The News Journal, July 9, 2008

WILMINGTON - Community leaders gathered at a rally Tuesday at Brandywine Park to voice their concern about the lack of health care for needy people

Members of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and other community groups participated in the national launch of the $40 million Health Care for America Now campaign that will air television commercials across the country to raise awareness about the lack of accessibility to affordable health care.

Angela Walker, president of the Delaware ACORN, said the campaign will highlight the problems people have getting health insurance and the need for a public health system. Walker said the campaign focuses on the ability to make change by electing officials who will support health care initiatives, but said the organization is not officially endorsing any specific candidates.

The Health Care for America Now campaign will spend about $1.5 million on cable advertisements in the coming weeks and about $25 million in the next five months.

“This is the year America decides,” Walker said. “One thing is crystal clear, if we want affordable health care, we cannot trust private health care companies.”

Walker and members of ACORN were joined by health care professionals, church leaders and elected officials.

Lavaida Owens-White, a nurse who works to establish health ministries, said a better health care system is needed to allow medical professionals to assist those in the most need.

“We need a system in place to support us in forms of acute care and long-term care,” Owens-White said.

Owens-White said people can take the first steps to improving the quality of health care in the state simply by taking the initiative to monitor their own health. People should stay on top of annual health screenings, such as monitoring cholesterol and blood pressure, and can do so at the Wilmington Health Fair in September.

The Rev. Ty Johnson, who represented the Interdenominational Ministers Action Council of Delaware, spoke about the need to organize on a church-level to promote better health care initiatives.

Johnson said accessibility issues are more important for those who can’t afford health care, particularly the elderly and young people just starting careers.

Johnson said IMAC is working to organize churches to catalog problems their members face regarding health care accessibility, specifically working with private insurance companies and Medicare. They are then going to take the records to elected officials to try to encourage changes in the law

Johnson said churches also can work to help members organize letter-writing campaigns to inform elected officials about their concerns.

Some of the elected officials who Johnson hopes to reach were present at the rally.

Insurance Commissioner Matt Denn, who is running for lieutenant governor, attended the rally and said the biggest impact people can have on changing health care policies is to elect officials willing to change them.

“People need to get organized for the election,” Denn said. “It hinges on the outcome of the election in November, both the national and state level.”

Denn said his department supported several pieces of legislation that would have addressed the cost of health care coverage, but they did not have enough support in both chambers to pass.