VOP Newsfeed

4/11/10 Why do I pay only $474 in Virginia income tax?

4/7/10 Grassroots Response to Health Care Passage

4/3/2010 Grassroots group eyes reform

3/30/10 Augusta Free Press audio show on VOP's state budget proposals

3/15/10 New Yorker audio slides on Martinsville, site of VOP's newest office

1/22/10 VOP on NPR's Morning Edition

11/25/09 Charges dropped against Joe Szakos, the Anthem Blue Cross customer arrested for questioning rate increases

Great New Books on Organizing:

At the 2008 VOP Power Analysis weekend, an annual gathering that helps to focus VOP’s work, VOP board members and leaders from around the state decided to make health care reform a major statewide VOP campaign.

“Thousands of Virginians are dealing with a lack of access to quality, affordable health care every single day,” said Sandra Cook, vice-chairperson of VOP. “We believe that this is a very complex problem with complicated solutions, and we need to start working on those solutions this year.”

The VOP Health Care Strategy Committee includes 14 members from all over Virginia. Some are health care providers, while other members are people who are trying to figure out how to best access health care for themselves — and for the rest of us.

“I’m glad to be on this committee because I have seen what lack of coverage means to those around me,” said Jim Lindsay, a committee member from Northern Virginia. “The uninsured and underinsured are invisible and that’s a huge problem.”

Linda Jones, committee member from Petersburg, said, “Quality and affordable health care is essential. I remember not having insurance as a child, and I know lots of people who don’t have it today that need it. In fact, I joined (and had a career in) the military partially to access health care services. Average people are really hurting about this.”

The committee meets monthly by conference call. Its goal at this point is simple — “beating the drum” for reform in Virginia, making the issue highly visible. Committee members are collecting stories of Virginians’ experiences with the health care system, getting letters to the editor sent to local papers around the state, helping plan health care forums (which have already occurred in Charlottesville, Bristol, Lynchburg, Danville, Martinsville, Newport News and other places around the state), and reaching out to other groups working on health care in Virginia.

Committee members are engaging with all types of providers to get their opinions about Virginia’s health care system as well. After all, as one committee member, a free clinic director, said, “While the debate rages on about health care reform, free clinics are doing something right now to address the issue.”

VOP has also become active in the Health Care for America Now campaign. This national campaign is working to make sure insurance companies are also held accountable to work for reform. VOP members held a rally at Anthem headquarters in Richmond, made calls to members of Congress, collected pledge cards for HCAN, attended house parties about the issue, and canvassed their neighborhoods in support of health care reform.

“In 2009, we will either have a guarantee of quality, affordable health care we all can count on or we will continue to be at the mercy of the private health insurance industry that is charging us more, giving us less and putting company profits before our health,” Sandra Cook said at the Anthem rally in July.

Shamerine Barber, a college student from Wise, Virginia, said at the rally, “The health care crisis isn’t just about the 47 million uninsured people in this country. Millions more — in fact, the vast majority — are insured people who are struggling with cost and access despite the fact that they are paying their premiums and actually have coverage. We need a national solution to guarantee quality, affordable health care for all, not more rhetoric from the health insurance industry which claims to be part of the solution, but which we all know is really the problem.”

The VOP Health Care Strategy Committee is a new effort, but it’s already going strong, working for quality, affordable accessible health care for every single Virginian.

For more information about VOP’s Health Care Strategy Committee or other organizing, contact Brian Johns at bjohns@virginia-organizing.org or (276) 619-1920.