Main fundraiser photo

Town Hall Inviting Jackie Walorski

“What will happen if we lose the Affordable Care Act?”

New: RSVP to the Event on Facebook

The Northern Indiana Community Coalition on Health Care, a nonpartisan group of citizens, health advocates, and community leaders, is raising funds  to sponsor a Citizen Town Hall meeting on healthcare for Indiana’s Second Congressional District. Our Congresswoman has publicly stated that she will vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but she has not made clear what kind of health care policy she supports to replace it. We want Representative Walorski working on our behalf to ensure all Hoosiers have access to affordable, quality health insurance and health care. Despite our persistent requests both as a group and individuals, Rep. Walorski has refused to hold an open meeting with constituents to hear our concerns about the ACA. In fact, since taking office in 2012, she’s only held one Town Hall meeting, in 2013. Four years ago!

Since Representative Walorski won’t schedule her own Town Hall, we’re fundraising to schedule one to which we invited her, on April 9th, a day on which her public schedule is currently free, at the Century Center in South Bend, IN. As this is a community effort, we’re using GoFundMe to fund it, rather than seeking corporate or political donations. If she refuses to engage with her constituents? Then we’ll hold it anyway, asking Second District Hoosiers to share their own stories, asking ACA experts to explain the current protections, and attempting to communicate our views to her publicly on what we’d want in any replacement and places where the ACA could be improved.

Date: Sunday, April 9, 2017
Time: 3:00pm-5:00pm
Place: Century Center
120 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blve
South Bend, IN 46601

Who Are We?

In the last week of January, over 1100 of Representative Jackie Walorski's constituents from the Indiana Second Congressional District signed a petition with a simple request: schedule a Town Hall meeting to discuss directly what will happen to her community if we lose the Affordable Care Act. The petition was signed by constituents currently on marketplace plans, by constituents enrolled under the ACA's Medicaid expansion, by constituents with pre-existing conditions, by constituent doctors and nurses who feared what a repeal might mean to their patients, and by constituents who wished to hear from Representative Walorski herself what a replacement would look like. It was delivered on January 31, 2017 and the Representative's staff assured those who called to follow up that it reached her that evening.

Representative Walorski has not scheduled such a town hall, she did not respond to those who delivered the petition, nor has she held any other kind of meeting open to the public. So, we’ve come together and are taking initiative. Out of petition was born the Northern Indiana Community Coalition on Health Care (NICCHC). The NICCHC is a nonpartisan group of citizens, health advocates, and community leaders formed to advocate for affordable quality healthcare and hold our elected leaders accountable.

The two persons who will be handling the funds raised and distributed are Nicole MacLaughlin, who created the petition and generated the momentum which lead to the NICCHC's existence, and Ruth Tillman, who agreed to lead the finance subcommittee. They will be accountable to the overall Steering Committee. The group can be contacted through the email address: [email redacted]

What Are We Fundraising For?

Our fundraising target is $5000! What are we planning to do with that?

Critical needs for the event are a room rental at the Century Center ($600) and someone local to do A/V setup, run any slides, etc ($500). That’s just $1100, or about $1 from everyone who signed the petition.

But we also want to get the word out. We know we’ve got momentum. The petition got over 1100 signatures in less than a week. Northern Indiana wants to know what’s going to happen to their health care options and we want to make sure everyone knows about the Town Hall. We want to reach all the way across the Second Congressional District, to get the word out from Goshen in the East to LaPorte in the West, down South to Wabash.

These are our estimates for how we’d use the rest if we make our $5,000 goal:

Printing (posters, etc): $400

Website to share stories and information, to keep going after the event: $500

Print ads: $1,600

Event program/booklet: $1,000

GoFundMe fee (7.9% of $5000): $395 (or rounding to $400)

We’ll break down the actual figures afterward and update the GoFundMe page and/or the website with what got spent where, because we believe in transparency! We're asking for contributions from those in Indiana's Second Congressional District and would prefer that those outside it focus on their own officials or support people raising funds for their own health care on here . We want to make this Town Hall happen and we want Jackie to attend. We're just doing this because she won't.

And what happens if we raise more than we need? We’ve gotten estimates on things that would be nice to have. If we raise an additional $3000, we could put up billboards to advertise the event (we are aware of the other local groups finding it hard to find a billboard company that'll sell space those bringing up Jackie's lack of town halls). Another $5000 or more would let us buy radio ads to get the word out across the District. We’ve estimated that $1000 to $1500 would allow us to have a reception with some food after for people to continue the conversation in small groups. If we manage to get an extra $10,000 after all that, we may look into buying local tv ads...but we  at a certain point, we'll turn off the GoFund Me. We want to get Jackie to listen to us and we want to bring people from all over the district to the event, but when it's funded we'd rather you look at some of the people who are still having to support and fund their own health care through this site.

Donations 

  • Bruce Bunker
    • $50 
    • 7 yrs

Organizer

Ruth Tillman
Organizer
South Bend, IN

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