Single-payer health care advocates hold house parties to recruit supporters for their cause

On a recent Wednesday night in Corvallis, a dozen people sit around Nadine Grzeskowiaks living room sipping organic lemonade and munching gluten-free pie while video images flickered on a screen.

But theyre not watching the London Olympics. Theyre viewing a Power Point presentation on Americas health care crisis.

After a series of statistics detailing soaring insurance premiums, worsening health problems and widespread medical bankruptcies, up pops a slide on the benefits of single-payer health care.

Its not a government takeover of private medical care, Grzeskowiak tells the intimate gathering of friends and neighbors. Its simply a rational response to a national emergency.

People in this country dont want anybody to take their freedoms away, she says. The thing is, we actually lost our freedom in this country a long time ago when it comes to health care.

Statewide push

House parties like this one are being organized all over Oregon by reform advocates like Grzeskowiak, a registered nurse whose struggles with undiagnosed celiac disease soured her on a system she believes puts profits before patients.

Why should I look for celiac disease, she said one doctor asked her, when theres no treatment I can bill for?

Grzeskowiak is the vice chair of Mid-Valley Health Care Advocates, one of several regional organizations working under the umbrella of Health Care for All Oregon in a statewide push to declare health care a human right.

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Reform party