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healthcare rally in Pritchard Park
Health care rally and meeting with Rep. Shuler
STAFF REPORTS • JUNE 22, 2009 04:42 PM
ASHEVILLE — Local grassroots organization WNC for Change will host a public protest rally
for health care reform at Pritchard Park at 10 a.m. Saturday.
Paul Choi, director of WNC for Change, said that after meeting with 200plus local people, he
believes the consensus was in favor of a singlepayer health care system. Currently, H.R. 676
and S. 703 are singlepayer bills introduced in the House and Senate by Rep. John Conyers
(DMI) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (IVT), respectively.
Following the rally, WNC for Change will meet with Rep. Heath Shuler (DWaynesville) at
Earth Fare in West Asheville. The event is a show of support for Congressman Shuler and
health care reform, Choi said.
Initially, the group had planned to rally outside Shuler’s annual picnic at the Taylor Ranch,
but Shuler offered to meet with the group.
WNC for Change works out of a makeshift office six days a week at Mountain Java, a coffee
shop in north Asheville. It is a campaignstyle office open to anyone interested in health care
reform.
For more information, visit www.wncforchange.com.
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Rally for health care reform seeks inclusion of singlepayer option
FROM STAFF REPORTS • JUNE 27, 2009 02:05 PM
ASHEVILLE — WNC for Change staged a public rally for health care reform 10 a.m.noon
Saturday at Pritchard Park. About 300 people attended.
Among the speakers at the event were Buncombe County Commission Chairman David
Gantt , Asheville Mayor Terry Bellamy and Asheville CitizenTimes reporter Leslie Boyd, who
was the keynote speaker.
After the rally, members of WNC for Change were headed to meet with U.S. Rep. Heath
Shuler to talk about his support for reform legislation.
WNC for Change is a grassroots organization that grew out of President Obama’s campaign.
Several local physicians and activists spoke about the need for reform and urged voters to
lobby their legislators for singlepayer or a strong public option.
“Call them every day,” said Paul Choi, director of WNC for Change.
###
Hundreds rally for health care reform
MIKE MCWILLIAMS • JUNE 28, 2009 09:00 PM
ASHEVILLE — Carmen RamosKennedy says she's a healthy person who takes care of herself,
but her health insurance premiums do nothing but go up.
“I have a story like millions of other people — I am being priced out of insurance coverage,”
RamosKennedy said Saturday while waiting for U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler to arrive at the
Westgate shopping center in West Asheville. “Right now, I'm almost at $2,000 a month.
That's a mortgage payment. That's my own selfish story. I can't afford to pay much more than
that.
“It's got to change. It can't go one like this.”
Shuler, DWaynesville, spoke to about 50 people gathered outside the shopping center about
support for health care reform legislation. The congressman told the groups it's going to take
baby steps to accomplish some tasks to allow the economy to rebound.
“Do I see a singlepayer system at this point in time? The president told me himself, it's just
not the right time,” Shuler said.
Shuler said access to health care must be available to everyone. There are four counties in
North Carolina's 11th Congressional District that don't have a hospital. Lawmakers must also
find ways to use the health care system to encourage people to adopt healthy lifestyles, he
added.
“Some people will say, ‘You can't tell me to exercise, and you can't tell me what to eat,' but
there are probably some ways that we could encourage you to do that,” Shuler said.
WNC for Change director Paul Choi said there's strong local support for a singlepayer, or
governmentrun, health care system. Choi presented Shuler with a petition of 1,195 signatures
collected since June 21 in support of health care reform.
WNC for Change is a grassroots organization that grew out of President Barack Obama's
campaign.
Health care, Choi said, boils down to a moral issue.
“We're here to show people that it's just unconscionable to have 45 million uninsured people
in this country as well as millions more who are underinsured,” he said. “Health care is a
right.”
Earlier Saturday, an estimated 300 people attended a health care reform rally at Pritchard
Park in downtown Asheville organized by WNC for Change.
Among the speakers at the event were Buncombe County Commission Chairman David Gantt,
Asheville Mayor Terry Bellamy and Asheville CitizenTimes reporter Leslie Boyd, who was the
keynote speaker.
Several local physicians and activists spoke about the need for reform and urged voters to
lobby their legislators for singlepayer or a strong public option.
###
'Pushing the issue into everyday conversations'
Health care reform taking center stage, locally and nationally
BY JOHN BOYLE • JUNE 30, 2009 08:10 AM
ASHEVILLE — Expect to hear more from proponents of health care reform this summer — a
lot more.
