Health Care Reform at the Ground Level

At this writing, national health reform is drawing gradually closer to passage.  The House of Representatives passed H.R.3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, on November 7, 2009.  It contains sweeping changes in the nation’s health care system that would make affordable comprehensive coverage a reality not only for most of those currently uninsured but for people who have insurance.  The Senate is in the final stages of merging its committee versions into one bill very similar to the House bill.   There are obstacles to overcome, but the process is farther along than it has ever been.  The goal is for a final bill to be signed by President Obama before Christmas.  

Because of our unique mix of ground-level experience and top quality expertise, the Shriver Center has been deeply involved in the process from the beginning.  We heard the drumbeat of difficulty and anger among people at all income levels and small business owners – people with insurance as well as those without it.  Costs are spiraling upward, choices are narrowing, and people are losing control over their own health care. All have been robbed of peace of mind as they face the possibility of losing coverage and never being able to get it back due to a pre-existing condition. 

We have worked with national coalitions to identify messages and advocacy strategies and to help conduct the work of making the case to members of Congress. 

There was an important “outside the beltway” role for us to play, taking advantage of our community-level relationships.  The opponents of reform have repeatedly defeated it because they know that fearful people resist change.  We realized that one of the main contributions we could make would be to remind the general public and their legislators about the shortcomings of the present broken system that made them angrily demand change.  There is no better way to do that than to tell the compelling stories of ordinary people betrayed by the current system.  Beginning in mid-July, the Shriver Center has produced a weekly video of people telling their own stories, posted it on You Tube and sent the link to thousands of contacts.  This was one of our strategies to keep the issues polling well.      

Meanwhile, we are preparing for the task of implementing the new law!