Cover America Uncovering Health-Care Horrors

Consumer group seeks to expose America's health-care ills

The Cover America Tour, a campaign to highlight the need for health-care reform, made a stop in Austin Thursday at the People's Community Clinic as part of its mission to document stories of people who have been abandoned by the nation's health-care system.

Austin not only marks the halfway point in the cross-country RV trip; it also represents a significant stop on the tour, given Texas' No. 1 ranking for having the highest percentage of uninsured residents. Since setting out from New York in May, the tour has received thousands of letters from people eager to voice their health insurance woes – and many of those have been from Texans.

Austin state Rep. Elliott Naishtat and Regina Rogoff, CEO of the People's Com­mun­ity Clinic, were two of the health-care reform advocates on hand to welcome Cover America to Austin. In his remarks, Naishtat called for universal health care and criticized the state's recent proposal to expand the controversial computer enrollment system – called the Texas Integrated Eligibility Redesign System – that handles Medicaid cases. "I'm concerned this recent proposal could result in more people losing coverage," he said. "I believe this system is untested and flawed."

Rogoff talked about the challenges of providing medical services for the thousands of uninsured and underinsured Central Texans. People's Community Clinic serves as the primary health-care provider for 11,000 people and is the largest independent health-care clinic in Austin. At times, however, the clinic has no choice but to turn patients away due to a lack of resources, Rogoff said. Linda Cannon, who receives treatment at the facility for a thyroid condition, said she was fortunate to be admitted to the clinic when she lost her job and health insurance. Without the Community Clinic, Cannon said, she would have trouble surviving. "If I miss two or three days of my medication, I start feeling horrible and can't even move," she said.

Cover America has so far collected 45 stories and still has 23 more states to visit. The tour will end in Washington, D.C., where the video footage will be used as a tool to lobby officials for health-care reform. "People expect horror stories," said Meg Bohne, campaign organizer for Consumers Union. "But what we've found is that this is a slow-moving catastrophe. People are just trying to get coverage and living in constant fear."

The Cover America campaign is organized by Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports Health. The video footage is on the campaign's website at www.coveramericatour.org/video.html.

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KEYWORDS FOR THIS STORY

health care, Cover America Tour, People's Community Clinic

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