On Saturday, the local grassroots organization WNC for Change hosted a rally for health care
reform at Pritchard Park that drew more than 300 people. But that's just the beginning of
their efforts and those of other groups, as the national debate over health care takes center
stage in the Obama White House and Congress.
“Our next step is to create a campaign around this. We're all veterans from the Obama
campaign, and we plan to employ those same strategies,” said Paul Choi, director of WNC for
Change and a former paid staffer for Obama's Asheville office. “We're going to knock on
doors, go to hightraffic areas to get our message out, and we'll petition Congress every day.
We want to start pushing the issue into everyday conversations.”
Congress has several health care reform bills in play right now, and the Senate has another
version. President Barack Obama has taken off the table the socalled “singlepayer” option,
which essentially would be a massive expansion of government programs such as Medicare
and Medicaid to cover all Americans.
WNC for Change decided about six weeks ago to push for the singlepayer option, and it will
continue to educate locals about what it means. But the organization is not going to be
obstinate.
“We're going to try our best to get singlepayer back on the table, but if it looks like that won't
happen, then we'll support a strong public option,” Choi said. “We will be supporting Obama's
plan.”
“Public option” means the government would offer an option for governmentissued health
insurance that could compete with private health insurance.
Small steps at first
Choi's organization presented U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler, DWaynesville, with a petition signed
by 1,195 people calling for a singleplayer plan or at least a public payment option. Later on
Saturday, Shuler spoke to about 50 people outside the Westgate shopping center about
support for health care reform legislation.
He suggested that small steps may be necessary at first, and he noted that Obama has told him
personally the time is not right for a singlepayer program. Shuler favors reform, but his
spokesman on Monday said it's too early for the congressman to commit to one plan because
lawmakers are still grappling with details.
“He supports health care reform and that there should be more competition in the
marketplace,” said Doug Abrahms, Shuler's spokesman. “How that's designed is still up in the
air.”
The health care issue is destined to be contentious, probably as much as it was when Bill
Clinton's administration tried — and failed — to enact sweeping reforms in 1993. Already,
powerful industry players have launched campaigns to defeat reform, some tagging the
proposals as a socialistic approach that will only increase patient wait times while decreasing
the quality of care.
Groups like WNC for Change can make a difference, but they've all got an arduous battle to
fight, according to Bill Sabo, a political science professor at UNC Asheville.
“The basic thing about the American governmental process is that where policy is made, it
favors the status quo,” Sabo said. “There are so many decision points that the people who
advocate for change have to win victory after victory after victory. The opponents of change
have to win once, which clearly makes it difficult for those who want substantial change to
succeed.”
But politicians do “read the public's attitude,” and many Americans are fed up with what they
consider excessive health care costs and lack of coverage for an estimated 52 million
Americans.
Proponents of reform will have to focus their efforts on one plan and a central theme, Sabo
said, noting that criticism of physicians likely would be a losing strategy.
“Basically, the general public trusts their physician, for the most part,” Sabo said. “They have a
lot less trust in insurance companies and large businesses like the pharmaceutical firms. So
the challenge for people who want to change health policy is that they're going to have to focus
on corporate medicine — the insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms, HMOs, things like
that.”
So far, Sabo notes, Obama has floated a cautious approach to health reform, one primarily
geared to helping cover the uninsured while not imposing significant direct changes to the
health care system as a whole.
Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff, said recently the president is “flexible when it comes
to methods.
“But when it comes to outcomes, he is not,” Emanuel said, referring to the president's goal of
curtailing health care costs while spreading coverage to millions who lack it.
Leslie Boyd, president of the local nonprofit health care education and advocacy group Life o'
Mike, remains “cautiously optimistic” that health care reform will happen this year. Her
organization is named for her son, Mike Danforth, who died April 1, 2008, unable to get
diagnostic tests until his colon cancer was too advanced.
Boyd, the keynote speaker at Saturday's rally, is also a reporter at the CitizenTimes.
“We're encouraging people to write to their federal legislators so that our voices can be louder
than those of the lobbyists for corporate health care concerns,” Boyd said. “We are the only
industrialized nation in the world that doesn't provide access to health care for its citizens,
and 30,000 people die every year because of it.”
While Obama has hinted at some concessions and given himself some wiggle room in the
debate, he built part of his campaign platform on health care reform. In February, he said he
has “no illusions that this will be an easy process.”
“But I also know that nearly a century after Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform, the cost of
our health care has weighed down our economy and the conscience of our nation long
enough,” Obama said. “So let there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not
wait, and it will not wait another year.”
[The Associated Press contributed to this report.]