HEALTH ROUND TABLE

The Health Round Table supports the LWVUS position on health care reform that promotes equal access to a basic level of quality health care for all residents of the U.S. paid for by general taxes based on income and that includes effective cost control measures. To that end we seek to educate ourselves and the public concerning deficiencies in our current health care system, proposed solutions, and relevant political candidate positions. We oppose changes that increase the number of uninsured and underinsured in North Carolina including the reversal of Medicaid expansion.

Meeting Date and Time

Usually, the first Monday of each month at noon via Zoom. The September meeting will be on September 8th at noon to avoid the Labor Day holiday. Round Table members receive the link on a recurring invitation email. Others wishing to attend, please email Wayne Hale at health@lwvpt.org . You can also find the link on the LWVPT Google Workspace Calendar.

LWVPT Health Round Table Goals

GOALS FOR 2025-2026

  1. Increase public awareness of factors limiting medical care access in the U.S.
  2. Protect current Medicaid and ACA sources of health insurance
  3. Promote systems that most cost effectively provide health care

Strategies:

  1. Continue Rob Luisana’s presentations
  2. Expand collaboration with organizations promoting universal medical care
  3. Expose executive and legislative measures that limit effective health care

Resources

Health Round Table Members Resources

Two minute video about your vote. This short video explains all the ways you can use your vote to affect health care policies, many of which are not obvious. They are nonetheless extremely important.

What About My Pre-existing Condition? Rob Luisana’s Op-Ed in Nov. 1, 2020 News and Record

A Conversation About Health Care  Rob Luisana’s Powerpoint presentation promoting universal health care

Resolution to Present to Guilford County Commissioners Working document on health care FAQs. 

Rob Luisana interview on Broken Health Care System, March 16, 2025

Wayne Hale’s Letter to the Editor, June 29, 2025 (see below)

Non-League Resources

North Carolina Health News How the state government wants to address aging

All Ages, All Stages NC, Multisector Plan for Aging

Kaiser Family Foundation – an independent source health policy research

Lunch with the League Presentations

The Overturn of Roe vs Wade: It’s implications for Women’s Healthcare, Sept. 20, 2022

Equal Access to Care in Our Communities, Olu Jegede, MD Cone Health Nov. 4, 2023

A Conversation About Healthcare, Rob Luisana and The Cone/Risant Merger and Value Based Care, Bethany Porterfield on October 2, 2024

In The News

Letter to the Editor, Greensboro News & Record June 29, 2025

A Moral Injury Epidemic

Moral injury is defined as an injury to an individual’s conscience and values resulting from perceived moral transgression. An example is health care workers’ burnout due to providing inadequate care resulting from lack of resources, as happened during the COVID pandemic. We can expect to see this type of injury occur rapidly among those of us who pay attention to the condition of our fellow community members.

In addition to the visuals of people being forcibly removed by masked agents, we are experiencing our government actively removing or cutting back on components of the safety net which protects us all from impoverishment and vulnerability to illness. As chair of the Guilford County Commission on Aging, I recently presided over the 2% diminishment of monies allotted to services for our elderly due to government cutbacks. We had to take from transportation and congregate meals, for example, to maintain support for in-home aides, who help keep folks out of nursing homes. Not a bad process in times of decreasing needs, but the number of elderly in our county is rapidly increasing as the baby boom population wave crests. One in six of our residents are over age 65.

Coupled with decreased Medicaid and Obamacare subsidies reportedly coming in the tax bill currently being formulated by Congress, we will all have ample reasons to experience moral injury. Tell your legislators that our elderly shouldn’t suff er to provide tax cuts so billionaires can have $10 million weddings.

Wayne Hale, M.D. Greensboro