HealthCareForAmericaNow

The fight to fully implement health care reform – through 2014 and beyond – will be hard, complex and take a massive effort beyond the scale most have anticipated. With our comprehensive campaign approach and proven track record, the Health Care for America Education Fund (HCAEF) (with our c4 partner, Health Care for America Now, HCAN) is uniquely positioned to carry out key implementation activities and see that the law’s promise is kept.

In 2011 and 2012, the goal of HCAEF is to develop and run a systematic public education implementation campaign in states across the country that will lead to correct implementation of the law and access to quality, affordable health care for those who haven’t had it, including low-income people, people of color, and people with chronic illness. The centerpiece of the public education campaign is our robust field program based on one-to-one communications with people, events, media, and paid communications, including direct mail, phone, and television.

Our public education campaign is doing the following:

1. Building fact-driven support for the law and work against efforts to undermine it

• Creating materials and toolkits for national and state partners and advocates to use with a variety of target populations: media, grasstops, industry officials, the public, health professionals, government officials, opinion leaders, etc.;
• Providing direction and leadership on nationwide and state educational events;
• Releasing at least four reports nationally and in states to highlight key policy issues and when appropriate, expose bad opposition practices; and
• Conducting rapid response to refute attacks on the ACA. We are monitoring traditional and new media at the national, state and local levels, as well as the public statements and events of anti-reform policymakers and interest groups, for emerging lines of attack. We are quickly analyzing attacks and identifying the best response strategy, ranging from immediate media outreach, rallies or press conferences, to rapid distribution of talking points, technical assistance, and materials for groups to use on the ground.

2. Strengthening state capacity

• Funding at least 18 state partners to create targeted, state-specific programs on the ground;
• Providing individualized resources and support to up to 30 states on implementation efforts;
• Training state partners on important elements to their education effort, such as media and communications, grassroots and grasstops organizing, coalition-building, cross-issue/multi-issue groups, and more;
• Monitoring, training and assisting states with rapid response efforts; and
• Evaluating state efforts and providing feedback and recommendations for capacity-building.

3. Coordinating state and national efforts

• Working with at least three national groups to coordinate and fund their state work;
• Continuing coalition work with 18+ Steering Committee members who contribute to all national and state-level events, decisions, and activities;
• Releasing state and national reports linking the federal and state efforts;
• Working with state and federal officials on policy analysis and recommendations; and
• Continuing to lead and participate in national tables to coordinate, share and/or agree on strategy, communications, messaging, outcomes, and to identify needs.

For the following reasons, HCAEF with its singular focus and proven track record, is uniquely positioned to carry out the necessary implementation activities described above:

• Unique and successful public education model – Our model is based on a campaign model, which directs our organizers to go to the target populations, finding them where they are, and instructs organizers on how to talk to these audiences. Often public education campaigns wait for the audience to come to them – whether it be at town hall meetings or through webpages – or do not segment constituencies. This approach is less effective when an individual is not seeking out information. Carefully targeting individuals based on demographic and public opinion research data, knocking on doors, calling individuals, and using tested messages for each constituency is most effective.
• Diverse and powerful coalition – The HCAEF activities conducted above are able to reach communities and constituencies throughout the country by engaging the wide variety of groups – nationally and in the states – that are members of partner organization HCAN. More than 125 national organizations and 1,000 state and local organizations have joined this effort. The HCAN coalition is headed by a Steering Committee that includes 18 organizations representing communities and neighborhoods, unions, women, online groups, communities of color, education, children, policy, and human rights.
• Communications strategy to state and local media based on timely research that helps drive narrative - HCAEF has been a leader in producing research reports that shine a spotlight on abuses of insurance companies and are linked to the current law. We have held press calls to educate on the reports and our field partners have held local events that have attracted attention to the reports.
• Local expertise and continuity - In addition to the relationships with grasstops leaders and coalition partners that were developed and strengthened over the first eighteen months of our campaign, HCAEF partners have also built up deeper bench of volunteers, activists (both in the field and on-line) and people with stories whom they can call upon for earned media work and mobilization activities like phone banking and canvassing that are critical for effective targeted public education. These assets have been developed in key geographical areas that were important for the legislative process of passing the bill and will continue to be important during the implementation phase. HCAEF organizers have the opportunity in this phase of the work to re-energize their leaders, volunteers and activists to defend the law that many people at the grassroots level worked to pass over the past year and in many cases, after many years of work on this issue creating continuity and greater efficiency in our public education efforts since we have no need to start from scratch.
• Rapid response - Over the course of our campaign, HCAEF emphasized and built capacity among our partners for effective “rapid response” mechanisms. Because of our relationships with our partners and because our campaign-style work, we can activate our partners to achieve very fast-paced communications.

For more information on the Health Care for America Education Fund, please contact Shadia Garrison at 202-587-1656 or by email at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).