P.O. Box 1222, Madison, WI 53701 | www.prodane.org | office@prodane.org | (608) 257-4985
Over 100 people attended the Health Care Forum at Edgewood College on April 6th. The panelists did an excellent job of explaining the current health care system and offering some excellent ideas for improving it. Much of the discussion focused on economic and political feasibility of the various solutions and on the inherent political roadblocks.
Dean Pribbenow, Director of the Human Issues Program at Edgewood College, said it was the most successful event of this type that they have hosted and he looks forward to working with Progressive Dane and the other sponsors on the future projects.
At times the passions ran very high. Dr. Linda Farley gave a brilliant overview of the problem in addition to outlining the single payer solution proposed by her group, the Coalition for Wisconsin Health. Each of the remaining three plans (presented by David Newby of the AFL-CIO, David Riemer of the Wisconsin Health Project, and Ann Fleischli of Wisconsin Health Care for All) were crafted in various ways to provide nearly comprehensive health care while navigating the political waters and vested interests to achieve political and economic viability.
Darcy Haber of Wisconsin Citizen Action, kept the discussion lively by soliciting many questions from the audience and provoking lively discussion amongst the presenters. She also added the perspective of Wisconsin Citizen Action regarding the seriousness and scope of the problem and offered suggestions to the audience regarding what actions the average citizen could take.
The forum was taped by Wisconsin Politics and will be available as a web cast within a few weeks. Look for a link to Wisconsin Eye from the Wisconsin Politics web site: http://www.wispolitics.com/ if interested.
You also can find information about the four health care plans discussed at this forum on the web sites:
http://www.wisaflcio.org/
http://www.wisconsinhealthcareforall.org/
http://www.wisconsinhealthproject.org/plan/index.htm
http://wisconsinhealth.org/
Thanks to all of the Progressive Dane members who made this event possible with their hard work, especially Mary Anglim, Shawn Eisele, Stephanie Rearick, Satya Rhodes-Conway, Mellissa Calabria, Jim Kellerman, Vicky Selkow, Shelly Fite, and Yogesh Chawla. Also thanks to our presenters, our moderator and the co-sponsors: Edgewood College Human Issues Program, the League of Women Voters, the Democratic Party of Dane County, the Four Lakes Green Party of Dane County, the South Central Federation of Labor and the Center for Patient Partnerships at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Edgewood College and the Democratic Party of Dane County also have contributed money to help cover expenses.
Posted by prodane at April 27, 2006 12:53 AM
We, the members of Progressive Dane, join together to form an independent political party in Dane County with a major focus on local issues. We pledge to work to improve the quality of life in Dane County for all people, particularly those marginalized by economic and social discrimination. We will work to improve our local government by making it open, easier to understand, and accessible for all citizens of Dane County. We are working to achieve positive policy change by electing accountable progressive officials and mobilizing citizen action.
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