It's OUR Healthcare! is our site of the day

When groups that have more than 8 million members in California announce they are coming together and launch a new site on health care issues in our state, that is something that those who follow this issue, even tangentially, should take a look at. It's OUR Healthcare! is just getting started, but already on their site you can take action and drive the message home to our elected leaders that health care needs to be taken care of in California--and fixed--for the benefit of all of us.

Here's what this organization says about its formation and purposes:

Let's be clear, it's not one of those "strange bedfellows" coalitions that have gotten such attention in Washington, DC, and even here in California. Many of these groups we have worked with closely in the past, and many are members or allies of Health Access California.

It is a recognition that given the challenges and opportunities we have this year, our community, consumer, and constituency organziations are going to have to go deeper, go broader, be more committed, and be more coordinated than every before. It's been impressive how each of the organizations, from AARP and ACORN to CALPIRG and SEIU, (and other organizations, acronym-named or not) is willing to make substantial commitments around this issue.

Why "It's Our Healthcare?"

* Because when talking about health care reform, it's not about only your health care or my health care, but it's the health of the health care system on which we *all* rely. Whether you are insured, uninsured, or underinsured, health care reform is about improving all of *our* healthcare.

* Because this is a campaign to represent consumers' voice in the health care debate, to counter-balance the many other stakeholders--insurers, providers, employers--that have an active presence in the Capitol. Patients and families aren't merely a stakeholders--it's our healthcare, and health care reform needs to provide a benefit, not a burden, to consumers.

* Because this is a campaign of empowerment, a campaign to engage Californians to be able to speak with their own voice about their own needs, and their own frustrations with the current system. Even beyond the participating organizations and their memberships, we will work to organize and mobilize Californians to have their say in the Capitol.