toledoblade.com --

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Health care advocates are going online this week to get the public's input about rising medical costs and other issues.

The discussion is the final step of a yearlong effort called "Voices for Health Care" that was conducted in Kansas, Mississippi and Ohio. Previous work was done only in the three states, but the online effort has been opened to the entire country.

"We are trying to start a national dialogue," said Corrie Edwards, executive director of the Kansas Health Consumer Coalition, which coordinated the effort in Kansas. "It's obvious people want to talk about this and consumers want to be in the room with policymakers."

The first part of the online effort involves a survey that asks participants to identify their priorities for health care reform and seeks input on four options for providing health care — in states and nationally.

The survey is available through Friday at http://voicesforhealthcare.dialoguecircles.com

Next week, a follow-up online dialogue will encourage participants to work together on health care solutions. The dialogue, which will run from Nov. 18-25, will be moderated and will not be a simple discussion board or chat room, organizers said.

The results of the discussion will be presented to national leaders in Washington D.C. on Dec. 8. It will also be used by health care advocates in state legislatures.

The "Voices for Health Care" effort is coordinated by Viewpoint Learning Inc., a San Diego-based company that conducts national dialogues for business and public policy. It was funded by a nearly $1 million from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

During the last year, Kansas and Mississippi held meetings that brought together the public and policymakers for daylong discussions on health care reform. Ohio held focus groups and other activities to increase attention on health care questions.

"What I was struck by (at the meetings), across the board and demographics, was people saying, 'Nobody has ever asked me this before,'" said Roy Mitchell, director of the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program. "It's all been the territory of insurance companies and health care providers. They decided what health care reform should look like."

Mitchell said Mississippi, where roughly 22 percent of the population is on Medicaid, is "the worst-case scenario" because policymakers are working to cut the coverage that is provided.

"We want to try in effect to bridge the disconnect between public policy and policymakers," he said. "The disconnect is a huge chasm in Mississippi. People want to say 'This is what I'm dealing with and here's how I think it should be dealt with.'"

Edwards, of Kansas, said the participation in the earlier meetings vastly exceeded her expectations. While opinions varied widely on how it should be accomplished, there was overwhelming agreement that everyone should have access to some kind of baseline insurance, she said.

"We absolutely do not have an agenda to push universal health care," Edwards said. "We heard from people with all types of solutions. We just want to engage consumers and give them an avenue to get their opinions heard."

Participation was slower in Ohio because attention was focused on the recent election, said Cathy Levine, executive director of the Universal Health Care Action Network in Ohio. But she said the effort to engage people who haven't been part of organized efforts for health care reform will heat up now.

"Everyone seems to be talking about access and affordability of health care," Levine said. "Yet we have gridlock in taking action. We hope by eliciting people's reasoned choices we can point to a common direction. And that might help us muster the courage and will to break the gridlock."

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