Statewide

Ohio Consumers for Health Coverage, backed by a three-year grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is building a united consumer voice with the goal of achieving affordable, high quality care for all.

OCHC is sending a message to candidates and lawmakers that the health care system is broken and asking them to Fix it Now! Through meetings, candidates forums, and educational events, OCHC hopes to gain support from lawmakers to enact real health care reform. Reform that consumers can afford and count on.

Visit the Take Action page to add your voice to the Fix it Now! campaign.

OCHC is working to build a united consumer voice and to achieve meaningful health care reform by:

• convening and nurturing grassroots networks in Athens, Central Ohio, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Toledo to build a very loud voice for health care reform in Ohio.
• seeking partners to build Grassroots Networks in other Ohio communities.
• Setting policy through it s Leadership Team meetings on the second Wednesday of each month in Columbus.
• Holding quarterly meetings for partners on the second Wednesday of every third month
• informing consumers about current health care reform efforts through its monthly newsletter
• informing lawmakers about current issues in health care reform through its one-page lawmaker briefsletter.

Recent Milestones

• June 4th-5th OCHC partnered with Viewpoint Learning to train 25 people to facilitate community conversations throughout Ohio, patterned after three longer ChoiceDialogue sessions in Akron, Cincinnati and Columbus and along with the Health Policy Institute of Ohio facilitated Viewpoint Learning’s release of its findings about how 120 Ohioans found common ground through structured dialogue;
• Released Failing Grades on June 12 2008, a report by Families USA that evaluates the consumer protections in the individual insurance market in the fifty states; link to June 12th press release (sent 7/15); http://www.familiesusa.org/resources/publications/reports/failing-grades.html;
• Convened consumers to create an OCHC network in Athens and Columbus (June 13th and June 17th, respectively);
• Launched this website!
• Met with small business leaders on July 9th in Columbus to explore building the small business voice for health care reform;
•   Launched its Fix It Now! campaign on August 25, 2008 to send a strong message to elected officials and candidates for elective office to make health care their highest priority.
• September 18, 2008 co-released Premiums vs. Paychecks with Families USA who developed this update showing that since 2001 in Ohio health care costs have grown 8.5 times as fast as workers' premiums.

Earlier Accomplishments

• February 1, 2008 commenced a three year Consumer Voices for Coverage grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to build a united consumer voice in Ohio, http://www.voicesforcoverage.org/states?id=0035;
• Released Dying for Coverage on March 18, 2008, a Families USA report estimating that two Ohioans die each day for lack of health coverage, http://familiesusa.org/issues/uninsured/publications/dying-for-coverage.html;
• April 15, 2008 testified in support of HB 384 expanding mental health parity; Partnered with Voices for Ohio’s Children, the Ohio Benefits Bank, and other organizations to build a successful Cover the Uninsured Week, April 27 – May 3rd, 2008. In a related action, released Reasonable Costs: What Can Ohioans Afford to Pay for Health Care on April 29, 2008, a Policy Matters Ohio report finding that individuals and families with incomes under 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Level have no discretionary income to devote to health care expenses, http://www.policymattersohio.org/ReasonableCosts.htm;
• May 14th hosted Ari Lipman, Lead Organizer for Faith Vote Columbus and former organizer at the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization to address the first OCHC quarterly meeting, talking about successes in mobilizing grassroots communities to push for health care reform in Massachusetts;
• May 21st OCHC Leadership Team reached agreement on the recommendations within the draft State Coverage Initiative recommendations that it would support.