Jim Lindsay: Grassroots Response to Health Care Passage

video cross-posted from Sum of Change

Today we were joined by Jim Lindsay of the Virginia Organizing Project. This is part of a series of interviews we have done and continue to do with grassroots activists who devoted time, money, and energy to passing health care reform.

Mr Lindsay is a member of the VOP's Health Care Reform Committee. We spoke about this recent fight for health care reform and what lessons grassroots activists can take away.

As I said earlier, we continue to reach out to grassroots activists to respond to the recent passage of health care reform. If you would like to suggest someone for us to interview, please contact us.

You can see plenty of our coverage of the Virginia Organizing Project's efforts on health care reform at this link. You should also check out our last grassroots response from Dr. Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Program.

Uninsured Medically and in the Faith of our Government

Just watch this video of Tammy Rostov, the owner of Rostov's Coffee and Tea, speaking about the impact of health care on her small business:

Senator Donald McEachin at Virginia Organizing Project Rally

Last week we caught up with the good folks at the Virginia Organizing Project in Richmond for a rally against potential state budget cuts to the health care system and in favor of reform on the national level. One of the folks who joined us was Senator Donald McEachin, representing Virginia's 9th District:

We've got more coverage from this rally coming very shortly!

The Restoration of Rights for Former Felons in Virginia

Virginia and Kentucky are the only two states in the country that do not have a clear path to restore basic rights to former felons after they have completed their sentence. This puts a plethora of problems and restrictions on former felons, many of whom were convicted of non-violent crimes decades ago but continue have their basic rights, such as the right to vote in elections, the right to drive, and the right to hold office, restricted. The governor has the authority to restore rights to individual felons, but only a small percentage of them apply for restoration (often because the process is unclear) and even fewer are actually approved to have their rights restored. The 48 other states have some sort of provision to automatically restore rights, two states never revoke them in the first place, so we, and many others, feel that it time to change the situation.

This next two weeks are very important for doing just because that is all the time left Virginia has with Democratic Governor Tim Kaine, who will be replaced in two weeks when he leaves office to become the chair of the DNC by Republican Bob MacDonnell. Gov Kaine has personally restored the rights to more former felons than any of his predecessors, but he has the ability to, by executive order, to instantly restore rights to the tens of thousands of former felons who currently do not have them and establish such a system to automatically restore these rights in the future. There is a large population who know the struggles of rights restrictions all too well and a growing population who feels that this is unjust needs to be changed who are all calling on Gov Kaine to step up and take action.

As a result, a coalition headed by the Virginia Organizing Project (VOP) has taken several actions persuade the Governor to take action on behalf of his struggling citizens. One of the steps was to hold an event in Petersburg, VA, to assist felons who want to have their rights restored and to pressure the Governor to take the politically tenuous but personally important step to automatically restore the rights of felons across the state. We were at the event and spoke with both former felons, for whom this has been a major issue, and community leaders, who are fighting on behalf of their neighbors. I edited together a piece from each of these groups. The first is from a few former felons who were gracious enough to share their struggles with us and the second is compiled of interviews from activists and community leaders who everyday are helping to improve the lives of their neighbors.

I encourage you also to please take action yourself and call Governor Kaine and tell him to restore the rights to former felons in Virginia. The number is (804) 785- 2211.

Again, please call Governor Kaine on behalf of these former felons and tell him to restore their rights. The number is (804) 786- 2211.

For additional coverage and more videos, go to www.SumofChange.com

Szakos' a Free Man

A while back, we covered a somewhat unique story. Joe Szako, the Executive Director of the Virginia Organizing Project, had been arrested while attempting to contact Anthem Insurance during a demonstration at their headquarters. We were there when Mr. Szako appeared in court, Tuesday September 22nd 2009, in Henrico, VA. You can read more about the arrest and watch video footage of the arrest here.

At the end of November, the case ended with Mr. Szako a free man, for the most part. He will have to stay out of trouble for six months (and yes, that includes any visits to Anthem's headquarters):

Trespassing charges against Virginia Organizing Project Executive Director Joe Szakos are to be dismissed after six months with no incident and no visits to Anthem’s property.

