Origins and Development of SPAN Ohio
Origins and Development of SPAN Ohio
More than two decades ago, six people met in a Cleveland union office with a single goal: a health care system that leaves no Ohioan behind. Here’s how that meeting grew into a statewide movement.
When the Clinton health care plan collapsed in 1994, many people active in the movement to reform the system concluded that national health care was way off in the remote future, and that the emphasis should be on attempting to win “small victories” and incremental reforms.
Actually, the Clinton plan never called for true universal health care. It specifically rejected eliminating the private health care insurance companies from the system. It was basically a plan for managed care — or, more accurately, managed costs.
A broad coalition of forces actively fighting for a single-payer system in the early 1990s disappeared after the 1994 debacle. By the year 2000, increasing numbers of people had come to understand that an incremental approach could not solve the country’s health care crisis, and that only a fundamental reform of the system would. Indeed, when Clinton left office, there were eight million more people without health care insurance than on the day he was inaugurated. The single-payer movement began to experience a revival.
The turning point: a decade of incremental reform had left more Ohioans uninsured, not fewer — and a small group of organizers decided it was time to build something built to last.
Six people, one union office
In February 2001, six people met at a union office in Cleveland and constituted themselves the Single-Payer Universal Health Care Organizing Committee (SPUHCOC). Their goal was to educate the public about the advantages of a single-payer plan and to build a movement at the grass roots calling upon the Ohio General Assembly to establish such a system.
A founding meeting draws a crowd
The founding group was diverse in composition — unionists, a physician, community activists, and retirees. SPUHCOC organized a public meeting addressed by Dr. Claudia Fegan, a Chicago physician and past president of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), co-author of Universal Health Care: What the United States Can Learn From the Canadian Experience. Held April 10 at Case Western Reserve University, the meeting drew an audience of 130 people.
Building a base of endorsements
In the months that followed, SPUHCOC concentrated on drafting a model single-payer resolution and getting political bodies, health care groups, providers, unions, community organizations, and faith groups to endorse it. Cleveland City Council approved the model resolution with only minor changes, and other cities and town councils followed suit. Physicians, nurses, local unions, and others endorsed a simple statement: “We endorse the campaign to get the Ohio General Assembly to act without delay to pass publicly funded health care guaranteeing coverage for all Ohioans.” It was unanimously approved by the Cuyahoga County Commissioners, three members of Congress — Sherrod Brown, Dennis Kucinich, and Stephanie Tubbs-Jones — and a number of state legislators.
A new name: SPAN Ohio
In November 2001, at the insistence of a growing base of activists, SPUHCOC changed its name to Single-Payer Action Network Ohio (SPAN Ohio). Meanwhile, single-payer groups in Toledo and Cincinnati had begun to form, and they affiliated with SPAN.
The LTV crisis
In early 2002, thousands of steelworker retirees from LTV in the Greater Cleveland area lost health care benefits they thought had been guaranteed for life — among 600,000 steel retirees confronted with the same drastic loss nationwide. The anguish of this situation, alongside the constantly growing numbers of uninsured Ohioans from all walks of life, deepened disillusionment with the market-driven, for-profit system, and much greater openness to the single-payer alternative.
An organizing center for the state
By mid-2002, SPAN had become the established organizing center for the single-payer movement in Ohio. By then, SPAN had launched a web site at spanohio.org, which in its first six months received over 10,000 hits.
Toward a statewide coalition
It became clear that SPAN needed to branch out and become a genuine statewide coalition. In the summer of 2002, SPAN activists began discussing a statewide conference that could be the springboard for a coalition capable of mounting an effective campaign. In September 2002, the Ohio AFL-CIO — representing 850,000 workers — voted unanimously, in convention in Cleveland, to endorse SPAN’s campaign for a single-payer system in Ohio. The UAW, statewide, had also endorsed. These developments helped propel momentum toward a state conference, held in Columbus on January 18, 2003.
The statewide conference
The conference was a great success, with keynote speeches by Dr. Claudia Fegan and Dan Martin of Steelworkers District 1, a panel discussion, and workshops for constituency groups. It closed with a call for a March 1 meeting to formally launch a statewide single-payer coalition.
SPAN Ohio formally launches
The March 1 meeting brought together organizations representing a million Ohioans, along with a number of dedicated individuals. It was agreed that “Single-Payer Action Network Ohio (SPAN Ohio)” would be the name of the coalition formed at the meeting, and an Interim Steering Committee of 29 was elected, pending the adoption of bylaws.
Setting course for a ballot initiative
As SPAN continued to gather endorsements, the March 1 meeting exhibited growing interest in an initiative petition campaign to put the single-payer issue directly on the ballot. Bob Smiddie, of Pomeroy, had long urged an initiative — and now that SPAN Ohio had the affiliation of major forces behind it, the idea seemed eminently reasonable, despite Ohio’s highly restrictive constitutional provisions on initiatives.
Structure, bylaws, and a State Council
In the months that followed, SPAN fleshed out its structure, approved bylaws, and renamed its governing body the State Council — retaining members previously elected to the Interim Steering Committee while adding others. The State Council convened periodically and moved forward on drafting the initiative petition. After months of meetings, discussions, and plain hard work, a petition all could agree on was finalized and approved by a statewide meeting of SPAN supporters.
The petition drive begins
The petition summary and 201 signatures were filed with the Attorney General’s office on July 14, 2004. (State law requires 100 or more qualified electors to sign to begin the process of proposing a law to the Legislature.) On August 5, 2004, the Attorney General certified the petition, and by August 20, five thousand copies — each accommodating 65 signatures — had been printed for distribution. Within five days, nearly 2,500 had been picked up by chapters, unions, and individual supporters, all volunteering to help SPAN reach its goal of 140,000 valid signatures. To be valid, a signature must be that of a registered voter, and must be personally witnessed by the petition circulator.
SPAN State Council meetings are often characterized by robust debate, reflecting the internal democracy and diversity of views within the coalition. Throughout, it has maintained unity — and continues to attract more organizations and individuals fed up with the current system, and wanting a new one that guarantees quality, comprehensive health care coverage for all Ohioans.
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