This past Saturday, Organizing for America asked that Americans around the country meet to discuss what they believe health care reform should look like. President Obama's organization put out a video that organizers could show their group and use to solicit support for reform and encourage participants to share their stories dealing with the broken health care system. Change that Works California is committed to working with OFA to support the President and make health care available to all Californians.
This past weekend, hundreds of meetings took place in California with thousands of participants around the state. I attended two OFA meetings in the Los Angeles area. On June 6, Mayor Abbe Land, Council member Lindsey Horvath and Deputy to the Mayor, Corri Planck held an OFA meeting at the West Hollywood City Hall. Approximately forty people were in attendance from in and around the city of West Hollywood. Participants watched the President's video; wrote their health care stories and talked about they wanted health reform to look like. Many community members stressed an emphasis on choice, echoing one of the three principals of health reform the President has stressed. Community members also wanted health care reform to encourage preventive treatment.
The second OFA meeting took place at Pasquale's Café in Los Angeles. About 25 folks squeezed into the café and dined on Pizza Michelle (created in honor of the First Lady by Chef Tonino) as they listened to several speakers, including Jack d'Annibale; Ronald Norby, Regional Director of the Veteran's Administration Desert Pacific Health Care Network and Mike Petrold, CA State Field Director for Organizing for America. Community members asked questions about the federal employees health plan and discussed their concerns about health reform. Health care stories were collected and the meeting concluded with a mini phone bank organized by Obama campaign workers from Nevada.
These kick-off meetings along with many others, are the precursors to the June 27 day of action-- check for listings of many of the OFA events around California on this site.