Evidence showed that customers are permitted in the main entrance where Szakos attempted to enter Anthem’s Richmond headquarters in July. Evidence also showed that Szakos was connected by cell phone at the time of arrest-waiting for an Anthem representative-following the instructions Anthem security had given him. Judge Neil Steverson chose not to convict Szakos for trespassing on his own insurance company’s property.

After the trial, Mr. Szakos released this statement:

I am relieved that Judge Steverson recognized that I was well within my rights to visit my own insurance company and ask them a question. I look forward to the official dismissal of these charges in six months so that we can all move on. Until that six months is up, I am barred from visiting Anthem’s property. This is not a problem since they rarely listen to their customers concerns anyway. Being officially barred is perhaps a more formal exemplification of Anthem’s existing customer service policy: ‘Don’t ask questions, just pay your bill.’

Anthem has succeeded in wasting thousands of taxpayer dollars on this charade. Anthem has used the time and resources of the Henrico County Police to arrest a paying customer who visited their building during normal business hours. Today, an hour of the court’s time was spent providing no real benefit to the County. Instead, the court’s time was spent deliberating on whether or not it is legal for a paying customer to walk up to their own health insurance company and ask to speak to a live person. It is absolutely absurd that this has gone this far.

Virginians are already paying outrageous health insurance premiums through Anthem. They should not be forced to pay for the court costs involved with Anthem’s crackdown on customers who question their business practices. I think that Anthem should apologize to the people of Henrico County for making them foot the bill for this nonsense. And then Anthem should apologize to the Virginia Organizing Project for taking up our time and resources with this trial.

The private health insurance industry has given us a health care system where customers have to deal with skyrocketing premiums, denied claims, and even trespassing charges for asking to speak to a representative in person. I am glad that Senators Mark Warner and Jim Webb voted Saturday to begin debate on health care legislation that will force insurance companies like Anthem to be competitive and improve their service. We all deserve better than this.

So, in conclusion, it apparently is not illegal to visit your health insurance company and try to ask them a question. Now if only we could visit our insurance company and expect some type of health care too. Yes, I am a dreamer.

Virginia Residents Making Health Care Personal on Capitol Hill

On Wednesday, just days before the House passed historic health care legislation, I tagged along with the Virginia Organizing Project (VOP) and residents from all over Virginia as they visited Capitol Hill to share their personal health care stories with their Senators and Representatives. You can read more about it in our written report from the day, but today we present you with our video coverage:

The emphasis of this trip was to have Virginia residents share their personal stories with Congress. So what would our coverage be without those personal stories?

Matt's Story:

Linda's Story:

Donna's Story:

The Virginia Organizing Project is still calling on folks to contact their legislatures. And while not everyone can drive to DC like Virginia residents can, you can still pick up a phone or write a letter.

Visit Sum of Change for more coverage, and don't forget to check back tomorrow for Training Tuesday with the DFA where Matt Blizek will bring us tips on running a successful email program!

Virginia Residents Making Health Care Personal on Capitol Hill

Yesterday, I tagged along with the Virginia Organizing Project (VOP) and residents from all over Virginia as they visited Capitol Hill to share their personal health care stories with their Senators and Representatives. As Kevin Simowitz, a VOP organizer, said to the group before their scheduled meetings:

"They [Congress] get lobbied all the time, right? Our estimates show that the insurance lobby spends about $641,000-a-day lobbying Congress. Now, we can pass a plate, but we're probably not gonna come up with that much money. The thing that we can do is you all can bring your personal stories about why we're here and why we need a public health insurance option as part of the bill. And if you're speaking out of your own experiences, speaking in non-partisan language, and speaking about what needs to happen... we're gonna walk out of this meeting a little bit further along the health care road than where we are."

We will have a video report for you on Monday, but for today I will share with you what these meetings were like and what was discussed.

