Grassroots movement promotes health care for all

Oregon may be the next state to pass legislation providing universal health care to all its residents. That is the belief of civil rights attorney Mary Gerish of Bennington, Vt. Gerish helped lead a grassroots movement in Vermont that resulted in the state's legislature passing a landmark universal health care law earlier this year. The law guarantees that everyone in Vermont will receive health care via a single-payer system operated by the state. The drive for the Vermont health care bill was launched in 2008 against long odds. "We made something possible which everyone said was not possible," Gerish said in La Grande Wednesday night at a forum titled "How We Won Health Care for All."