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Wehrman: Ohioans rally for health care

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By Jessica Wehrman, Staff Writer 11:38 PM Sunday, June 28, 2009

Alisa Willis of Cincinnati was flat on her back, her head in a halo, recovering from the brutal effects of a car accident 12 years ago when the bill came in the mail: She owed $27,000 for her care and treatment after her accident. At the time, Willis lacked health insurance.

It was a devastating moment for Willis — one that led, 12 years later, to her joining hundreds of people in a park just outside the U.S. Capitol to rally for health-care reform.

The Senate Health, Energy Labor and Pensions Committee seems to be spinning its wheels trying to pass health care legislation, but if they needed a reminder of the urgency of this issue, they got it last week, as unions and community organizations flooded their hallways to lobby for a bill’s passage. After the rally, lines into Capitol Hill office buildings wound down city streets, puzzling tourists who wondered why it was so hard to get in to see their congressmen.

Willis, 47, who joined a church-organized group in Cincinnati, was among those.

So was Jeff Cook of Dayton, a union president with the Communications Workers of America Local 4322. He said he came because there were too many people without health care in the country.

Bill Bruening, 67, of Ashtabula was a little more verbose.

“It’s about time the American public get treated right by our government,” he said. “Affordable health care isn’t too much to ask for when we’re spending our money on airplanes and tanks. Our country is better than that.”

Nearby, Molly Nagin of Cleveland, 17, talked about how her health problems kept her out of college. It wasn’t that she was too sick to go to school. It was just that she couldn’t afford to after paying the bills for chronic stomach problems associated with uterine fibroids.

Inside the Capitol, one senator estimated the cost of health care reform would be upwards of $1 trillion.

Others worried that special interests would highjack the bill, and Congress would ultimately vote on something watered-down, less meaningful and only reform in a nominal sense.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who left the Capitol to speak to the crowds, is a little more optimistic.

He said he believes that the final product will include a strong public option.

“I’m confident Congress and the White House are going to respond to what the public wants,” he said. “I think we can do it.”

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