The ACTION Network, of which UUFG is a member, started the year by conducting a survey to learn how hospitals in Florida are treating patients who have no health insurance or ability to pay for care, in order to help patients after Shands at Alachua General Hospital closed. The health care crisis continued to be the focus of the work of ACTION Network, immersing itself in the struggle for better health care for all. Locally, the closing of Shands at AGH brought awareness to the need for better health care access for residents in eastern Alachua County and surrounding areas. Leaders engaged the community in hundreds of conversations to understand the impact of AGH closing, and are researched solutions to ensure health care services are available.

ACTION Network has also been busy working with PICO organizations on National Health Care Reform. Leaders asked elected officials to make reform affordable, eliminate pre-existing conditions, limit costs, be comprehensive, and keep it simple and easy to enroll and calculate. Leaders joined other PICO leaders for visits in Washington, DC with Senators and Congressional Representatives to speak out on health care reform. In August, the ACTION Network participated in a nationwide conference call with President Barack Obama and arranged a Prayer Rally for Health Reform at St. Patrick’s Church where UUFG minister Meredith Garmon was the major speaker.

Seventy-eight persons attended an ACTION Network rally at Open Door Ministries in Gainesville on health care reform.  The network also sponsored a National Call-In Day for Affordable Health Care and a National Lobby Day. More than a hundred people attended a meeting on health care in late October at St. Patrick's Catholic Church.

ACTION Network in the spring took on achieving what is called Express Lane Eligibility for children who need one or more of the many plans for assistance.  The ACTION Network has been conferring with officials at the local, state, and national level, asking them to support simplicity that would increase the ease in achieving children's entrance into these plans.  Florida has some 500,000 children who are eligible for Florida Kid Care but who are not receiving it partly because of such bureaucratic problems.

Mickie Edwardson, Board Member and Chair (taken from previous reports)