Pioneering Crowd Sourcing Site Enables Vast Public Review of Health Care Reform Bill (HR 3200)

PR Log (Press Release) – Sep 08, 2009 – Albuquerque, NM – As debate continues to rage on healthcare reform in response to HR 3200, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act, a new document crowdsourcing site, HealthcareForUS.org, is launching a unique opportunity for every voter to shape the debate on healthcare reform.

HealthCareForUS’ approach is to harness the power of millions of citizens (“the crowd”) to generate a summary of the bill and provide their opinions about specific sections of the legislation.   Lawmakers will benefit by having the bill summarized and by having data to understand their constituents’ concerns and desired actions.

“There is a heated debate on this issue right now, and a lot of voices and legitimate concerns are getting drowned out,” said Sheri Clark, of HealthCareForUS.org site. “As a mother, I became concerned about how this legislation would affect my family.”  Drawing upon her experience as a software process analyst, she and her colleague Gerry Williams decided to do something about it.

HealthCareForUS  will launch its unique non-partisan site on September 8, 2009 as Congress returns to Washington, DC.  Each user will be given random sections of the bill to review and be asked to summarize pages and describe how he or she will be affected by it.  For example, a user can state, “this would benefit my family,” or “this would be a financial burden”.  

No personally identifiable data will be used, but reviewers will be asked for their zip code so that their combined responses can be provided to their appropriate Congressional Representatives.

“It is unlikely that any one person will have the time to read and understand all 1,100 pages of legislation; but this site provides a way for A LOT of people to read one or two pages and share their understanding and concerns,” said Clark. “Our goal is to allow every citizen to exert influence on the outcome of the healthcare reform legislation by harnessing the power of the democratic process.”  

For more information, and to make your voice heard, please visit www.healthcareforus.org or
www.CrowdPowerNow.org.

HealthCareForUs.org, a project of Crowd Power, is committed to enabling voters to participate in the legislative process by providing meaningful and timely inputs to their lawmakers.  This will provide our legislators with direct feedback from their constituents so that they are better equipped to take meaningful action on pending legislation.

Crowd Power:  13170 Central SE. Suite B#203, Albuquerque, NM 87123          http://crowdpowernow.org                    Email:  info@crowdpowernow.org