Art, an Aurora resident, is a community leader with Aurora Health Access and MOP.
How did you become involved with Aurora Health Access?
I have been there since the beginning. It has been a long process, but after four years we are an organized group initiating change.
What is your role within Aurora Health Access?
For the past couple of months I have been working with Joe Campe, from the Colorado Coalition for the Medically Underserved,on our MORE grant. We have been getting local restaurants to put up information about accessing heath insurance. We have all kinds of materials to distribute information to the community, a lot of which are bilingual in Spanish and English.
Where did your passion for local health care reform come from?
Well, I didn’t wake up one day and find it, it has been a developing passion. Mostly it came out of the local organizing committee at St. Therese. My passion grew and flourished as our group grew.
How do you stay positive facing such a daunting challenge?
What motivates me is not myself, but its with those people that I work with. For example, Rich McLean. He is our original organizer … and when we first started everything was so frustrating. We were new. It was a process. We had to start from scratch, with no real concrete vision. But now, things are happening. Our success, the people I work with, my wife and family motivate me on a daily basis.
What do you believe is the biggest issue Aurora Health Access faces?
Access was why all of this started. People had limited or very expensive access to proper health care. Many went to the ER… but it is very costly to get treatment in the ER. We have to fix this, people need primary care. Access Access Access. It is definitely our biggest issue. Anybody and everybody is vulnerable.