The day started off at Senator Mark Warner's office where the group of some 20 people met with Luke Albee, Sen. Warner's Cheif of Staff (CoS). The group began the conversation by asking Mr. Albee for a legislative update on the health care fight from his perspective. "We're further along in health care than we've been in my life." We hear this all the time, but to this 25-year-old, that statement continues to move me. This fight is so much older than I am and we are so close to taking a huge step forward for our nation. "I think at the end of the day we're gonna get there," Mr. Albee added. "You guys have helped us a lot, because we are hearing from folks." He went on to say that during the stimulus fight they were only hearing from the other side, that it felt like the calls were 99 to 1 against and it hurt, but on health care both sides have been vocal.

The group then took some time to share personal stories about our health care system with the CoS. They started with Matt Masterson. Matt is a father of 3. He has Rheumatoid arthritis, his wife suffers from depression and had a near-fatal, enlarged gall bladder, and one of his children was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at age 2. He had great insurance, but struggled to cover his son who has a preexisting condition. Matt mostly struggled with the costs though. Even with decent insurance, the copays for medication for his family became too much to take, eating $1,500-a-month at points. Then Matt lost his job for taking too much sick time. The costs became crippling to his family. His family lost their home and car. He explained all this to Mr. Albee, then began to tear up as he said, "I'm not doing this for me, I'm doing it for my kids... I want them not to have to go through what I went through... I got drove into poverty."

They continued sharing stories with Mr. Albee. Linda Pallette told about her battle with breast cancer. She had no insurance when this happened. She calls herself "lucky" that she did not own a home at the time, if she had, she would not have qualified for state hospitalization. It has now been 10 years since her successful fight with breast cancer, "I can never repay these 10 years... that's why I'm doing this... I'm okay. This is not about me." She then shared another story. This was of her neighbor's dear friend, who Linda only knew as Mary. Mary, when facing illness, literally chose to die rather than leave her family in medical debt.

Mr. Albee urged the group to continue knocking on doors, getting people to write letters and call the Senator's Office. The meeting ended with a group photo and an assurance from Mr. Albee that he would relate these stories and the others to Sen. Warner as thoroughly as possible.

Next on the list was Senator Jim Webb. The group met with Courtney Weaver, a Legislative Correspondent from Sen. Webb's office. The meeting was very similar to the previous one, a legislative update from Ms. Weaver, followed by personal stories, a request that she relate the stories to the Senator, and, of course, a photo with the group. And then it was off to the Representatives, Glenn Nye, Rob Wittman, and Eric Cantor to be exact. I tagged along with the group visiting Rep. Nye, who has said of the public option:

"I will consider the notion of a public option," Nye said, "... if it can be set up in such a way that it does not crowd out the private insurance market. That reduces choice, not increases it."

The group chose Rep. Nye because of this shaky support of the public option. The VOP believe this is a Representative that they can move. While Rep. Nye's office hears from insurance lobbyists, and opponents to reform, they are also hearing personal stories of struggle from members of his district. And to the Senators' and Representatives' credit, they are making time for their office to hear these stories. This plan, focusing on personal stories, is how health care reform advocates are fighting to cross the finish line.

Check back at Sum of Change on Monday for our video coverage of the day's events

Face-to-Face Encouragement: VOP at the Metro wth Rep Connoly Cutout

Last week, the Virginia Organizing Project (VOP) and Democracy for America (DFA) took to the metro with Representative Gerry Connelly, well, a cutout of him anyway. Volunteers asked passing metro riders if they would like to take a picture with the cutout for fun, and make a call to Representative Connolly and Senator Warner in support of a public option and a health care reform bill. The event made for some great hangin-with-Connolly interviews (with some unexpected street-side musical accompaniment) ...

The cutout, albeit fun to pose with, was there to send a very serious message to the Representative and other elected officials who are waffling on their support for a Public Option backed health care reform bill. It was an expression of frustration on the part of the DFA and VOP that Rep. Connolly appears to listen mostly to wealthy industry lobbyists, while ordinary citizens are forced to settle for a cutout. They feel that it is too important of an issue for a representative of the people to passivly decide upon and they want their congressmen to take an active role in ensuring its swift passage. This debate has gone on for an exceedingly long amount of time, but as the fight to pass a health care reform bill finally near the finish line, the DFA and VOP appear strong in their resolve to ensure a passage of a healthcare reform bill with a public option.

VOP uploaded a bunch of their pictures from the afternoon to their Flickr site, which we have included below...