NEA Supports New Health Care Coalition

More than 100 organizations, including the National Education Association, have pledged their support for “Health Care for America Now,” a new $40 million grassroots campaign aimed at providing affordable health care for all.

The coalition launched last week in more than 50 cities around the nation. NEA President Reg Weaver was on hand to speak at the press conference in Washington, D.C., saying it was “shameful” that there are 9 million children currently living without health insurance.

The group hopes to mobilize millions of Americans to work together in pressuring Congress and the next president into passing major health care reform in 2009. There are also plans for a $40 million effort to make health insurance a priority in this year’s presidential campaign. In the next five months, Health Care for America Now will spend more than $25 million on a mass advertising campaign with millions more focused on a grassroots effort to build support in 45 states. The group will also try to gather signatures from every member of Congress pledging to provide health insurance to all Americans.

Although many of the ads will run in battleground states, the group has not offered its position on the health care proposals of Senator Barack Obama and John McCain. Richard Kirsch, one of the leaders of the group, said the coalition will back a plan that is faithful to its principles. The group wants to create a system of high quality health care where all individuals are given the choice between affordable private and public plans.

In this election year, “the health insurance industry won’t have the battlefield to them selves,” said Kirsch at the launch event. “They will have to answer to the American people.”

More than 47 million Americans do not have health insurance.

--By Svetlana Shkolnikova