief of Staff Jeff Hale said.
“He’s spent his career not just treating ailments, but working within California’s health care system,” Hale said. “He knows what its deficiencies are.”
Nakanishi, who has extensive knowledge of the health care system in California, sits on the Assembly committees of Health and Education. He was also a vocal opponent of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s health care reform bill, which recently died in the Assembly.
“I voted against it because it’s too costly,” Nakanishi said.
Nakanishi sees three major concepts as the means for incrementally achieving better health care: to find better jobs, where health care is provided by the employer; to seek preventive care and to use HSAs.
This argument isn't always well-received. Nakanishi has received criticism that because policies like this hinge on the ability to be able to afford health care, they exclude the poor.
Randy Bayne, chair for the Amador County Democratic Central Committee, called HSAs “short-sighted.”
“It doesn't cover the people who need it the most,” Bayne said in a phone interview. “If I'm poor and don't have money to put away in a savings account now, what makes Mr. Nakanishi think people will be able to put away money (in an HSA)?”
Bayne's ideal form of health care would be a single-payer system similar to Medicare or Canada's health care, in which taxes pay into a fund that helps pay for anyone's medical expenses. He rebuts people who say the Canadian system produces long lines and high premiums.
“I have talked personally to people from Canada . . . people from Great Britain, and every one of them likes it,” Bayne said. “There are people clamoring to go across the border to buy prescriptions there (because they're cheaper).”
Nakanishi said a system like this would be too costly would create even longer waits and make it more difficult to receive care.
“People in Canada are coming to this country to have surgery,” Nakanishi said.
Listening to constituents
Recently, Nakanishi asked the people in his district, which covers parts of four counties, for their opinions on issuing driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants. He received 8,000 letters, and said he read many of them.
Hale said under normal circumstances, Nakanishi personally reads and responds to many if not all letters sent from constituents in his district.
“He will actually spend hours calling up constituents when they write in and say, ‘vote on AB whatever,’ ” Hale said. “And he will say, ‘yeah, I voted for it,’ or ‘no, I didn’t, and here’s why.’ ”
While he invites comments and opinions from his constituents, he isn't afraid to disagree with some of them.
Long-time Nakanishi supporter Carl Burton is president of the River City Republicans, a volunteer group that has endorsed Nakanishi. He said he doesn't always agree with Nakanishi's policies.
“If I see him someplace I might take him aside and ask him why (he did something I didn't agree with),” he said. “He explains to me the reasons he's reached the conclusions he's reached.”
And while he has reached many of his constituents through these letters and conversations, Burton, 62, questions whether someone from Sacramento, would better represent the district.
“I think it's time we have somebody from Sacramento (to represent District 10),” he said. “Knowing he goes home every night to his wife in Lodi – maybe he’s a little stronger on issues that affect San Joaquin. I feel our next assemblyman should be . . . a little more involved with what’s going on here in Sacramento County.”
For family, for country: Politics could wait
Although the United States took everything his family had during WWII, Nakanishi isn't bitter about it, Daasch said.
“He looks at that very philosophically,” Daasch said. “He's not a person to carry a grudge at all.”
In fact, Nakanishi is quick to point out his patriotism, even as a child.
“I felt we lived in the best country in the world,” Nakanishi said.
And when he was drafted into the Army as a doctor during the Vietnam War, he had no qualms serving his country.
Even now, Nakanishi looks at his country admirably, not for what it has taken from him, but rather for all the luxuries it has afforded him.
Hale characterizes Nakanishi’s life as an eloquent “rags to riches” narrative, in which the “rags” of the assemblyman’s life were the by-product of the federal government; however, with hard work and dedication, so were the “riches.”
“They practically took everything away from him and he is still ended up as a really successful doctor and has achieved and lived the American dream,” Hale said.
But in spite or (or perhaps because of) his strong work ethic, Nakanishi waited until his three children were grown to run for political office.
“If my kids were young right now . . . or if my kids were not in college, I would not be (in politics),” he said.
Now his children work in respectable fields as well: his son, Jon, an attorney; his daughter Jennifer Cooper, a special education teacher; his daughter Pamela Tsuchiya, an eye doctor at the Tracy office of Nakanishi's practice.
His advice to others is similar to the path his life has taken.
“Get involved. Get educated,” he said. “Raise a family and then enter politics.”
Nakanishi has done all that, and his last term ends in November. But he is coy about his plans for the future.
“I’m keeping all my options open,” he said.
Click here to view the 10th assembly district lines.
