About Health Care for All – Minnesota

Health Care for All Minnesota (HCA-MN) is dedicated to promoting comprehensive, affordable, high-quality health care for every Minnesotan through advocacy, education, and community organizing. The organization was founded in 2004 under the name Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition and was renamed as Health Care for All Minnesota (HCA-MN) in 2012.

We believe health care is an essential human need and that unequal access is an injustice. We believe a financial system with premiums are based on ability to pay is the only way we can provide comprehensive, affordable, high-quality health care for every person. Our ultimate goal is a single-payer healthcare financing system for Minnesota and the whole U.S.

Over the course of our history, we have been blessed with a talented board of directors and a series of very effective executive directors. Our board has included many of the leading advocates of single-payer health care in Minnesota for over 30 years. Our executive directors have included the following people: Amy Lange (retired midwife), Eileen Weber (UMN School of Nursing faculty), and Erin Koegel (Minnesota House of Representatives member).

Our key strategic goals toward achieving single-payer healthcare in Minnesota are to:

• widen our public education programs
• expand our base of support
• build a statewide coalition of organizations (Health Justice Allies)
• support legislation that will help to build the infrastructure needed to reform how we pay for health care

OUR VISION

• Provide universal and high quality healthcare coverage
• Cover all types of care, including dental, vision and hearing, mental health, chemical dependency treatment, prescription drugs, medical equipment and supplies, long-term care and home care services.
• Provide permanent healthcare coverage regardless of health, financial or employment status.
• Ensure patients the freedom to choose their doctors, hospitals and other providers.
• Restore to doctors and patients the ultimate authority over decisions about medical care.
• Remove the power of private corporations to make health policy and gives this power back to the community
• Reduce costs by cutting administrative bureaucracy, not by restricting or denying care.
• Fund based on the person’s ability to pay, so as not to deny full access to any Minnesotan.
• Focus on preventive care and early intervention to improve the health of all Minnesotans and reduce costs from untreated illnesses and diseases.

OUR GOALS

• Unify a state based movement of committed individuals and organizations to:
• Educate and engage Minnesotans on the issues of healthcare financing reform
• Build a base of support for reform, connecting individuals and groups
• Work with legislators to pass and implement healthcare financing reform for Minnesota

To view our structure and learn more about or join our committees, please CLICK HERE!

HCA-MN Board of Directors

Rose Roach (Board Chair) is the recently retired Executive Director of the Minnesota Nurses Association.  Rose has thirty plus years of experience in the labor movement in MN and CA.  She has been a member of the Healthcare for All MN Board of Directors since it’s reconstitution and is the incoming National Coordinator of the Labor Campaign for Single payer.

A Minnesota native, Rose spent eleven years, from 2003-2014, working for the California School Employees Association and was an active leader within the CA health care policy reform movement.

A passionate advocate for health care justice, Rose is a national speaker on healthcare reform specifically via a single payer, Improved and Expanded Medicare for All system.  Rose has been recognized as one of Minnesota’s 100 influential leaders in health care in 2016 and again in 2020.  She served on former Governor Dayton’s Health Care Financing Task Force and as a co-chair of the St. Paul City Task Force on Earned Safe and Sick Time.  Rose was also a member of MN Attorney General Keith Ellison’s Lowering Pharmaceutical Drug Prices Task Force whose final report won national Notable Document award from the National Conference of State Legislators.

Anne Jones, RN, BSN, MA (Vice Chair) Anne C. Jones received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Minnesota and her Master of Arts in Health and Human Services from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota.  Practiced nursing for over 45 years.  Experience includes direct patient care for general surgery patients, medical and surgical intensive care, and the multi-specialty operating rooms, University of Minnesota Hospitals.   Anne has had a long-standing interest in health policy and financing of health care in the U.S.  Retired from active nursing care in 2015 to focus on advocacy for health care payment reform to assure universal coverage in Minnesota, ultimately in the U.S.  Served 23 years in the United States Air Force Reserve, Nurse Corps, on flying status for over 20 years, retired at the rank of LtCol.  Professional Associations:  Association of PeriOperative Registered Nurses, American Nurses Association, Minnesota Nurses Association, Reserve Officers Association.

