FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Iowa Main Street Alliance: Iowans to "fly-in" to Washington DC for Health Care Reform
Iowa Main Street Alliance members to join with over 100 small business owners to make their voices heard on health care reform
Mike Draper of SMASH--Des Moines
Matt Russell of Coyote Run Farm--Lacona
Joining MSA members from the Small Business Majority: Robynn Shrader CEO of the National Cooperative Grocers Association
**To schedule interviews with small business owners who will travel to Washington, DC, contact Sue Dinsdale at 515-480-3240**
DES MOINES, IA October 30, 2009 -- Over 100 owners of small businesses will visit Washington, D.C., next week to spend a day speaking to their Congressional representatives and to the White House on the need for health care reform.
Small business owners from 24 states across the country will meet with Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services on Tuesday. The Iowa Main Street Alliance members will also meet with US Representative Leonard Boswell and John E McDonough, Senior Advisor on National Health Reform, Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
"I'm not in the health care debate because I have been wronged by the system in some life altering way," said Mike Draper, owner of SMASH, a retail, screenprinting and design business in Des Moines. "Rather, I'm in the health care debate because I can see that for myself and my company, like the rest of the country, we have a serious problem coming down the line that we need to get ahead of. And as this plays out, I don't want to say that I stood by and listened to this issue get simplified and dumbed down into name-calling, I want to say that I made my opinion known and did what I could to add to the rational discussion."
Draper testified before the House Ways and Means committee in June of this year.
This small business Day in D.C. is sponsored by Main Street Alliance, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Small Business Majority, and Consumers Union.
Contact:
Sue Dinsdale
515-480-3240
sdinsdale@iowacan.org
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Main Street Alliance small business health care
Sue Dinsdale
515.277.5077 ext 14
SDinsdale@IowaCAN.org
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Amy Logsdon
Political Director
319.325.3842
ALogsdon@IowaCAN.org
Health Care for America Now, federal issues and ICAN's election work
Amy Logsdon
Political Director
319.325.3842
ALogsdon@IowaCAN.org
About ICAN
Iowa Citizen Action Network (ICAN) is a grassroots public interest organization and progressive political coalition committed to creating social change in Iowa and across the nation. ICAN has united Iowa's progressives for over 30 years and is leading efforts to change the public climate for progressive change. ICAN has nearly 40 organizational affiliates from a wide range of constituencies, including religious, community, labor, senior, family farm and environmental organizations, and over 6,000 individual members.