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Working for health care justice |  |
About Us
Incorporated in 1989, the Tennessee Health Care Campaign (THCC) is a statewide, nonprofit 501(c)3 organization, working for affordable, accessible, and quality health care for all Tennesseans. THCC's Board of Directors is made up of consumers, advocates, and social service professionals from throughout the state and works in collaboration with these same type groups to affect positive change in public health and health care.
THCC has a history of successful civic participation efforts. The organization was a lead agency for Robert Wood Johnson's Covering Kids national initiative and founder and sponsor of the Hispanic Family Resource Center. It has conducted the annual Grassroots Assembly Day and other workshops and seminars to educate and train groups and citizens about the state legislature and lobbying lawmakers on current health care legislation. Most recently, it has completed a successful grassroots' campaign to influence health care policy through the state legislative process and obtained a commitment of 38-million state dollars to expand health care to 20,000 low-income, uninsurable people.
Throughout the 1990's and into the 2000's, THCC advocated for and achieved many state Medicaid expansion reforms: covering pregnant women up to 150% of poverty, later increased to 185%; covering elderly and disabled people who were below poverty through the Qualified Medicare Beneficiary Program (QMB); expanding two waiver programs for the developmentally disabled; and creating a statewide Medicaid Hospice Program. THCC approached these problems by building and convening coalitions to develop and implement strategies. In 1992, with such coalitions, it successfully supported a provider tax to expand Medicaid rather than cut the program by $750 million. It also convened a QMB Outreach coalition that successfully conducted a low-cost, statewide radio marketing effort to enroll low-income elderly and disabled people into the QMB program. This program was recognized as a model by Families USA and used in one of their national publications. Families USA recently named THCC's Executive Director, Tony Garr, Advocate of the Year because of his innovative and consistent leadership.
Since 2004, THCC has focused most of its resources on opposing the dismantling of TennCare, which until recently was the Medicaid expansion model for other states. In 2005, the governor, with the support of the state legislature, cut 200,000 medically ill and/or needy adults from TennCare and reduced prescription benefits for the remaining 400,000 adults. Despite a media and legislative campaign against the regressive policy, THCC was unable to stop it.
It is currently working to see how it can make Cover Tennessee a better program and cover more uninsured Tennesseans. In 2007, THCC will work with a national coalition to guarantee coverage for all children.
TN Health
Care Campaign (THCC)
1103 Chapel Ave.
Nashville, TN 37206
H (615) 889-4845
W (615) 227-7500; toll free 1-877-431-7083
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Tony
Garr, Executive Director |
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Yolonda McClain, Administrative Assistant ymcclain@thcc2.org |
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Ms.
Susan McKay, Communications/Development Director Cell (615) 973-3588 smckay@thcc2.org |
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Lori
Smith, Middle TN Organizer, including Chattanooga C (615) 478-0071 lsmith@thcc2.org |
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Emily
K. Snyder, West TN Organizer, everything west of the Tennessee
River Tennessee Health Care Campaign, THCC 209 S Idlewild St. Memphis, TN 38104-6118 W (901) 590-4873 Cell (901) 517-3204 esnyder@thcc2.org |
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Greg
Williams, East TN Organizer, not including Chattanooga Tennessee Health Care Campaign, THCC 320 Meadow Lane Kingsport, TN 37663-2544 W (423) 726-2495 Cell (423) 943-7622 gwilliams@thcc2.org |