Activists promoted the Health Care for America Now agenda Tuesday in more than 40 cities across the nation, including Charleston.

"We're trying to put health care on the agenda in the presidential race this year and take that momentum into the 2009 Congress," said Gary Zuckett, with the West Virginia Citizens Action Group.

Nationally the organization - made up of a coalition of groups - plans to spend $40 million to try to draw attention to their plan. In West Virginia, it is supported by a variety of groups, including most organized labor.

"Our nation is one of the few industrialized nations that does not provide health care," Zuckett noted.

The Health Care for America Now agenda would keep all existing public and private health-care programs in place and build on them, supporters said.

In 2006, there were 245,000 West Virginians without health insurance, said Perry Bryant, who represents West Virginians for Affordable Health Care. Nine percent of the state's population uses 25 percent or more of the health-care costs. In addition, 13 percent of the businesses in the nation have stopped providing health insurance to employees, he said,

"That cost gets shifted back to those that do have insurance," Bryant said.

The plan is simple, according to Health Care for America's Web site. Anyone without access to Medicare or good workplace coverage would be able to buy in to the Health Care for America Plan, which would be modeled after Medicare.

The new program would team up with Medicare to bargain for "lower prices and upgrade the quality of care so that every enrollee would have access to either an affordable Medicare-like plan with free choice of providers or to a selection of comprehensive private plans," Health Care for America's national plan states.

At the same time, employers would be asked to either provide coverage as good as the new plan or to make a payroll-based contribution to the Health Care for America Plan to help finance coverage for their workers, the national plan states.

Activists promoted the Health Care for America Now agenda Tuesday in more than 40 cities across the nation, including Charleston.

"We're trying to put health care on the agenda in the presidential race this year and take that momentum into the 2009 Congress," said Gary Zuckett, with the West Virginia Citizens Action Group.

Nationally the organization - made up of a coalition of groups - plans to spend $40 million to try to draw attention to their plan. In West Virginia, it is supported by a variety of groups, including most organized labor.

"Our nation is one of the few industrialized nations that does not provide health care," Zuckett noted.

The Health Care for America Now agenda would keep all existing public and private health-care programs in place and build on them, supporters said.

In 2006, there were 245,000 West Virginians without health insurance, said Perry Bryant, who represents West Virginians for Affordable Health Care. Nine percent of the state's population uses 25 percent or more of the health-care costs. In addition, 13 percent of the businesses in the nation have stopped providing health insurance to employees, he said,

"That cost gets shifted back to those that do have insurance," Bryant said.

The plan is simple, according to Health Care for America's Web site. Anyone without access to Medicare or good workplace coverage would be able to buy in to the Health Care for America Plan, which would be modeled after Medicare.

The new program would team up with Medicare to bargain for "lower prices and upgrade the quality of care so that every enrollee would have access to either an affordable Medicare-like plan with free choice of providers or to a selection of comprehensive private plans," Health Care for America's national plan states.

At the same time, employers would be asked to either provide coverage as good as the new plan or to make a payroll-based contribution to the Health Care for America Plan to help finance coverage for their workers, the national plan states.

That would take care of health insurance for workers and their families. People who are self-employed could buy into the plan by paying the same payroll-based contribution, and states would be given incentives to enroll those who do not fall under the plan.

"There is no issue more fundamental than improving the health-care system in America," said supporter Sam Hickman, who heads the West Virginia chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, at a state Capitol news conference on Tuesday.

Supporters also point out the plan does not change current insurance plans.

"Instead, Health Care for America would preserve what works in American health financing and replace what does not," the plan's national agenda states.

"If we move forward, as I know we can as a nation, we can fix this," said House of Delegates Health Chairman Don Perdue, D-Wayne.

Bryant said containing health care costs may be a bigger challenge and it is already affecting the nation's industrial competitiveness because of the costs to U.S. manufacturers, such as the automobile industry.

"If you're going to have an American manufacturing sector at all you have to contain health-care costs," he said. "We're globally at an economic disadvantage with competitors around the world."

Zuckett said current conditions and being a presidential election year opens a "window of opportunity" to make changes in health care.

"However long it takes, we're not going to give up," he said.

Reach Tom Searls at tomsea...@wvgazette.com%20or">tomsea...@wvgazette.com or call 348-5198.