While Capitol Hill looks to reform America’s healthcare, members of the Ithaca community are working towards such reform in the hopes of providing affordable health care for all Ithacans. In the current economic downturn, healthcare reform has particular effects on graduating students and the growing number of unemployed in Ithaca.

As Single Payer New York works towards affecting change through public policy — a bill in Congress that will provide single payer healthcare — Ithaca Health Alliance is providing more direct care for Ithacans through its free clinic for the uninsured. While any reform rests on the contentious political debates currently plaguing the federal government, the Ithaca community is starting a grass-roots campaign to promote universal single-payer healthcare.

At a recent rally on the Commons, top officials of National Organization for Women alongside Ithaca community members and members of Single Payer New York advocated for single payer healthcare on the Commons. Allendra Letsome, membership vice president for NOW, advised Cornell students that “the minute you leave the wonderful bubble of campus, your health care becomes your own responsibility. When you make $15 per hour without health care coverage, your health care costs are going to become very relevant to you and you’d wish you’d said something.”

In the national arena, Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.), who represents Ithaca, is one of 86 co-sponsors of H.R. 676, also known as the United States National Health Care Act or the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act. If passed, the bill would provide free medically-necessary care to all individuals residing in the U.S. or U.S. territories, including primary care and medicine. For-profit institutions, however, would be barred from participating.

“Our office here is receiving tons of phone calls, letters, emails and faxes every day,” Jeff Lieberson, spokesperson for Hinchey, said. “People are sharing their personal stories, what they’ve had to go through. They haven’t been able to afford a procedure; they don’t have the healthcare for treatment.” Lieberson also said, “In the last several months it’s picked up dramatically. Health reform is the number one thing we hear from people about.”

Single payer healthcare, as in H.R. 676, is named as such because the bill would establish the government as the only payer to healthcare providers for those taking part in the program. It is very similar to universal health care, which has been implemented by nearly all industrialized countries and some of the developing world in degrees ranging from the United Kingdom’s nationalized health system to decentralized health care in France.

As Hinchey represents Ithaca in the national debate over healthcare reform, local Ithacans work towards providing healthcare to all Ithacans through local services. Bethany Schroeder MFA ’85, president of the Ithaca Health Alliance’s Board of Directors, is working to provide health care in Ithaca for those who cannot afford it. The Ithaca Health Alliance provides grants to those who cannot afford health care bills and runs a free clinic on South Fulton Street. Schroeder said that in Ithaca health care resources are “necessary because we have a great many people who are well educated but underemployed and they just don’t have the resources to pay for insurance.” Schroeder estimated that “70 percent of the people that come to visit us come to get primary care from a physician,” and said that “they don’t have insurance and this is the only way they can get the care.” The free clinic also provides holistic and integrative care, which approximately 30 percent of visitors utilize, according to Schroeder. Schroeder said of health care reform that “it’s not going to take any stress off the Ithaca Health Alliance, because there’s going to be some people [who], no matter what, are not going to be able to pay those fees.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the U.S. Department of Labor, unemployment in Ithaca has grown from 2.9 percent three years ago, in October of 2006, to 6.3 percent in July of 2009. William D. White, director of the Sloan Program for Health Administration at the College of Human Ecology, said: “If the unemployment rate bounces back up, that’s a major concern. Hard times are leading people to seek less care. The hospitals and doctors might see a lesser volume of business and potentially more needy people out there, which is creating a lot of stress in the system. That’s what I’ve heard from some of the leading providers in Ithaca.” White is a co-investigator of “Informing Health Care Reform Policy Options for New York State”, a research grant administered by the Policy Analysis and Management Department at the College of Human Ecology.

Health care coverage is especially an issue for students in Ithaca. When asked about single-payer and health insurance reform, James Feld ’13 said, “Do I think everyone’s entitled to the top oncologists? No. But a basic level of assistance and health? Yeah.” Taryn Beverly ’10 said, “It’s a big issue because a lot of my friends are graduating and they’ll be faced with it. If you don’t have a job you can’t pay for healthcare. You need to find a job because if you get sick or hurt you don’t have coverage.” And White said, “One really big problem that looms for students is that unless you go onto a graduate school that provides insurance or get a job with good benefits, you may be uncovered and that’s a pretty grim prospect.”