Coalition launches health care reform campaign

TAMPA -- Americans need health care that costs less and covers more, say members of a new coalition who launched a campaign Tuesday to push health care reform next year.

"We will either have a guarantee of quality, affordable health care," said Bill Newton (left), executive director of the Florida Consumer Action Network. "Or we will continue to be at mercy of the private insurance industry...putting company profits before our health."

FCAN is one of several advocacy groups teaming up to promote health care reform during the election season. The coalition, Health Care for America Now, kicked off the campaign Tuesday with press conferences in 52 other cities across the country, including six more in Florida.

Among the 95 groups in the coalition are the National Education Association, the Campaign for America's Future, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the Service Employees International Union, MoveOn, and ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

"It's time for a new American solution," Newton said in Tampa Tuesday.

The group is not endorsing either presidential candidate, focusing instead on building support for health care reform. The campaign plans to spend $1.5 million on its initial campaign and to spend more than $25 million over the next five months.

On the group's wish list: reform that allows Americans to keep the private insurance they now have or choose a new private or public plan and more government regulation to keep insurers from charging high premiums and denying coverage.

"Health care premiums are out of control," said Pat Sanchez, a small business owner who spoke at the Tampa event. "Our health care system is a system of failure, with the driver being bottom-line profits."

The coalition has deliberately not worked out concrete details of how to achieve such goals, Newton said, because the time for that will be next year.

"Now is the time to make sure the next president, and the next Congress, deliver on the promise of quality affordable health care," said Jan Chester, vice president/COO of Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida.

-- Lisa Greene, Times staff writer

[Lara Cerri, Times files]