Organizing for America is developing a database of health care complaints from U.S. residents in an effort to garner support for health care reform efforts, the Wall Street Journal reports. OFA is a unit of the Democratic National Committee built off of Obama's network of supporters from his presidential campaign.
Several weeks ago, OFA sent an e-mail to the estimated 13 million addresses it collected during the presidential campaign asking recipients to submit their health care stories. Volunteers also went door-to-door to collect stories.
The group has loaded U.S. residents' stories about the health care system into its "story bank" and organized them geographically by plotting them on a Google Map. The database also is searchable by city so volunteers can find stories that might resonate with people in their areas. In addition, the site includes a tool that lets readers flag stories they find most compelling.
OFA reports that it has received hundreds of thousands of stories but that figure is not possible to verify independently from the site, the Journal reports.
How Much Influence?
OFA's new effort could test if the group can extend its influence beyond the presidential election.
Critics argue that Obama's supporters might not be as interested in health care.
Bridgett Wagner, director of coalition relations at the Heritage Foundation, said, "There are a lot of people who supported [Obama] for different reasons, and health care was probably not top of that list for a big chunk of those names" on OFA's e-mail list (Adamy, Wall Street Journal, 6/24).