CHAT Offers You a Say in Debate

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AARP is working with the Ohio Department of Insurance (ODI) to organize CHAT sessions that will help the state collect information about Ohioans’ priorities when it comes to health insurance coverage.

CHAT stands for Choosing Healthplans All Together and is an interactive research tool created by the National Institutes of Health and the University of Michigan. It is designed to assist individuals, employers, insurers, health care providers and government agencies with determining priorities in making decisions about health care coverage.

AARP is helping ODI to gather information to identify Ohioans’ views and preferences about how standard health insurance plans should be structured. The CHAT team is conducting discussions with uninsured Ohioans in addition to a range of insured stakeholder groups such as owners of small businesses, large employers, organized labor, hospitals, physicians, educators and government officials.

AARP Ohio is helping to organize CHAT sessions with small employers. Employers interested in taking part are encouraged to contact the AARP Ohio office toll-free at 1-866-389-5653 or send a message with your contact information to ohaarp@aarp.org

Data collected at CHAT sessions will be shared with the State Coverage Initiative (SCI) team, which is putting together health coverage reform recommendations to be presented to the governor. Citizens are invited to give their input to the SCI team at http://www.healthcarereform.ohio.gov/Input.aspx

Governor Ted Strickland appointed the SCI team in an effort to reform Ohio’s healthcare coverage system, with an initial goal of providing coverage to an additional 500,000 Ohioans by 2011, and to increase the number of small employers who are able to offer coverage to their workers. 

Ohio Health Care: A Study of Current Challenges and the Support for State Reform
http://www.aarp.org/research/health/carefinancing/oh_health_08.html

Other Resources
Ohio Department of Insurance
www.ohioinsurance.gov

Families USA
http://www.familiesusa.org

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
http://www.rwjf.org