Local advocacy groups use health care summit to regain energy

Christy Le Lait joined a gathering on Thursday at Poor Richard’s Bookstore in downtown Colorado Springs to tell her health care story, while politicians in Washington D.C. wrangled over the issue on television.

Her self-employed husband suffered an $85,000 heart attack in 2003, she said, and is now refused coverage by private insurance companies.

“It’s all about reminding everyone around us, and reminding the politicians that are playing games around this that we are still paying attention,” said Le Lait, 46, of Colorado Springs.

Progressive advocacy groups in Colorado seemed to view Thursday’s health care summit in Washington D.C. as a reset button for the health care reform debate.

Change That Works, the Colorado Center on Law and Policy, and the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative were some of the groups that spent the day touting new reports and trying to energize their constituencies.

They seemed less concerned with what the politicians said — even scheduling events during the summit — and more focused on getting regular people to re-engage with a debate that has drug on for months (and, in a larger sense, for decades).

“I really feel like over the past few months, the American public is regaining their momentum around health care reform,” said Kjersten Forseth, state director of Change That Works, pointing to record profits and double-digit rate hikes in the insurance industry as an ignition switch. “I feel like there’s renewed anger on our side against the insurance industry.”

Dede de Percin, executive director of the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative, thought the summit was productive, but not necessarily for what was said.

“It’s really moved it back into the public arena again. It definitely has galvanized people and certainly energized our constituency,” she said. “I really do think it’s more than theater, it’s democracy.”

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The case-study report on health care reform published by the Colorado Center on Law & Policy and others is available online; read the report here. It features Colorado Springs emergency room physician, Dr. Jack Dillon.