 Good morning my name is Gabe Fadies and I am the president of the West San Antonio Chamber of Commerce here today so very pleased so very happy to play just a small part an event that's going to help so many folks in the West Side community we got a lot of people to thank we're going to go ahead and get started right now but how about a big round of applause for all of the workers and the volunteers that are here helping today making sure that each and every one of you has the opportunity to get affordable health care that is just so vital I could tell each and every one of you guys right now I've been running this organization for two years and for three years I went without health care I didn't have insurance but because of this law I'm covered my wife is covered and my kids are all covered this is a great piece of legislation from President Obama thank you so very much for coming out today we got several people we would like to thank for their participation and I'm just gonna run down the list of everybody who participated in today's event including the folks from Avenida Guadalupe letting us use this wonderful facility thank you so much to Gabe Velasquez and Oscar and everybody from Avenida Guadalupe now I'm just gonna run down the list because there's a lot of people here we need to thank but we've got Avance we've got the Bear County Veterans Service office the Cesar E. Chavez Legacy and Educational Fund, Communicare, Centromed, COPS Metro Alliance, CPS Energy, Community Health First, Enroll America, Enroll SA and the University Health System, the Methodist Health Care Ministries, Metro Health, the National Council of La Raza, the San Antonio Food Bank, the San Antonio Housing Authority, the San Antonio Public Library, SAWS, the Susan G. Coleman Foundation and the UTSA College of Public Policy a round of applause for everybody who helped out with this event and we've got so many wonderful dignitaries that I can assure you each and every one of them care about each and every one of you when they want to make sure that your quality of life improves each and every day and that includes making sure you guys have affordable healthcare insurance. We're gonna start with an individual who I hold in absolute wonderfully high regard. He is your congressman. Ladies and gentlemen, a big round of applause for congressman Lloyd Doggett. Dave, thank you very much. So our agenda here is to keep the programs short and not to do anything that would slow up your getting to find out about insurance for you and your family. It is an honor to represent many of you, the area that we're in today. As I've visited with folks, I know we have people from all over Bear County, but I have a good portion of the neighborhoods and it's an honor to represent you in Washington. I'm just coming down from being in the capital yesterday along with my wife Libby who I'm going to invite up to say a few words earlier, but she's put up with me for many years and is a great partner and she is also in charge of early childhood for the entire country as an assistant secretary of education in the education department in Washington. Want to add a quick word here, honey? Hola soy Libby Doggett, la esposa de Lloyd Doggett que trabaja duro para ustedes todos los días en Washington DC. Gracias por estar aquí este día. Estoy feliz de ver tantas familias listos para obtener información sobre seguros de salud. Es por eso que estamos aquí hoy, porque es importante para asegurarse de que nuestros seres queridos están asegurados. Cada persona tiene derecho a cobertura de salud y aseguranza. Gracias. Thank you, honey. So many people we want to acknowledge and hear from, but I particularly want to honor Gabe because he with the West Chamber provided the momentum for this event happening. And I know Gabe is working with one small business after another. We've done many openings here, but I really salute your work in between announcing all those games of sports events. Gabe is there announcing one success after another here on the West side. And that's what's making the community improvement and the opportunity and the new jobs right here. So thank you, Gabe. And then I want especially to honor Andrew Solano, wherever Andrew is, I'll introduce the rest of my staff, but many of you heard from Andrew. We'll be doing more introductions and hearing from folks, but I want to note that while our goal here is to have everyone leave happy and insured today. And we know that as of last week, nine out of 10 families here in San Antonio, who were eligible for the insurance exchange have not signed up yet. And that of those nine of 10 families, something around three fourths of them would get significant tax credits immediately to help lower the cost of their insurance premiums. So as you think about it today, if a neighbor told you if you heard it on TV, if you're a church tomorrow, if you're out at a community event this afternoon, if you're talking to a neighbor next door at an apartment or over the back fence, remind them they only have a couple more weeks to sign up. And we need to involve them. But the people that I particularly want to hear from today, and next week at our office down the street, are the people that go away unhappy. I hope they're none. But if there's anyone here who finds out I'm not eligible, I didn't get covered. My husband can't get on my girlfriend can't get on whatever it might be. We want to know about that because my job in Washington is to try to make this complex law which has had a lot of problems getting underway to make it work better to fix the problems with this new law so that we assure every family can get access to a family doctor that they can count on when they have a problem. I'll be back next week with our governor to be governor van deput for her senatorial convention. But two weeks from today right outside many of us will be marching. And I want to have for a very brief word before we get on with other activities. My longtime friend, Jaime Martinez, who heads the Cesar Chavez Educational Foundation here Jaime. Well, can people come join us here two weeks from today about this time? Come tell us about