What?
I interviewed Brooke McEntyre, a graduate student intern, and Suzanne Gilbert, an employee, from the Health Care for All! Coalition. The Health Care for All! Coalition was organized by the Maryland Citizen’s Health Initiative Education Fund (MCHI), which is a non-profit program that educates Marylanders about how to achieve quality, affordable health care for all. This coalition uses input from coalition members and Maryland citizens to create a health care for all plan. The first plan, which would guarantee health care for all Marylanders, was created in 2002 after the MCHI conducted a statewide health care education campaign. A newly revised plan was released in the spring of 2008. The main points of the plan include providing all Marylanders with quality, affordable health care, treating all insured taxpayers and employers who help pay for their employees health coverage fairly, lowering monthly health care bills, pooling resources to get access to a wider selection of health care options, preventing companies from denying coverage, and building on private sector coverage.
Volunteers and interns can get involved in outreach and organizing activities, such as going door-to-door informing people about health care, going to town hall meetings, creating flyers, writing letters to government officials, helping with paperwork, and much more. The staff is also very open to ideas from the volunteers. If you can think of a project you think will help the organization’s cause, they are very willing to hear your idea.
So What?
45 million American citizens are currently without health insurance and 800,000 of those citizens are Marylanders. It is commonly believed that those without health insurance are lazy and do not have jobs. However, about 90 percent of the 800,000 uninsured either work or live in the household of a worker. Healthcare is either not offered at their work or too expensive. With so many people uninsured, health coverage is obviously a social problem. The Health Care for All! Coalition is trying to bring awareness to this issue. Without awareness, nothing can get done. For example, McEntyre and Gilbert mentioned a bill that was recently passed that made health care available for 100,000 Marylanders without health insurance. I hadn’t heard of this bill and many of the people who could now get health insurance with this bill probably haven’t heard of it either. With awareness of this bill, people can get the health care they are now eligible for. The coalition has also created its own plan to bring health care to all Marylanders and constantly contacts government officials to get this issue resolved. Volunteers can help the coalition in the important task of bringing about awareness and advocating change to our government officials.
Now What?
I highly recommend volunteering for this coalition. I met a lot of the staff and they are all very friendly and appreciative of any help. As mentioned earlier, they are very open to ideas from the volunteers. For instance, one person involved with the organization came up the idea to make a book of stories of uninsured Marylanders, they let her do it, and it is now published. The building is only 20 minutes from the Greenspring campus and it is located in a nice neighborhood. Most importantly, health care for all is a serious issue that must be resolved as soon as possible. If you do not have your health, what do you have? Everyone should have the right to good health. Most of the people suffering have jobs but either are not offered health care or cannot afford it. In order to volunteer, all one has to do is contact Rosanna Miles by e-mail (rosanna@healthcareforall.com) or phone, (410) 235-9000.