Getting Serious about People Power with an Organizing Revival

Session description: Those of us who work to create health care justice are putting up a great fight. But if we look at legislative outcomes, it’s clear that we do not yet have the power to overcome the entrenched interests that currently call the shots in Washington and in state legislatures. We are doing everything we can with the power we have, but it is not enough. We need to organize more people.

At People’s Action, we’re embarking on an Organizing Revival centered on getting back to the fundamentals of organizing: strong base building, rigorous training, and intentionality about leadership development. This revival will bring us back to the kind of organizing that restores dignity, inspires hope, and transforms the human spirit, and allows us to scale it up so we can build a bigger tent—with room for the many who need the shade and shelter but have not been touched by our organizing (yet).

As part of this revival, the People’s Action Health Care for All team has developed a new campaign called Care Over Cost. We aim to reach out to 800,000 people this year and find folks who are experiencing claim denials from their private insurance. We then work with those people to support them in appealing their denials while simultaneously politicizing them and training them as leaders to take their fights for care public. This is a way of reaching people who are not necessarily with us yet on our analysis or issues, working with them to get relief and show that organizing works, and demonstrating how inadequate private insurance is to the needs of our communities.