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Campaign Coordinator: New Jersey for Health Care Campaign

New Jersey Citizen Action seeks to hire a Campaign Coordinator for an historic new state-wide campaign to provide guaranteed affordable, quality health care for all New Jersey residents including the state's currently 1.3 million uninsured. New Jersey Citizen Action has recently been awarded a three year grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as part of the foundation's national Consumer Voices for Coverage program that is designed to foster and support sustainable consumer health care advocacy systems throughout the country. Working with NJCA is a Leadership Team composed of NJ Appleseed, AARP-NJ, the NJ Public Interest Research Group (NJPIRG), the NJ Catholic Conference, Camden Churches Organized for People (CCOP), the Women's Fund of NJ, the Alliance for the Betterment of Citizens with Disabilities (ABCD), the Hispanic Directors Association of NJ, the NJ State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Communications Workers of America, (CWA), Local 1037, the NJ Health Care Quality Institute and a number of additional health advocacy organizations.

Background: The stage is set for a monumental battle over the future of the health care system both on a state and national level. Nationally, we are beginning the most significant domestic political battle since the passage of Medicare - affecting one sixth of the U.S. gross domestic product. On the state level, political leaders are poised to move forward on broad-based health care reform to provide universal coverage for all. This campaign's mission is to insure that health care advocacy organizations come together to build a sustainable consumer health advocacy system and mobilize the financial and organizational resources to build the capacity we need to insure that reforms are developed and implemented that serve and protect the interests of health care consumers. Our task is to plan and implement a strategy, create the political environment, and assemble the political and organizational resources that will overcome the formidable array of forces that will oppose fundamental change.

The campaign's goal is to build and strengthen our state-wide capacity to create a movement to win the implementation of health care reform on the state and national level that conforms to our principles. The attached document describes our principles. To Top

The Campaign Coordinator will be responsible for:

Candidates should have:

Qualifications include:

Position is available immediately. To Top

Compensation

Competitive salary, plus health care, life and dental insurance; holiday and vacation time.To Top

Mail, Email or Fax Resume and Cover Letter to:

Ev Liebman, Director of Organizing & Advocacy
New Jersey Citizen Action
One Port Center
2 Riverside Dr., Suite 632
Camden, NJ 08103

Fax: 856.966.3099

Email: ev@njcitizenaction.org

NJCA is an equal opportunity employer. Women and people of color are strongly encouraged to apply.

Citizen Action's mission is to secure economic and social justice for all. We work to protect and expand the rights of individuals and families, and to ensure that government officials respond to the needs of people rather than the interests of those with money and power. NJCA seeks to advance a progressive political agenda, through collective action and individual empowerment in communities throughout the state. NJCA makes a difference for New Jersey by winning real improvements in people's lives.To Top

New Jersey Health Care Reform Campaign Principles

Health Care is a Right, Not a Market Commodity
New Jersey, like our country, faces a growing health care crisis, with more than 1.3 million residents uninsured and tens of thousands of others with inadequate coverage. The skyrocketing cost of coverage creates enormous pressure for families, businesses and our entire economy. New Jersey must address this crisis by taking bold action and setting an example for the nation.

Many current health care reform proposals are inadequate solutions to the health care crisis because they view health care as any other commodity subject to the laws of supply and demand. True health care reform will occur only when access to quality health care — like access to fire protection, police protection, and elementary and secondary education — is a right of all Americans, not a product that is available only to those who can afford it. Government's role is to guarantee quality affordable health care for everyone and must play a central role in regulating, financing, and providing health coverage. The New Jersey Health Care Reform Campaign supports the creation of a state-wide universal health care system that incorporates the following principles.

  1. Guaranteed Access to Affordable, Comprehensive Health Care for all New Jerseyans.
    Access to quality health care must be available to all, regardless of ability to pay, immigration status, or health condition. To the extent that health care is paid for by insurance premiums, subsidies should be available to those least able to afford premiums and scaled progressively based upon income. No one can be denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions and the practice of price discrimination because of age, gender, health status, or geography must be banned.

  2. Improves the Quality of Care for All New Jerseyans.
    The United States spends more than any other country per capita on health care, yet ranks 37th among industrial nations in health care outcomes. Health care reform must be comprehensive and cannot dilute coverage in the effort to make it more affordable. Reimbursement rates to health care providers must be reasonable and should not vary depending on whether an individual has Medicare, Medicaid, or different types of private insurance.

  3. Shared Responsibility.
    The health care crisis affects everyone — individuals, employers, insurers, government and health care providers — and everyone has a responsibility to play a meaningful role in its resolution. Individual mandate proposals — which force individuals to buy health insurance under penalty of law — are based upon the inaccurate premise that the uninsured lack insurance by choice. Such proposals wrongly put the burden on individuals for not having access to affordable and quality health care or employee-sponsored health insurance. Meaningful health care reform will only occur when all parties who have a stake in reforming our health care system, including employers, health care providers and the insurance industry, share the responsibility to make it accessible and affordable for all.

  4. Reduce and Contain Costs to Assure Affordable Coverage.
    25-30% of all health care spending is spent on administration. Health care reform will only be successful if it effectively curbs costs. Cost containment can be achieved by consolidating administrative overhead, bulk purchasing prescription drugs and durable medical equipment, regulating all treatment and diagnostic centers and implementing insurance reforms that require that increases in premiums are limited to increases in costs.

  5. Preventive Care.
    Minor health conditions that go untreated can become larger and require catastrophic care, which is much more expensive than preventive care. Studies show that when people forgo treatment due to its unaffordable cost, society/taxpayers often wind up spending more in the end. Instead of treating illnesses and conditions as a last resort, greater emphasis and education on preventive care is necessary to both keep costs down and to help foster a healthy society. Financial incentives should be implemented to pay providers more for improving their patients' health, rather than for denying care or ordering more procedures.

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