it. Buenos dias, se puede! Viva la causa! Congressman Lloyd Duggan has been very loyal to the Cesar Chavez March for Justice for many years. He used to march with Cesar Chavez in the valley before he was a congressman. He's loyal to our community. Right here used to be a theater. I used to come here, take five cents to come to El Progreso. How many of you remember this theater here? So there's a lot of history in the west side. But I come here to invite you to the 18th annual Cesar Chavez March for Justice. People are coming from Washington DC, from California, from all over the state of Texas. We're mobilizing. We have the food bank, a day of service. We want to raise 15,000 pounds. And already we have a yes, we can campaign. Did you know that almost 40% of those who receive aid from the food bank are children under the age of 18? There is hunger in our community. Cesar Chavez was about service to our community. On the morning Congressman Lloyd Duggan will be marching with us. There will be some trucks here. I want all of you to attend the march, bring some canned foods to help the needy and feed our community that is in need. The march begins at 8 30 with a community service and at 10 a.m. we will march through the Alamo. Wednesday will be a city council chambers at five p.m. The mayor is going to do a proclamation and I'm going to show part of a commercial of the film and American hero Cesar Chavez. I urge all your families to go visit the theaters. It will be premiering on the 28th of March in theaters in San Antonio. The next day will be the march. So pass the word out. I went to a special premier last Wednesday, a private show in the mayor was there. Henry says there's a lot of activists. We saw the film. It's a true story of an American and thanks to all of San Antonio and Lloyd Duggan, who has been championing the rights of our people. Obama. We need to support him with health care in 1990. I march for universal health care in Washington DC. I'm a union man. Today there's 48 million people not insured under insured. Two thirds of working people, poor people that need health access. This is a good program. Don't let the mayor say it's discourage you. It's anti propaganda to discourage people that don't have insurance. Shake the facts. Sign up. Let's let's have our families with insurance. That's what we need. Support Congressman Duggan and everybody. Cesar Puente. Cesar Puente. Thank you, Jaime. So do come back and join us about this time a little earlier. Two weeks from today. Bring a canned food so we can help our neighbors with the food bank and we have the food bank out here this morning. I believe, don't we Gabe? We want to salute them for the important work they do. I particularly want to salute someone who has done so much for this community. She knows this place and this street well because so often we found her across the street at Novela Pharmacy. She knows about health care and health problems because she deals with it daily as an important professional in the delivery of health care services and assisting so many people in this community. Each time I'm up I-35, I pass giant flags that her husband Pete with the Dixie Flag Company has there flying that make us so proud to be Americans and to be Texans. And as Americans in Texans we have a stake in every family being able to have access to a family doctor. Senator Vanderpude has stood so tall in Austin. I want her to have an opportunity to serve all of our state the way she has served San Antonio so ably. Our state Senator Leticia Vanderpude. Senator. Gracias. Thank you to Lloyd Doggett our great congressman. Muchisimas gracias. Yo sé que el presente más grande es el presente que damos de tiempo en servicio de una persona otra. So we know the most precious gift that we can give each other is time and the gift of time in service. So for all of these for metro health communicate all of the groups that are here today understand they are giving their time for the better health of our families. You can get some vaccines here today. You can find out more about how you can keep your family healthy. But the most important thing you can do today is to sign up in the affordable care act. Now I know that there's been a lot of controversy on the affordable care act. So I'm going to ask you just one question. How many of you think that every family ought to have a family doctor? ¿Verdad? ¿Quién cree que todas las familias deben de tener un doctor de la familia? ¿Verdad? Eso es la pregunta de ese ley del cuidado de salud de precios bajos. The affordable care act is nothing more than you being able to have a family doctor. So many of you have found out by our TV and our radio stations that are helping to get the word out. And yes there is a great opportunity to go online ¿Verdad? En la página web el salud que tenemos healthcare.gov. But we know that there are so many for the first time that are going to choose their plans. Gold, bronze, silver and you get to make those decisions and you have questions. That's why I am so thankful to all of the people who put this together. Muchísimas gracias. El regalo de salud es algo precioso. And I want to especially thank all the ladies, las mujeres que están aquí. A lot of times ladies, mamas, you know how we, primero los niños, right? And then we wait till the very end for our adult men. They always want to try to provide for their families and then they think of themselves last. This is an opportunity for you to do something for your children by keeping yourself healthy. Gracias. Find out the information. Yo con todo respeto del Presidente El Congreso que pasaron esta ley tan precioso. We've got to make it work. Tell your family members and your friends. There's still more time. And then ask the questions of these folks. Thank you for being here and I look forward to continue to serving you every once in a while como farmacética aquí en Davila Pharmacy, but most of all as a public servant in this state of Texas. Muchísimas gracias and thank you so much for investing in your families by trying to keep them healthy. Thank you so much, Senator, for your words and your service. And as I said, we