A free public forum on reforming health care in California will be held Thursday at 7 p.m. in Mountain View's City Hall, 500 Castro St.

Local health care experts and advocates for a new "single-payer" system for the state will discuss accessibility problems of today's health care and a "Medicare-type" plan designed to make health care more accessible.

The forum is sponsored by a group called Health Care for All, which is lobbying state officials to pass legislation creating a new Medicare-type system in which employees and employers would pay into a state-run system. Co-sponsors include the Santa Clara Council Single Payer Coalition and the Peninsula Democratic Coalition.

"No other industrialized country has health care companies making money off the backs of sick people," Lynn Huidekoper, a registered nurse and director of the Santa Clara chapter of Health Care for All. She said thousands of people die prematurely each year because of inadequate access to health care.

Both houses in Sacramento passed the bill in 2006, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger did not sign it. Huidekoper said this year's bill is back in the state Assembly.

"We just keep reintroducing [the bill] until we get a governor who will sign it," Huidekoper said.

In the meantime, members of the group are holding meetings to discuss the bill with the public. This week's panel discussion will be preceded by a brief documentary outlining the problem and the group's proposals.

Health care specialists will discuss local treatment options for the uninsured and local health leaders — from county programs and those who work with the mentally ill — will then discuss the single-payer system.