Published: August 12, 2009 07:08 pm         

Health care reform advocates to meet with Ellsworth’s staff

TERRE HAUTE — As the Congressional battle over health care looms, some local organizers are heating up their efforts to advocate for major health care reform. Two groups have been collecting signatures in support of HR 676, otherwise known as the National Health Insurance Act.

Thus far, they have collected more than 500 signatures that they will present to staff today in a private meeting at Rep. Brad Ellsworth’s Terre Haute office.

Members of Wabash Valley Organizers and Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan began canvassing Terre Haute neighborhoods in April. According to a news release, WVO member Steve Kash reports that volunteer advocates have found broad support for their cause while going door-to-door.

“Roughly 19 out of every 20 people I have spoken with sign the petition,” Kash stated in the release. “Often people tell me heart-wrenching stories about problems they have had with America’s current system of employment-based health insurance or private pay options.”

WVO and HCHP members say they believe the current system of job-based insurance is especially threatening for people who work for financially-troubled corporations such as GM or Chrysler.

HR 676 was introduced by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., and currently has 85 co-sponsors in the house. The two advocacy groups say the bill would expand and improve Medicare to create a single-payer national health care system. Purported benefits of the bill include covering all costs for all Americans; eliminating premiums, deductibles and co-pays; and restoring free choice of physicians to patients.

With so many reform options being discussed, the organizers say they see HR 676 as the best option on the table.

According to HCHP organizer Jessica Livingston, current Congressional bills would cost trillions, whereas HR 676 would purportedly save $400 billion annually by cutting profits out of health care.

“It is simultaneously the most humane and the most economically efficient way to reform health care in the U.S,” Livingston stated in the news release.

The canvassers say they believe Ellsworth’s support for meaningful health care reform is especially critical because he is a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of Democrats with a fiscally conservative reputation. For those in favor of major reform, the support of such coalitions will be essential. Members of WVO met with Ellsworth in April.

The group typically goes door-to-door in pairs for weekly two-hour shifts. The WVO and HCHP news release suggests interested parties may call Kiel Majewski at (812) 229-2316 or e-mail kiel.majewski@gmail.com.