Photo: Pixabay
Yellow Springs residents organize “The State of Healthcare” town hall
- Published: April 4, 2025
As rising healthcare costs and potential cuts to Medicare and Medicaid dominate state and national debates, local Democrats hope to send a message to Ohio legislators: Folks can’t afford to wait any longer for fixes to an imperfect healthcare system.
A group of Yellow Springs precinct captains for the Greene County Democratic Party have organized a town hall — based around the theme “The State of Healthcare: Stories from the community” — to be held Saturday, April 5, at 2 p.m., at the Foundry Theater.
According to the organizers, the town hall will offer a “space for people to share their healthcare stories and personal outcomes of our broken private healthcare system.”
The News spoke this week with local residents Lindie Keaton and Krista Magaw, who — along with fellow precinct captains Lori Askeland, Elaina Vimmerstedt, Moira Laughlin, Shonda Sneed, Nancy Lineburgh and Tara Buchy — are organizing the upcoming event.
The two said the town hall is part of the Greene County Democratic Party’s aim to be proactive about building awareness around issues that matter to its constituency.
“We are trying not to just play defense over these next few years, but to build an offense,” Keaton said.
She pointed to the national conversation that surrounded the need for greater access to healthcare following the fatal shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December last year. Many characterized the shooting — for which Luigi Mangione stands accused — as a symbolic act intended to send a message about inequities inherent in the country’s healthcare system.
“There was this outpouring of stories about people’s healthcare needs — but it shouldn’t take an act of violence for that,” Keaton said. “So we’re trying to get people’s stories; you’re defeated if you never try or put an effort forward for what you want.”
She added that, though the Greene County Democratic Party is a partisan organization, healthcare access is “not a partisan issue.”
“Everybody needs healthcare, and only the owning class really have it in our country — any working person can still end up destitute or dead without healthcare,” she said.
Magaw pointed to a 2024 report from the independent research group, the Commonwealth Fund, which measured, in part, the healthcare outcomes for U.S. residents against how much they spend on healthcare when compared to 10 other wealthy nations. Though U.S. residents spend more on healthcare than the other countries included in the study, the Commonwealth Fund ranked the U.S. last among peer nations, with the lowest life expectancies, highest maternal mortality rates and highest rates of avoidable deaths.
At the state level, a 2024 assessment from the Health Policy Institute of Ohio considered population health outcomes and healthcare spending within the state to determine that Ohio ranks 44th out of 50 states in terms of health value. The organization’s assessment attributes the low health value ranking to a number of factors, including high rates of adult depression and health disparities within vulnerable populations.
“It’s just a national scandal,” Magaw said. “Healthcare is a public good — but right now, what drives healthcare [in the U.S.] is profit.”
The April 5 town hall event will be opened with an address from Mayor Pam Conine, and will include information about public health services available in Greene County.
The event will close with words from Matthew Noordsij-Jones, a Dayton-area medical doctor and executive team member for Healthcare for All Ohioans — also known as the Single Payer Action Network Ohio. That statewide coalition aims to educate citizens and legislators about the need for change within the healthcare system, with the ultimate goal of achieving universal healthcare access for all Ohio residents.
“An important thing we’re trying to hook into as Democrats is that there are a lot of needs — healthcare being one of them — and we can’t all work on everything,” Magaw said. “We need to partner with organizations [like Healthcare for All Ohioans] that can create ongoing connections.”
The heart of the event, however, will be the stories and discussions shared between its opening and closing, by area residents who have struggled with or been challenged by healthcare needs and limited access to adequate care.
For that reason, Keaton and Magaw said, the town hall organizers have invited state representatives for the county’s Ohio House districts to attend the event and engage with people’s concerns. As yet, none have responded to say they’ll attend, but organizers hope that, at the very least, staff from the representatives’ offices will make an appearance and relay what they hear back to legislators.
Additionally, organizers will record the messages shared during the town hall event, with the aim of sending them to local representatives and media outlets.
“It can be hard to hold out much hope for change,” Keaton said. “But when people gather to share their stories, they keep building a coalition of those who want to see a change, and we’ll get their messages to our representatives.”
Magaw agreed, and said the town hall organizers want to do everything they can to encourage people to “not give up.”
“The fear is that people will become overwhelmed about all the threats at the state and federal levels as far as meeting our basic needs,” she said. “Democrats acknowledge that big improvements are needed in the way that our party functions — and we’re ready to listen, change and work on it.”
All are welcome to attend and share their own stories at the April 5 town hall; stories may also be submitted online at tinyurl.com/57b7r6z3.
For more information, email Lindie Keaton at ringodaisy@netzero.net.
The Yellow Springs News encourages respectful discussion of this article.
You must login to post a comment.
Don't have a login? Register for a free YSNews.com account.
No comments yet for this article.