Working Americans and health care consumers offer views & ideas on Obama health plan

Despite the busy holiday season, Americans throughout the country - from caregivers like nurses, doctors and pharmacists to ordinary health care consumers - have been gathering to hold their own health care meetings. You've brought your friends, your family, like-minded individuals, and even those who have different points of view together to share their ideas and input on health care reform that comes from the ground up.

News report after news report has been gracing our inboxes over the holiday season - from national papers like the New York Times to small, local papers from your areas.

Try this out - it's unbelievable:

1. Go to http://news.google.com. That's the Google News site.
2. Type in "obama health care discuss," and then click "search."
3. Voila! - that's right, there are that many articles that have been written about your health care discussions from around the country.

And it's not just the sheer volume of stories, it's what's contained within them. Each news story contains powerful anecdotes from meet-ups that include personal stories, concerns about the current health care system, and amazing recommendations and ideas on how to improve how we deliver care in this country.

We encourage you to read their reports in their own contexts. Because each and every meet-up has been a true discussion, picking and choosing small bits takes away from the power of reading them in their entirety - each is a portrait of our health care system.

Here are five highlights from the coverage:

1. New York Times: "At House Party on Health Care, the Diagnosis Is It's Broken"
2. San José Mercury News: "Citizens group answers Obama's call on health care"
3. Flint Journal (Michigan): "Health care reform topic of discussion at Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Flint"
4. Norwalk News (Connecticut): "Group discusses U.S. health care"
5. The Herald-Mail (Maryland/West Virginia/Pennsylvania): "Group eyes big changes in health care"

We couldn't be more proud of the work that all of you are doing. You've taken the initiative, and this is the result. It's what real grassroots mobilization looks like. Keep it up!

(On a side note: We held our own health care meet-up here at SEIU a few weeks ago - read about the discussion and watch the video footage from the meet-up on SEIU's blog here).