MOMocrats Meet Valerie Jarrett at BlogHer

At the BlogHer '09 conference, five MOMocrats writers were among a group of women bloggers who met with White House Adviser and Public Liason Valerie Jarrett to talk about health insurance reform. Representing MOMocrats.com were BlogHer Political Director and MOMocrats contributor Erin Kotecki Vest, MOMocrats Founding Editor Stefania Pomponi Butler, PunditMom creator, Huffington Post contributor, and MOMocrats writer Joanne Bamberger, MOMocrats writer Sheila Bernus Dowd, and MOMocrats writer Jaelithe Judy.

Also in attendance were:

• BlogHer Community Manager Denise Tanton and BlogHer co-founder Lisa Stone
• Jenny Prokopi, the founder of an online community for women living with chronic health conditions, ChronicBabe.com
• Kerri Morrone Sparling, author of Six Until Me, a blog about living with diabetes.
• Loolwa Khazoom, journalist and founder of the Dancing with Pain chronic pain management website.
• Kim McAllister, who writes about her life as a nurse at Emergiblog.
• Liz Henry, tech blogger, momblogger, disability rights advocate and BlogHer contributor.
• Kelly Wickham, a public school administrator, writer of the blog Mocha Momma, and BlogHer Content Editor.
• Daphra Holder, Manager of Mobilization Marketing for the charitable organization Donors Choose. 
• Katie, who has written about her experiences as a brain surgery patient at Overflowing Brain.
• Casey Mullins from Moosh in Indy, who has written about her struggles with depression, endometriosis and infertility.
• Loralee from Loralee's Looney Tunes, who has written about her experience being denied insurance coverage for a high risk pregnancy.

Here is the official BlogHer liveblog of the Valerie Jarrett meeting, written by Denise Tanton as the meeting happened.

The discussion focused on the President's level of support for improved patient rights, how far the President is willing to go to preserve the inclusion of public option -- a provision of some current versions of the health care reform bill, supported by the Obama administration, that would allow people to voluntarily buy into a not-for-profit government-sponsored insurance plan, similar to existing public insurance plans, like Medicare and Medicaid, if they could not find good, affordable private health insurance -- and on how to improve communication between the administration and the public on the nature of the proposed plan.

During the meeting, more than one blogger came forward with personal stories about how her life had been affected by the broken health care system. Clearly passionate about the President's plan to improve health care, Ms. Jarrett also seemed to show a very genuine interest in what each attendee at the meeting had to say.

MOMocrat Erin Kotecki Vest frankly expressed concern that the President might compromise on the public option or other key aspects of the current plan under political pressure from the right, saying, "Let me be completely honest - I'm a big supporter of President Obama what I love and hate about him is that he will compromise. As a progressive that drives me nuts, but it's better than the alternative. I'm thankful that he is willing to compromise, but what scares me is real health care reform will be compromised just to get it through. I'm afraid for people like my dad who will only take half of his pills because he can't afford to buy. Can you assure me that those average people who really need health care aren't going to get left behind?"

Jarrett replied, "At least every other day, he says to us, 'Let's remember we don't want to get just something done, our goal is to improve the quality of the health care.' We have to provide the stability and the security so families don't wake up every day taking half a pill. When you talk about compromise, true believers don't want any compromise, I think that the president is a pragmatist but he's not going to compromise fundamentals. He thinks the public plan is the right thing to do. He thinks it will prevent insurance companies from having monopoly and better serve the American people."

MOMocrat Jaelithe Judy explained that she had recently heard an occupational therapist, an educated health care professional, express fear that the government intended to entirely take over the health insurance industry in a single-payer plan, when in fact that option is not anywhere in the legislation currently being considered. Jaelithe asked specifically how the Obama administration planned to clarify the difference between a voluntary public health insurance option -- which is on the table -- and the idea of totally government-run, government-sponsored single payer health care -- which is not. 

Jarrett replied by asking the group to submit ideas on better communication strategy to her by email.

And after Loralee shared her story of losing her home as a result of being denied health insurance coverage for her high risk pregnancy, and mentioned that despite all this, her husband, a conservative, is still opposed to government intervention in the health care system, and worried that the Obama plan might result in "socialized medicine,"Valerie Jarrett said, "Have your husband call me. On Monday."

