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APIAHF PRIORITIES, Part 2 - The Skinny.

Prelude: The patrons filed into the bar looking around for drinks, free food and friends.  The large screen TV was on and the talking heads were speculating about the night’s main event.  An hour later, it started.  There was cheering and booing—and guffawing at the spectators caught doing embarrassing things on live TV.  Of course, we all stayed for the after party, and then it was really over.  No, this wasn’t the Superbowl.  It was Washington’s main event: the President’s annual state of the union address.  Except for the fact that everyone was still in work clothes, it looked and felt like any crowd gathered for a big game.  Only in DC!  The first time I went to one of these, I was laughing inside the entire time.  That’s when I realized how much of a sport politics is.

by Gem P. Daus, Director of Policy
February 7, 2005

Last week I wrote about the universe of issues in which Health Forum’s priorities exist.  Today, let’s narrow it down.  After 4 ½ years at the Health Forum, I’ve finally figured out a way to prioritize policy work that takes into account many of the questions listed in last week’s log.In addition to helping us organize annual priorities, it helps us organize our day-to-day activities.Here it is:

LEAD: These are the issues that we take the initiative on.  We are proactive—as proactive as one can be in politics.  Like the old Chinese proverb, we spend time preparing so that when opportunity strikes, we get lucky.  As far as actual work, this might mean that we help write legislation, initiate meetings with policy makers and partners, and research specific policy alternatives.

FIRST RESPONDER: These are the issues that we are ready to defend, but maybe don’t have the resources (time, money, expertise) to go on the offensive, or something happens that no one could have predicted.Often, this means that we lead the defense when our rights are threatened, such as when someone proposes a policy to require ERs to ascertain a patient’s immigration status and send reports to Homeland Security.  In order to be the first responder, we monitor legislation, rule making, and the actions of other advocacy organizations.  Then we respond by writing letters, getting sign-ons, and giving interviews to the media.We can often spend as much time on first responder issues as we do on lead issues. 

US, TOO: These are issues we care about, but for any number of reasons (time, money, expertise, mission), we believe our role is to piggy back on other people’s work.  So our work consists of signing on to other organization’s letters, forwarding their action alerts, and maybe even lobbying as time permits.  For example, immigration policy is clearly an issue that has an impact on health.We don’t have much expertise in immigration policy and but there is an API organization that does, so we leave the heavy lifting to them.  And when they need to show that they have a large constituency behind them, they ask us to sign-on to their letter.  And we do.When it comes to this category, the relationship is as important as the issue.  Meaning that you sign on because of who they are and what you might be able to get from them later on. 

So, after much planning—identifying what we want to impact, evaluating the political climate and our capacity, and answering the questions from last week’s log—the Health Forum Policy Division decided that our LEAD issue would be language access and cultural competency in health care.Our FIRST RESPONDER issues are access to care and research and data.  And our US, TOO issues are health professions and appropriations for community-based health programs and Medicaid.  More on why later.Right now, I need to peruse the President’s budget.

Next week: Money, money, money

For comments, suggestions, feedback, email Gem P. Daus at gdaus@apiahf.org

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