Rachel Rosen DeGolia, Director, Universal Health Care Action Network and Health Benefits Exchange navigator

Dear Colleagues:

The media tells us about the efforts to repeal or eviscerate the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) through budget showdowns or the courts. But we don’t see as much about the stakes: what would be lost if “Obamacare” were eliminated? Another way to ask this is: how well is the law working? How well does it move America towards the goal of relatively equal access to health care for all?

Rachel Rosen DeGolia is uniquely qualified to address those questions. Since its founding in 1992 she has worked with UHCAN, an advocacy network which has strongly supported a Canadian-style health insurance system. So she knows well the criticisms of the ACA’s patchwork reform. Yet, as an ACA Enrollment Navigator, she works to sign people up for the coverage and sees firsthand both the difficulties administering the system and the good it can do.

All best regards,
Joe White
Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Policy Studies

About Our Guest

Rachel DeGolia is the Executive Director of the Universal Health Care Action Network, a national organization founded in 1992 to support and connect state-based groups working for health care justice. She has worked with UHCAN in several capacities since its founding in 1992.

In the fall of 2013, at the start of the first open enrollment period under the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA), DeGolia joined the Cuyahoga Health Access Partnership (CHAP) team of ACA Enrollment Navigators. She coordinates outreach activities for CHAP for Cuyahoga county.

DeGolia, a graduate of the University of Chicago and received a Masters in Public Administration with a concentration in Nonprofit Management from the Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University in 2006.

Where We Meet

The Friday Public Affairs Lunch convenes each Friday when classes are in session, from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. We usually meet in the Dampeer Room of Kelvin Smith Library. The Dampeer Room is on the second floor of the library. If you get off the elevators, turn right, pass the first bank of tables, and turn right again. Occasionally we need to use a different room; that will always be announced in the weekly e-mails.

Parking Possibilities

The most convenient parking is the lot underneath Severance Hall. We regret that it is not free. For a few weeks construction on East Boulevard will block northbound traffic to the Severance garage. So if you are coming from Euclid Ave, please turn north at Ford Drive, then left at Bellflower and left from Bellflower onto East Boulevard, heading south. From the Severance lot there is an elevator up to street level (labeled as for the Thwing Center); it is less than 50 yards from that exit to the library entrance. You can also get from the Severance garage to the library without going outside. Near the entry gates – just to the right if you were driving out – there is a door into a corridor. Walk down the corridor and there will be another door. Beyond that door you’ll find the entrance to an elevator which goes up to an entrance right inside the doors to Kelvin Smith Library.

Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:

October 9: China’s Aging Population: Policy Decisions and Program Challenges. With M.C. “Terry” Hokenstad, Distinguished University Professor and Ralph S. and Dorothy P. Schmitt Professor, Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences. ***Alternate Location: Mather House Room 100***

October 16: The Issues About Issue 3, The Ohio Marijuana Legalization Initiative. With Mark Naymik, Columnist, The Plain Dealer.

October 23: Energy, Climate, and the Historian’s View of the Future. With Peter A. Shulman, Associate Professor of History.

October 30: From “9 to 5” to What? New Work Patterns and Their Implications. With Jenny Rae Hawkins, Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics.

November 6: A Year Away from the 2016 Election…. With Paul Herrnson, Professor of Political Science, University of Connecticut.

November 13: Why Virtual Schools are Growing So Fast, and What it Might Mean for the Future of Public Education. With Peter Robertson, Senior Vice President of School Operations, Connections Education.

November 20: Integrating the Inner City Through Mixed-Income Development. With Mark Joseph, Associate Professor at MSASS and Director, National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities; Taryn Gross, Project Coordinator for the Initiative, and Emily Miller, Project Associate for the Initiative. Co-sponsored with the Schubert Center for Child Studies. ***Alternate Location: Mandel Community Studies Center Room 115, 11402 Bellflower Road***

November 27: Thanksgiving Break

December 4: Making Clean Energy Work. With Walter Money, Whole House Energy Solutions.