Health supporters form new alliances
TEXT OF STORY
Steve Chiotakis: Well you name the reason, but it doesn’t look like health care reform is going anywhere, fast. So supporters are trying to develop a new battle plan — looking to form unions with some industry groups for a final push on Capitol Hill. Marketplace’s Nancy Marshall Genzer filed this report.
Nancy Marshall Genzer: Eight hundred health care activists have converged on Washington for a three-day conference by the liberal advocacy group Families USA. A week-and-a-half after the Republican win in Massachusetts, the activists are wondering: What now? They’re being told to form new, even unlikely alliances.
Executive Director Ron Pollack is trying to figure out how Families USA can work with doctors, hospitals, and the drug industry.
RON POLLACK: It could be joint lobbying, it could be advertising campaigns, it could be letters that we send jointly to key members of Congress.
NAACP President Benjamin Jealous told the health care advocates they need to court independent voters. Even those who’ve become disenchanted with the health care bills in Congress.
BENJAMIN JEALOUS: And that requires us to really be circumspect about assuming who our enemies are and who our friends are.
Jealous told the activists those new allies could help them create a permanent movement. That may be necessary, if the health care bills remain stuck in neutral on Capitol Hill.
In Washington, I’m Nancy Marshall Genzer for Marketplace.
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