want to keep moving this along. So Albino Wise, Mr. Wise, thank you. If you'll come right here to Don Burke, you're next up. Don, let me give this to you because we don't want to slow this down. But Gabe, you've got some other important officials here. That's exactly right. And I want to call up another individual who is just a fantastic public servant. He's an individual who I also hold in very high regard. He's your councilman Ray Lopez from District 6. Some of you guys are here from District 6. Councilman Ray Lopez. Thank you, Gabe. And Congressman, thank you very much for your continued leadership in bringing this kind of service, this kind of outreach to our community. We need it. We have to have it. And it's really about the well-being of our families, the quality of life. Muchísimas gracias por todos estar aquí esta mañana para platicar sobre las cosas que son importantes, la salud de nuestra familia. Also want to tell you that there are other services that are here that have to do with health. Health from an educational perspective, for example. We have the Pre-K for SA folks that are signing up. Many of you know about Pre-K for SA. Many of you have participated in that. For our young folks, we're getting ready to open up a Westside Pre-K for SA center so that we can get our children to have that healthy mentality, that healthy opportunity to go out and learn so that they can become the kinds of citizens we want them to be. So we're offering all kinds of health care here today. But the one that's most important is the one we're talking about, the Affordable Care Act. This is an important piece of legislation that has had so many obstacles. So many people saying that it is a bad thing. And there is nothing bad about it. As a matter of fact, everything about it is good. It's good for every family, particularly our families. Nuestras familias que están aquí en este lado de la ciudad que necesitan los hilos, necesitan las cosas para tener la calidad de vida que todos queremos darle a nuestros hijos. Nuestra salud es la cosa más importante que le podamos dar a nuestra familia. Esa es la oportunidad. Las gentes que dicen que no es bueno es porque no entienden lo que está pasando en nuestro barrio. Thank you very much for being here today. We look forward to providing you all the level of support and all the level of outreach for generations to come and to make sure these folks right here, when they get to be our age, have an opportunity to have a great great community. Thank you very much for being here. All right, we're going to go ahead and continue the program. This individual served this community and continues to serve this community for years upon years. Somebody again who did such a fantastic job as a city council member, as with Councilman Ray Lopez, makes me wish that there's no such thing as term limits, but she's the former District 5 Councilwoman. Ladies and gentlemen, a big West Side round of applause for Ms. Patty Radle. Gracias. Well, soy muy feliz que ustedes están aquí. Muchas gracias a Lloyd Doggett in the West Side Chamber para su trabajo a poner esta oportunidad para todos nosotros para registrar, para the Affordable Care Act. I'm glad to see so many people here. Pero sabes que tenemos otra responsabilidad. Ustedes saben que hay muchas personas que no están aquí porque no tienen el dinero, no tienen el trabajo para pagar para esta insurrence. Y tenemos la responsabilidad to pay attention to our next big elections in November. Por favor, no vota para una persona que no tiene el corazón para los personas que no tienen trabajo, que no tienen el trabajo para pagar para insurrence. Be careful. We know someone here has a great heart for those people who need this kind of insurance and for those people who cannot yet afford it. So please keep in mind when the elections come pay attention to those who have el corazón for people who struggle. Thank you and so glad to see you here. All right Patty thank you so much and of course at the West Chamber we're a group of businesses from the West Side of San Antonio that comes together to a improve each and every one of those individual businesses but they go out of the community they dedicate their resources to make sure that we can put on these types of events for each and every one of you and I'd like to right quick call out a couple of our chamber members that are here you can give them a round of applause we've got Mr. Dan Barrett from Barrett Insurance is here Dan thank you so much for coming out today also Mr. Carlo Rodriguez one of our MS Audio's our ambassadors from the San Antonio Business Alliance thanks so much there's just a couple of the chamber members that are here in support of each and every one of you and we've got some fantastic partners here today that are making sure that you guys are getting taken care of from Communicare I'd love to call up to the stage a very special individual Mr. Paul Wynn from Communicare well thank you very much for being here it is exciting I'm like a lot of y'all I came from another country here the United States and I know that the healthcare is very complicated and complex and and I've been waiting for a day where we now have healthcare access for everybody and thank you to the great leadership like the congressman the senator the city councilman and city councilwoman it's made we're able to implement these health access for you all on my on my part at Communicare my job is to make try to make the healthcare access a lot simpler for y'all so at Communicare we provide medical, dental, behavioral health, vision care all in one site that way because I also know that a lot of you are you know look at ways to transport yourself there you don't have vehicles so there you can get everything in one stop so that's my job just to find solution to make it a lot simpler for you to access healthcare so we also when you when you start rolling into the health exchange you can see all different type of insurance we also have another colleague here that I work with and that's community first they have a great health plans as well and we also see those patients that are under community first so once