Don Pylkkanen (Secretary/Treasurer) Don Pylkkanen is HCA-MN’s Secretary/Treasurer and is Executive Director of Minnesota COACT which has been active with farm, labor, business, education, and physician groups in the statewide movement for affordable, high quality care for every Minnesotan since the early 1990s. Although the movement’s name has changed from Health Care Campaign of Minnesota, Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition, and now Health Care for All Minnesota, Don, as a board and committee member of these coalitions, has witnessed an unremitting commitment of hundreds of volunteers to reach the movement’s goal. As a Vietnam War veteran he receives low-cost, high quality care directly from the Veterans Health Administration, so he believes everyone should receive that same kind of direct care from doctors and hospitals without having to pay high premiums and deductibles to for-profit insurers that don’t provide care.

Carolina Ortiz born in Zacatecas, Mexico, is a Minnesota organizer. Her family migrated to Minnesota in 1994, seeking a better quality of life and improved healthcare. Since her early years, Carolina began taking roles of youth leadership, engaging in statewide campaigns to elevate the voices and impact of Latino youth around issues including health, racial justice, and immigrant rights. Carolina has continued to transform systems to better honor the dignity of immigrants and people of color, through both the private and nonprofit sectors. In 2017, she collaborated with community members to launch “Mírame,” an arts-advocacy exhibition. The following year, in 2018, she played a pivotal role in launching COPAL Minnesota, where she now serves as Associate Executive Director. Her work includes leading local and global climate initiatives, facilitating environmental justice efforts, and representing COPAL in policy discussions, all aimed at centering community voices and immigrant experiences in environmental conversations.

John Crosson, MD spent his entire medical career in hospitals devoted to delivering excellent medical care to the underserved first at Minneapolis General Hospital (the MGH of the midwest) and then eventually HCMC. He trained initially as an internist then decided to become a Pathologist. From the early 1970s to 2005 he worked at HCMC as a general Pathologist. During this time he saw many patients who suffered greatly because they had inadequate insurance and could not afford to be seen in the health care system in a timely way. For over 25 years he has worked on getting universal health care available for all in the US. Currently, he spends his time at the U of Minnesota teaching medical students and residents. He mentions the need to have single payer health care to them every chance he gets.

Mark Friedman, PhD teaches economics at South Central College in Mankato, MN.  He obtained his doctorate in economics from Colorado State University in 2015.  His primary research interests are economic inequality and economic democracy. Mark is co-chair of the Mankato area chapter of HCA-MN. He also teaches yoga meditation.

Mark Brakke, M.D.  Mark Brakke is a retired family practice doctor with experience in health systems management. After undergraduate and doctoral preparation at Northwestern University he practiced in Coon Rapids until 2014.  Along the way he had stints as clinic board chairman and clinic medical director. He also served on the Health Partners Board of Directors and Allina committees focused on quality healthcare.  Mark also served as Board Chair of HCA-MN for three years.

Maggiy Emery is an experienced political and nonprofit fundraiser and communicator. She has worked with campaigns and nonprofits all over the state of Minnesota, including Al Franken for Senate, Angie Craig for Congress, Dan Feehan for Congress, the Open Door, and the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. She currently serves as the Executive Director of Protect Minnesota. She holds a B.A. in Theater and Political Science from the University of Minnesota. She lives in Saint Paul with her partner, dog, and two cats.

Dave Garibaldi served the majority of his 37-year career as a public employee and union member. He was always confident in having had great employer sponsored health insurance. In 1999, he was diagnosed with a vascular disease and prescribed a simple out-patient procedure, for treatment. The procedure was denied by his insurance company, resulting in a four-year fight, (and delay of care), before they relented. During the final 20 years of his employment, Dave observed the escalating cost of health insurance and its direct impact on wage increases. In 2016, Dave became politically involved and a social justice advocate for several causes. Healthcare became a focus in 2017 when he joined HCA-MN and began to lobby state and federal office holders, (and candidates), in support of single payer healthcare finance reform.

Jen Crawford is the Executive Director of Physicians for a National Health Plan Minnesota.  

 

 

 

Buddy Robinson is a retired consumer advocate and organizer. He was the Staff Director of the MN Citizens Federation NE, in Duluth (formerly Senior Federation) for 40 years; lead health policy staff for the statewide MN Senior Federation; and Co-Coordinator of the Greater MN Health Care Coalition, from 2003 to 2019. He has performed extensive research, analysis and testimony critical of Minnesota’s privatized Medicaid system, as well as public education presentations promoting single-payer health care and explaining the problems with Medicare Advantage. He co-wrote, with Mark Hanna, Strategies for Community Empowerment: Direct Action and Transformative Approaches to Social Change. He is also on the board of the MN Citizens Utilities Board.