Health Care Week of Action: Ohio Spotlight
We’ve hit the midway point in OFA’s Health Care Week of Action: a coordinated effort from Monday, July 20th to Monday, July 27th during which OFA’s supporters and volunteers are participating in thousands of events in all 50 states — including door-to-door canvasses, phone banks, roundtables and community gatherings – to build grassroots support for reform and show their representatives that there is broad desire for Congress to take action on health care in their communities.
Over the last 10 days in Ohio, OFA has held over 150 neighbor-to-neighbor events. Elected officials including Mayor Rhine Mclin in Dayton and Mayor Jay Williams in Youngstown are working with OFA to urge Congress to pass health care reform this year.
In advance of the President’s visit to Shaker Heights, OH today (for a health care town hall), OFA held a press conference call yesterday. Ohio State Director Greg Schultz joined U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Christina Barke, a nurse at Lorain’s Community Health Partners Regional Medical Center, and Elizabeth Lessner, a small business owner in Columbus, to talk about the urgent need for reform and the grassroots effort underway to make it happen this year.
You can listen to the full audio here, and the Middletown Journal did a nice round up of the call. A few highlights below:
U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH):
“If Americans like the plan they’re in, they can keep it. If they don’t like their plan, or if they’re uninsured or have inadequate insurance, they’ll have new choices including a public health insurance option that will compete on a level playing field with private plans and will keep those private insurers honest.”
Elizabeth Lessner, Small Business Owner and Resident of Columbus, OH:
“My problem right now is the increase in cost. I am just going through an insurance renewal now. My health insurance went up 40 percent. That’s something that, in these economic times, I can’t afford. I have to make some tough choices.”
Christina Barker, Community Health Partners Regional Medical Center in Lorain, OH:
“[Patients] can’t afford the medications we fix them. We get them on a medication regiment, they get home, they don’t have the means to provide for their medication – it’s food and their rent, or their medication. And what, in turn, happens to them is they end up back in the hospital very quickly. Probably within a day or two. Most of them are back in the same boat they were in a few days ago when we fixed them the last time.”
We’ve hit the midway point in OFA’s Health Care Week of Action: a coordinated effort from Monday, July 20th to Monday, July 27th during which OFA’s supporters and volunteers are participating in thousands of events in all 50 states — including door-to-door canvasses, phone banks, roundtables and community gatherings – to build grassroots support for reform and show their representatives that there is broad desire for Congress to take action on health care in their communities.
Over the last 10 days in Ohio, OFA has held over 150 neighbor-to-neighbor events. Elected officials including Mayor Rhine Mclin in Dayton and Mayor Jay Williams in Youngstown are working with OFA to urge Congress to pass health care reform this year.
In advance of the President’s visit to Shaker Heights, OH today (for a health care town hall), OFA held a press conference call yesterday. Ohio State Director Greg Schultz joined U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Christina Barke, a nurse at Lorain’s Community Health Partners Regional Medical Center, and Elizabeth Lessner, a small business owner in Columbus, to talk about the urgent need for reform and the grassroots effort underway to make it happen this year.
You can listen to the full audio here, and the Middletown Journal did a nice round up of the call. A few highlights below:
U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH):
“If Americans like the plan they’re in, they can keep it. If they don’t like their plan, or if they’re uninsured or have inadequate insurance, they’ll have new choices including a public health insurance option that will compete on a level playing field with private plans and will keep those private insurers honest.”
Elizabeth Lessner, Small Business Owner and Resident of Columbus, OH:
“My problem right now is the increase in cost. I am just going through an insurance renewal now. My health insurance went up 40 percent. That’s something that, in these economic times, I can’t afford. I have to make some tough choices.”
Christina Barker, Community Health Partners Regional Medical Center in Lorain, OH:
“[Patients] can’t afford the medications we fix them. We get them on a medication regiment, they get home, they don’t have the means to provide for their medication – it’s food and their rent, or their medication. And what, in turn, happens to them is they end up back in the hospital very quickly. Probably within a day or two. Most of them are back in the same boat they were in a few days ago when we fixed them the last time.”