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The Peninsula Interfaith Action (PIA) for Access to Health Care for Everyone (ACE) program needs us. No time to get involved? You would help your neighbor, wouldn’t you? You’d bring the chicken soup!
You can bring the chicken soup to 40,000 of our neighbors in San Mateo County who don’t have health coverage. Why? They don’t have health insurance through employment or enough resources to purchase insurance independently. 88% of these adults are working, productive members of our communities. Some of these adults are self-employed or not offered insurance options through employers.
Some adults work part-time and are excluded from benefits, some cannot afford the employee portion of the insurance, and some cannot afford the co-pay costs for doctor or hospital visits. Distressing? Yes. End of story? NO! There is an exciting plan in San Mateo County to get health coverage for our adults.
Peninsula Interfaith Action (PIA) and other community organizations, including hospitals and the Labor Council, are sponsoring a plan called Access to Health Care for Everyone (ACE). The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors has approved the plan and we are all working together to make it a reality. Health care agencies (government) and hospitals will provide services and participants will pay fees.
Now we need to get our city councils and business community excited about ACE. ACE is not insurance – it is a health coverage option for adult residents in San Mateo County. The cities of Burlingame and Redwood City support ACE and we need the support of all of our cities. Redwood City and San Mateo Chambers of Commerce are on board and we need all of our Chambers on board.
On Sunday, Aug. 10, about 50 people from five PIA congregations attended a PIA for ACE Workshop at St. Matthew’s Catholic Church. About 24 of them were from UUSM! From your Social Justice Council, Caryl Hughan, Tom Newman, Pat Nicholson, Andrea Rosenfeld, and
Vail Weller were there, and were we proud! We got a super-size bowl of spiritual chicken soup seeing how excited people were about the ACE program.
Would you bring some chicken soup to your neighbor? Of course you would. So would you then call a couple of friends and get them to a meeting to learn more? Would you call your local city council members to alert them to the value of ACE? Would you visit a few of your local businesses to tell them about the ACE opportunity? If you own a small business, would you become a champion for ACE? PIA will give you the resources, tools, and scripts to help you do what needs to be done.
We can live our UUSM Acting Purpose as a congregation if everyone does a just a little something. Your Social Justice Council will pave the way for you to contribute. We will attend many meetings if you will attend a few. We will round up the troops if you will be a troop. Say YES! to a healthy and productive San Mateo County. Say YES! to Acting.
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