Prior to the national conversation and legislative action on overhauling health care, Sound Alliance was focused on a Washington state study presenting options for "universal" health care.  The Obama administration's push for health care reform took that off the table. But the Health Care Research Action Team soon discovered that no matter what legislation was passed on a national level, both documented and undocumted immigrants would be excluded from coverage for at least five years after the bill was passed.

The Team decided to conduct a series of research meetings with area health care and service providers to come to some understanding as to the barriers to health and health care for immigrants and other underserved populations.  About a dozen meetings have been completed with that many more to go, and the team is collating and comparing information in order to determine a course of action.

The team will present its findings to the Sound Alliance Strategy Team in late January as a step toward developing a campaign focused on reducing barriers to health and health care.

The Team is made up of individuals from Sound Alliance's member institutions in Thurston, Pierce, and King Counties, and has recently joined up with the Sound Alliance Immigration Research Action Team. Barbara Dahl from UUC is participating on this team. If you would like to join in this effort, please contact either Barbara or Richard Wells - Richard@soundorganizing.org or 206-575-2252.