This wasn't an empty promise -- Loralee confirmed to a MOMocrats writer earlier today that the call happened.

And as for Erin's concerns about the President's support for the public option, and Jaelithe's worry about the President's communication strategy having failed to sufficiently clarify the difference between a public health insurance option and government-run health single-payer care?

Well, this is what President Obama said at a meeting with grocery workers in Virginia July 29th, just days after the meeting:

Talk to the White House about health care. They're listening.

Read MOMocrat Joanne's own excellent recap of the Valerie Jarrett BlogHer meeting on PunditMom.

Submit your own health care ideas for Valerie Jarrett to MOMocrat Erin at Queen of Spain.

Read a nurse's perspective on the meeting at Emergiblog.

Comments

[Glennia]

Thanks for the excellent recap! Sounds like a great meeting.

[cynematic]

I'll be submitting my comment/suggestion to Queen of Spain's blog, but I'll post it here too:

Almost everyone I know lucky enough to have health insurance has a nightmarish, Kafka-esque story of how they had to battle their health insurance company over coverage--whether it was a bill for a procedure that should've been covered that slipped into a crack and then snowballed into calls from a credit collection agency, a doctor-generated request for coverage that was denied, or other such horror story. People spend hours trying to navigate deliberately byzantine insurance rules. It's you against the phalanx of faceless insurance industry lawyers.

As a result, many people view their insurance companies with loathing.

How can people be so afraid of a far-off abstraction (the "single payer" or the "socialism" bogeyman) when their own experience with health insurance companies is so much more immediate, negative, and concrete? (This was Loralee's deeply felt situation, it seems.)

Insurance companies are asking you to take them on faith. To stop listening to your own experiences with them. And to *back them* in this fight, instead of standing up for your own interests.

Maybe we need to hear stories of real people telling how insurance companies stood between them and the health care they needed.

Maybe we need to hear from seniors who rely on Medicare.

And maybe we need to see and hear how a public option affects insurance companies versus how it affects the patient's experience.

Because if you or someone you care for is sick, the last thing you want to worry about is battling a well-funded, impassive, profit-seeking, faceless company in trying to get healthier.

Get people to listen to their own experiences and to trust it. Too bad there's no WPA all around the country to document this. A multitude of moving, well-shot 2 minute vids up on Youtube could do wonders. How about going to some of those health fairs and start filming? And have President Obama go too. The otherwise lazy news cameras will HAVE to follow him.

They're happening all around the country. Here's news about a recent one for starters: http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/related/286458

[cynematic]

PS Jeez what an incredible opportunity BlogHer and the White House put together! Thrilled for the MOMos who got to participate. Miss you all, sad I couldn't attend BlogHer this year.

[Lawyer Mama]

What a wonderful meeting. I'm so sorry I couldn't be there this year, but I'll definitely be submitting my comments.

[Loralee]

It was an amazing experience and as soon as life dies down a little here I am looking forward to writing about it.

I DO have to clarify (and pardon if there was any misconception) we were living in a town house with intent to stay for about 18 months while we planned and built a house. Then? Pregnant, not covered and BAM! Our savings were gone and with all our bills we had to move back into a house owned by my parents to live rent free to pay the debt off. They are even paying us to do improvments so that the resell rate will be higher when we are able to move back out.

Most people are not so lucky.

Trust me, I still feel like I lost my home but I just wanted to clarify. xo

[Becky]

This obviously wasn't a "public" (for all BlogHer attendees) meeting. Or was it?

[Jaelithe]

Becky - the number of attendees was limited, I imagine in part because of the security restrictions that come with meeting a White House official. (Setting up a meeting with anywhere from 200 to 1500 women would have been a great deal more complicated.)

BlogHer sent out invitations to several bloggers just a day or two before the conference, and those who wished to attend had to RSVP within a certain amount of time to be considered.

If you want more information on how the meeting was planned, I'm sure BlogHer staff would be happy to explain any details to you, but since I wasn't involved in organizing it, I don't know more about how it was planned than what I just said.