Raising the Voices of Women in the Health Care Reform Debate

As if it wasn’t enough to be thirty-five years old, in my dream job and absolutely loving what I do for a living, it’s incredibly rewarding to be recognized as a Champion of Change. Through my dedication to a healthier tomorrow for Wisconsin women, I have the honor of working each day to make our state and our nation a better place for my sisters, my mother and my 2-year-old daughter.  There is no other work more important to me.

While seeking a Political Science undergraduate degree, I realized that I didn’t want to just lobby on someone’s behalf – I wanted to empower individuals to be their own advocates. I am motivated by the power of educating, equipping and mobilizing the voices of many to speak as one in order to create change. In creating change, it’s important to realize that some voices are quieter than others, but no less important.  In an effort to make all voices heard in health care policy discussions, the Wisconsin Alliance for Women’s Health, is dedicated to empowering and activating a broad base of advocates including health care professionals, clergy, legislators, other community leaders and rural and urban women and families of all ages, races, faiths, education, orientation and backgrounds. Through many successful coalitions, we have been able transform many ordinary citizens into potent forces for change as they raise their voice for policies that move Wisconsin toward a healthier future.

Getting the Information Out to the Most Vulnerable

It is an honor to be nominated for the White House Champions of Change. My Pastor Dr. Ternae Jordan Sr. once told me that in order to fulfill my true purpose, it should become “my ministry.” That’s what I have the honor of doing on my job every day as the Regional Coordinator for the State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) at the Southeast Tennessee Area Agency on Aging and Disability. One of the problems that I see and strive to address is the fact that many within the community are disproportionately isolated from services and information due to barriers within many service delivery systems. It is my desire to increase awareness of topics important to seniors and caregivers as well as to continually strive to inform and educate the community about health insurance.

As the SHIP Regional Coordinator, I saw a need to be innovative on how to reach the most vulnerable individuals throughout the Southeast TN region who were struggling to understand their health insurance benefits as well engage them in receiving services. Those innovative ways have included many activities to impact the community. However, the greatest has been reaching out to community faith-based organizations to assist Medicare beneficiaries with both accessing benefits and providing health education.

Affirming the Good News of the Affordable Care Act

I am grateful to receive this Champion of Change honor and I accept this on behalf of my volunteer co workers in the Kansas City metro area. I understand I am being honored for my work educating local groups about the Affordable Care Act (ACA). We are a “bottom up” effort to generate and coordinate requests to speak to trade groups, professional groups, health care providers, seniors, women’s groups, teachers, union workers and subscribers in public libraries. We will go anywhere we can to speak and generate an invitation to educate more citizens about the law.

To date we have reached over 1,224 people in 72 different settings groups, in two states and six counties in Missouri and Kansas. Also, we brought Wendell Potter, author of Deadly Spin to our public library where 550 people heard his experience in the shareholder-driven commercial health insurance world.

We match the experts on the ACA and to the needs of the group. We augment the work of existing advocacy organizations. Recently we added a Train the Trainer Ambassador level layer to expand our capacity to provide the education to the least well informed citizens. We are working our way into the schedules of public libraries, church groups, and social clubs. The ACA is the law and we share that with all the attendees. We greet skepticism with facts, doubt with accomplishments. Not everyone is receptive to the information but we keep on generating requests and those speaking engagements have a way of begetting more invitations. Our volunteer committee has no legal status, no money. We have good people (two social workers, a nurse, a researcher and a teacher). We have lots of missionary zeal to spread the word about the benefits and changes in the Affordable Care Act.