Health care reform pitch gets personal

WASHINGTON -- Volunteers who fueled President Obama's election are now trying their hand at health care policy by telling stories.

Organizing for America, the Democratic group drawn from Obama's campaign e-mail lists, is busy collecting chronicles about the existing health care system: People who have lost their insurance, can't pay their medical bills, or see their businesses threatened by rising costs.

The hope is that the weight of testimony will pressure Congress into translating Obama's vision for health care reform into legislation. It is a test for the volunteer organization that figures to be part of Obama's re-election effort in 2012.

"We aren't selling a candidate this time, we're selling an issue," said Robin Deters, an Organizing for America volunteer in Toledo, Ohio.

Keith Appell, spokesman for a group that opposes nationalized health care insurance, said you can't underestimate the potential of a Democratic interest group that claims millions of members and cranked out the vote for Obama. But Appell, whose group Conservatives for Patients' Rights promotes a free market of doctors and health care plans, added it's a lot easier to get voters to the polls at election time than to get politicians to agree on a complex piece of legislation.

"Now that the paradigm has shifted into governing, it's become a lot more difficult," he said.

Organizing for America, which stumped for Obama's stimulus plan this year, conducted a health care kickoff June 6.

In coffee shops and living rooms across the country, volunteers watched a video in which Obama urged them to promote his three health care principles: reducing costs, allowing people to keep the insurance they have and assuring quality and affordable care for all Americans.

On June 27, volunteers are planning events nationwide. The schedule includes a healthy-food walk in Muncie, Ind., a seminar on writing persuasive letters to Congress in Wauwatosa, Wis., and a blood drive in High Point, N.C. In the weeks ahead, they also will be working phone banks and walking neighborhoods to drum up support.