Kathleen O’Connor
Photo by Richard A. Huston
August 2004 | Evergreen Citizen
Reinventing Health Care
by Bob Condor
A funny and important thing happened to Kathleen O’Connor as she fashioned a career based on academic degrees in Japanese and comparative governments. After working in the University of Washington’s international programs department in the 1970s, she took a position at UW’s Institute of Aging.
There she became an early advocate of elder health-care rights. She helped pass legislation that forced insurance companies to begin covering home health care expenses for older individuals who “weren’t quite ready for a nursing home” (where costs were indeed covered).
As it turns out, O’Connor never looked back. She started her own health marketing firm, writing lots of freelance articles for health-care trade magazines and developing a passionate study of the U.S. health care system. She saw more ills than any doctor — or patient — would care to experience.
“Common sense never seems to have a place in health care policy,” says O’Connor from her Seattle office. “I joke with people that I now speak three languages, English, Japanese and health care.”
Along with common sense, O’Connor noted that another missing ingredient was input from everyday citizens. Thanks to a researcher friend who made a casual suggestion about staging a contest to gather “better ideas” about health care, O’Connor launched an initiative that she says changed her life.
The project, called Code Blue Now: America’s Health Care Voice (www.codebluenow.org), invited any American last fall to pitch a 50-or-fewer-pages proposal on how to fix the nation’s health care problems. Winners have been selected by a blue-ribbon panel and now will be highlighted in a “whistle-stop” tour throughout the West that will conclude with the first annual “American Health Care Congress” Oct. 12 in suburban Los Angeles.
Evergreen Monthly caught up with the dynamic O’Connor — who can now add “Evergreen Citizen” to her impressive credentials — before she departed to campaign stops in Oregon, Idaho and California. Here are some of the highlights of that conversation:
Winning idea: “One of our winning proposal writers has both a master’s in divinity and an MBA. That tells you something positive.”
How you can help: “We have a Declaration for the Health of America that we will be distributing for signatures at every grassroots stop we make. You can sign it online at our Web site.”
No favorites, Part 1: “One result from the ‘law of unintended consequences’ is that we are gathering tremendous nonpartisan support. It doesn’t matter if you are liberal or conservative; we all want to find a better system for health care. We all want everyone to have access to quality medical care.”
No favorites, Part 2: “I put up $10,000 of my own money as first prize for our contest entries. I have been described as liberal. A very conservative Republican friend of mine put up $5,000 for second prize.”
Common denominator: “One idea that emerged from a good share of our contest proposal was the idea of health care management districts, similar to how we run banks, utilities or public education. It’s the concept of central standards but local controls. It’s a fresh perspective. Too many health care policy wonks are stuck in the same old trenches.”
Bob Condor is editor of Evergreen Monthly and an award-winning health writer.
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