Madison, WI – ABC for Health, Inc. (ABC) will be opening its doors to the community for an “Open House” on July 1, 2024. The event will celebrate 30 years of legal advocacy and health benefits counseling designed to help people in Wisconsin negatively affected by health disparities access the health care and coverage they need and deserve. ABC is a Wisconsin-based, nonprofit, public interest law firm that promotes health equity and social justice. Since 1994, it has helped over 72,500 clients and family members affected by health disparities due to income, race, or poverty to connect to health care coverage and services in Wisconsin.
“Back in 1994, we faced even greater challenges to help our clients identify and secure health coverage. If we only knew then what an interesting, challenging, and fulfilling journey lay ahead,” says ABC’s Founder, Executive Director, and Public Interest Attorney Bobby Peterson. “Times have changed and so have the programs, but we still have a critical job to do.”
Peterson founded ABC without a national association or sole benefactor to support its work that uses legal service skills and training to improve access to health care coverage. “We used a lot of sweat equity and built from the ground up. But we had passion and a certain moxie,” says Peterson. Now, ABC still requires grants, contracts, and community support to help serve some of the most vulnerable members of our society.
ABC serves low-income families and families of children with special health care needs. Over the last decade, ABC engaged in further social entrepreneurism adding an education and advocacy subsidiary HealthWatch Wisconsin, Inc. and a technology subsidiary My Coverage Plan, Inc. to join the existing subsidiary ABC for Rural Health, Inc. Peterson says a more recent project that involved all the ABC subsidiaries was a 2022 partnership with select free and charitable clinics in a “SafetyWeb Network” Project. As of late June 2024, in this one initiative alone ABC served over 1,025 uninsured patients and their family members holding over $1.4 million in medical debt. ABC staff helped those families eliminate over $852,000 of those debts to date, and connect people to coverage. Peterson calls this “life-altering work for these patients and families.”
ABC forged ahead, expecting to make a difference right at its founding. Peterson says, “Back in 1994, we embarked with determination, passion, and a necessary dose of naiveté to channel our efforts as difference makers for people seeking access to health care and coverage. We work to improve the trajectory of the lives and uplift the voices of many clients and communities in a more positive, hopeful direction. In the end, we stand by our bedrock principle that health care is a right and not a privilege.”
If you go:
What: ABC for Health’s 30th Anniversary Open House Event
When: Monday, July 1, 2024, 3-6pm
Where: The ABC for Health Offices, 32 N. Bassett St. Madison, WI
More Info: https://www.facebook.com/ABCforHealth/events
About ABC: https://www.safetyweb.org/
