Truth Hearings

What is A Truth Hearing?

A Truth Hearing is an event that invites everyone in your community to hear testimonials from people who are experiencing the healthcare crisis first hand. These powerful, firsthand accounts can motivate others in your local area (county, city, town, or congressional district) to pull together to end healthcare injustice. Groups are encouraged to invite Congressional Representatives and ask them to cosponsor HR 676 or actively support the legislation if they have already signed on. It is also a time to educate people about HR 676 and single-payer.

Usually, members of Congress (led by the majority party in control and often instructed by the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists) call hearings, decide what they want to hear, and invite the speakers.

Our hearings are just the opposite of most official Congressional hearings. We, the people of the community, have decided that the members of Congress should listen to us rather than to the lobbyists on the issue of healthcare for all. We pick the speakers. We open it up to everyone: Democrats, Republicans, Independents, non-voters. All who want to testify about the healthcare crisis and proposed solutions are invited. We believe that Congress will become healthier and more able to make decisions about the healthcare of this nation if they listen to the community that sent them to Washington.

While Healthcare-NOW is dedicated to a national, single-payer healthcare system that will serve everybody in the United States, we want to hear from everybody who cares about healthcare.

Organizing a Truth Hearing

Here is a list of steps that can walk you through the process of planning a Truth Hearing in your congressional district. Don't hesitate to contact Healthcare-NOW! for more support!

1. Find out if anyone is already working on a hearing in your area and join up with them. We can give you names and contacts. Or begin to put together a coalition of groups in your community to begin planning such a hearing. Call up Healthcare-NOW 800-453-1305 or send us an email.

2. Listen in on the Healthcare-NOW conference calls discussing successes and problems in putting together these hearings in some of the other cities where they are being organized. Call us at 1-800-453-1305 if you want to be a part of the national organizing team. Read about the Alachua County, Florida hearing to see how they did it.

3. Begin an Organizing Committee. Talk to people about the healthcare crisis and how to build this new type of coalition, and we do mean new! Start the meetings with every possible combination of people who are stakeholders, every age, race, and faith, -- youth and seniors, labor unions, small businesses, large businesses, nurses, doctors, women's and human rights organizations, hospital advocacy groups, faith groups and community groups concerned about the economy, people with disabilities and those who have suffered under the current healthcare system, people who know how to create media materials, posters, fundraising events.

4. Don't even have an initial meeting until you have half a dozen or more diverse groups involved. And keep growing. The coalition must be broad and comprehensive. No one person, or organization or even one sector can succeed if they try to do this alone. We are serious about winning the fight for national healthcare. So it is important to reach out more broadly, educate as many people as possible while doing better organizing than we have in the past.