Organizing for America | Mary Ann Hart's Blog: Health Care Reform Meeting Notes

Health Care Reform Meeting Notes

By Mary Ann from Bend OR - Jun 8th, 2009 at 2:52 am EDT

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Thank you to everyone who participated in the Health Care Reform meeting yesterday in Bend. What a great response! For such a beautiful day with so many other fun things going on in Central Oregon, we were happy to see over 45 people in the Brooks Room.

We followed the general guidelines provided by OFA for the meeting. After overcoming a few technical difficulties, we watched President Obama's welcoming video with a message from the spokesperson for OFA. Rob Cohen walked us through a power point presentation that gave some historical background of the current U.S. health care ‘system.' We broke into groups and shared our own health care stories. When we came together again, several people shared stories from their groups. Finally, we held a brainstorming session to plan our community service event for June 27th.

Here are some of the ideas we talked about:

Create a white paper on health care and health care reform
Provide information on medicare and end of life issues including the importance of a living will
Counteract fears with truth
Rent a space at the Saturday Market and provide health care information
Make available the Frontline special “Sick Around the World”
Collect information on other countries’ health care systems
Create an inclusive event encouraging people from all perspectives to participate
Pay attention to the Oregon Legislature efforts to reform state healthcare services. Their final session is scheduled for June 26.
How do we change public attitudes and maintain dignity for all?
Provide statistics that are relevant to Central Oregonians
Promote child immunization, preventive care and care for chronic diseases
Have a health fair
Educate students toward wellness
Create public displays (similar to what was done during the voter registration drives and the recent presidential election) for the Art Walk, Drake Park, grocery stores, etc.
Create our own local “factcheck.org” to provide factual response to negative ads
Create a television commercial
Write letters to the editor

The majority in attendance committed to participate in our event on June 27th. A steering committee was formed to pursue these ideas and come up with an action plan. Volunteers are: Mike Schmidt, Marjorie Lickley, Jim Davis, Loye Dice, Ray Miao, Ed Lee, Rob Cohen, Mary Ann Hart, Gwenn Wysling, Patty Pachtman and Linda Mathison.

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