you get insured please look us up we provide one-stop shop medical, dental, behavioral health, vision we see pediatric, OB, family so we'll be your family doctor we will be your family medical home so please take a look at us we have a table here we have a lot of gifts here for you and also we invite you to come and take a look at our sites they're very nice they have all sorts of different high tech and technology for you to be available for you and again if there's any access issue you can always call me because I also want to make sure that when you call you get an appointment within that week so thank you for being here to enroll into the health insurance and I'm going to turn over to a colleague of mine who have the community first health plans thank you both I'll be brief so we can get down to business of why we're here we a community first are proud to help participate and sponsor this event as seen Antonio's only not-for-profit local health plan we've been around for 18 years providing benefits and coverages to people in our community staffed and provided by people who live in our communities we all know that the affordable care act provides an opportunity now for us to expand our mission our mission is to create access to health care coverage for those individuals who don't have it that's why we support the accountable care act congressman docket told us in san antonio we got to do a little better job in terms of enrolling people throughout the state of texas a lot of fellow Texans have done a better job but still not a good job in texas there's 750,000 people who are eligible for coverage on the exchange about 415,000 of those are eligible for subsidy assistance only 295,000 folks have signed up in the state of texas so although that's good 295,000 people have signed up we're still 450,000 people who have it now i will be the first to admit that picking insurance coverage can be confusing you got many organizations you got many health plans you got deductibles you got copays you got different doctors you got different hospitals that's why we have all these people here to help you make those decisions talk to the folks that are here ask your questions they will answer your questions or give you the information that you need to make the best decision for you and your family even if you don't pick community first as one of your insurance carriers pick somebody today a lot of people view insurance as well i need that in case i get a big bill and i need to go to the hospital and that's important and it's good to have it for that reason the main reason is what senator van depute told us is so that you can develop a relationship with the physician and go through the checkups the health care's the screenings so we find things before you get sick and have to go into the hospital today so congratulations and thank you for coming here today and thank you to all of our elected officials who thank you so much for being here all the work community care does uh i appreciate uh council member lopez being here he's been in my office a number of times in washington uh as an advocate for safe neighborhoods now he's responsible for all the traffic in san atonio uh whether finding a solution for all the traffic in san atonio and heading our metropolitan planning organization and patty ladle who's served this community in so many ways now with our schools but concerned as a voice for on hunger issues on housing with rod we really appreciate your advocacy for this community and though she has not gotten here she played a big role in this event and its success council member charlie guanzales i want to uh to honor also raise colleague great great folks so one other uh this is a a totally non-political event it's a public service event to invite people of all philosophies to participate in health insurance but as you know we cover early childhood today water and electric bills and the like one of the other key issues is being sure that you do participate fully in our democracy if you are an american citizen you're entitled to register to vote jennifer longoria jennifer will you want to wave is here to do non-partisan voter registration so if you are not registered as a voter jennifer's here with an assistant please be sure that you sign up to register so that you have a say whether it is the school board or the white house the city council the state legislature laticia vandepute whatever we need every citizen registered to vote and participating so that your children and your family have a say and it's very easy to do that jennifer is a voter registrar to register people of any party or a policy to sign up so jennifer thank you for being out here today and then we salute you i want to be sure we have some flyers at the back door as i mentioned uh our office is right down by santa osa hospital across from the frost drive in we're on the sidewalk so that anyone can come in i know that many of you from visiting or from different parts of the community that i don't reach to you either have walking castrol who's doing a great job in washington or peak iyago or one of the other members from our area but i am fortunate to have a great team when i'm in washington an all san Antonio base team i introduced andrew solano who worked previously with ray andrew thank you very much for your leadership today Guillermo Villal is a recent veteran and he works with veterans every day if you're a veteran and you have an issue he deserves a round of applause thank you Guillermo please uh visit with him if there's some veterans issue that we can help on or military issue darlene deus recently at the council thank you darlene with councilman chris medina who also helped us today and mark rena who's been with me from the start they are there to serve you so gabe let me turn it back over to you uh let's again if you have a problem today or you have a neighbor or a co-worker or someone at school who has a problem about insurance let us know we may not be able to solve the problem now but we want this law to work for everyone in bear county gabe thank you for your partnership and your leadership on today great to be with you