Do You Have Health Care?

Got to report on what the old crew is up to. MFA and SEIU Local in Seattle have teamed up on a video project to ask young folks and musicians about their health care status and opinions on the system:

David Bazan (of Pedro the Lion)

There's a good idea in here somewhere, but I don't see an endgame. What are the videos being collected for? Most young people know we have shitty to no health care. Telling their stories (or allowing them to tell their own stories) is cool, but what next? This is an SEIU partnership . . . so what is SEIU and how might they help me? (That's a rhetorical question - I know what SEIU is, but a lot of younger folks probably don't). Is there a way to build this into part of a statewide movement to reform Washington's health care system like Massachussets and other states have done?

Cool shit in and of itself doesn't help us. Cool shit that gets other shit done is what we need to be aiming for.

So what comes next? What are we looking to get done, and how does this get us there?

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the beginning of an idea

thanks for blogging about the site, mike. you are exactly right with all the questions you're asking. this weekend was the first weekend of the doyouhavehealthcare.com site. it's the beginning of an idea, admittedly. we may edit the videos into pieces for lobbying purposes. we may use them for a public campaign for healthcare reform in washington. we may use it to help get signatures for this petition to congress. we may do this in other states for similar purposes. this weekend was an experiment to see what kind of answers we got and to see how difficult it would be to get the interviews and upload them in real time.

i'm now sitting down to think about applications for this idea. i'd love help from this community.

sicko

I think a blogroll of user-submitted health care horror stories could be a great piece of theatre for a lobbying group, although I wish there were some specific legislation out there regarding the health care issue.

Maybe we could use this site as an open letter to our reps to create said legislation. We could have folks reach out specifically to their local reps and get them to sign a statement of purpose or commitment to the cause of health care, and see how many representatives we can get on the list.

let's face it- the issue is out there with the michael moore movie. Now is a good time to move.

there is a specific legislation

the piece of legislation SEIU is currently backing is good, but focused on kids younger than us.

This petition asks people to tell their congress reps to support full funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).