Grassroots Network: Give health care reform feedback to Obama! There is still time!

Dear Friends,

This is the last Grassroots Network message for 2008, and Happy New Year to all of you!

There is still time to give your ideas about health care reform to the Obama Team.

First, there is still time to hold an "official" health care discussion in your community. While the Obama team encouraged us to have such meetings prior to Dec. 31, they will still be accepting feedback from such meetings through the first week of January (or so).

You can find out more about these discussion meetings here. Included on this page are links to the Moderator Guide, and the Participant Guide, as well as a link to sign up to hold one of these meetings. You don't have to have lots of people (they recommend not more than 15-20, and fewer is fine), and it can be very informal. But do officially sign up, and then submit your report afterward that is how you will get your group's feedback to the Obama team. You can have your meeting about health care reform in general, or you can specify a more focused topic, such as "Maternity Care: A Key Part of Health Care Reform" or whatever you come up with.

I didn't think I could do this, given a bad cold on top of the holidays etc., but brought up the idea with a couple of other people in my town, and as of today our discussion meeting is happening on Jan. 6. So get a couple of people to work with you. It really is not that much work and the Guides provided by the Obama team can be a great help.

Second, the Obama team is again soliciting questions (and votes on the posted questions) regarding a variety of issues. Go here.

Create an account (very easy) or log in if you already have one (you have to be logged in to vote or post a question). If you are interested in maternity care or midwives, select "Health Care" on the left side bar, and type in "midwifery" or "midwives" or "maternity care" or other topic of interest in the search bar at the top. Once you're logged in, you can click on the check marks by each question to vote yes/no for each one. It would be great for the Obama team to get the message that a lot of people think that changes in maternity care, and especially more midwives, are important! You can vote for as many questions as you want. You can also write your own questions!

Sincerely,
Susan Hodges, "gatekeeper"