Group with health care focus holds mock caucuses

RENO -- A group advocating affordable health care for all is traveling the state to tell voters about Nevada's presidential caucuses and encourage them to press candidates to make health care reform a priority.

Nevada for Health Care is part of Americans for Health Care, a national grass-roots campaign launched by the Service Employees International Union, organizers said Wednesday.

It has been gathering signatures in Nevada and across the country from voters who pledge to support only those candidates who will make heath care a top priority, said Samantha Galing Gaddy, campaign director for Nevada for Health Care.

So far, the group has signatures from 12,000 "health care voters" in Nevada and more than 500,000 nationwide, she said.

"Our goal is to elect a presidential candidate who is going to make health care a top priority and is dedicated to finding solutions so everyone in the United States has quality, affordable health care," said Addie Crisp, a backer of the effort.

An estimated 496,000 Nevadans have no health insurance, including 101,000 children, Gaddy said. Since 2000, the average health insurance premiums for working Nevadans have risen 58 percent -- a rate at least three times faster than average earnings, she said.

The statewide tour began Friday and continues through Sunday. Organizers are conducting "mock caucuses" to help teach voters how to participate in Nevada's 2008 presidential caucuses, which for the first time are being held Jan. 19 near the beginning of the election process.

Events already have been held in Mesquite, Overton, Las Vegas, Pahrump, Beatty, Tonopah, Hawthorne, Yerington, Gardnerville, Reno and Carson City.

More are on tap today in Fallon and Fernley, Friday in Lovelock and Winnemucca, Saturday in Elko, and Sunday in Ely.