Leadership
Gordon Bonnyman, Jr.
Executive Director of Tennessee Justice Center
Mr. Bonnyman has practiced poverty law since 1973. For three decades, he has represented the uninsured and Medicaid patients in their efforts to access medical care. He has served on advisory panels, consulted with legislators and governors, and testified before Congress on health policies affecting the poor and underserved.
Tony Garr
Executive Director of Tennessee Health Care Campaign
Mr. Garr has been Executive Director of the Tennessee Health Care Campaign since its incorporation in 1989. He has directed the Catholic Youth Organization in Tennessee, the Cumberland Chapter of the Hemophilia Foundation in Tennessee, and the Tennessee Affiliate of the American Diabetes Association. In 1998, he received the Community Health Leadership Award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and in the 2005 Advocate of the Year Award from Families USA.
Organization’s Objective
Tennessee is the epicenter of the national struggle for health justice. Tennessee corporate ventures, like Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), have led the transformation of health care from a human service to a profit-making commodity. Personal wealth derived from entrepreneurial health care ventures has translated into political power for a few at the expense of the many, and Tennessee is led by officials who made their fortunes as health care entrepreneurs. The result is that 1 in 6 Tennesseans are uninsured and about the same number are under-insured (private insurance they pay steeply for doesn't cover their needs).
Tennessee has the dubious of distinction of enacting a health care policy in 2005 that cut 200,000 sick, low-income adults from Medicaid and created the single largest number of uninsured in our nation's history. The cuts, ($1.9 billion annually), have resulted in a measurable increase in deaths among those who lost coverage. (See http://www.familiesusa.org/tenncare-report.html.) Tennessee has been the only state without a State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), leaving us with the most limited health coverage for uninsured children.
Advocacy by the Tennessee Justice Center, the Tennessee Health Care Campaign, and our partners prompted officials to finally establish an SCHIP for uninsured children not eligible for TennCare. However, the new program, known as CoverKids, has restrictive eligibility rules and obstacles to enrollment that have held participation to token levels. 140,000 Tennessee children remain uninsured. Grassroots and policy work by THCC has led to the state add dental and vision coverage to the program, beginning in 2008.
The 650,000 low-income children enrolled in the state’s Medicaid program depend on the state’s HMO contractors for their medical and mental health care. The quality of that care has repeatedly been found by the courts to violate federal Medicaid standards, sometimes with deadly consequences.
We seek long-term, comprehensive solutions to ensure health care for everyone. As we educate, motivate, and activate for health care justice for all we also work for various policy improvements for those directly impacted with the medical and financial burdens associated with being uninsured and under-insured.
Affordable Health Care
