The Michigan Cover the Uninsured Network (MCTUN) is a year-around statewide public education, advocacy, and access initiative dedicated to providing affordable health coverage for all Michigan citizens.

MCTUN is staffed by a team of communications professionals who have effectively organized the national Cover the Uninsured Week events and activities here in Michigan over the past seven years, consistently ranked the #1 team in the country by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for its coalition building, media relations, and advocacy work on behalf of the uninsured.

During this period, our team has organized a series of highly publicized events and activities designed to highlight different constituencies — including local, state, and federal elected officials; business and labor organizations; healthcare providers; health and medical education groups; religious leaders; consumer groups; and advocacy organizations — and their unique roles in relation to the problems facing Americans who do not have health insurance.

Our effort here in Michigan to address the issue of the uninsured has resulted in an unprecedented level of collaboration among a diverse group of stakeholders, reflected in part by the list of Honorary Co-Chairs and influential organizations that co-sponsored this year’s 2009 initiative.

What started out as a coalition of 200 organizations in 2003 is now well over 1500, representing some of the state’s leading agencies and organizations. In effect, we have been able to build an informed “network” of agencies and organizations committed to health coverage for the more than 1.2 million uninsured individuals in Michigan, while calling for a national solution.

This initiative capitalizes on the groundswell of activity in Michigan to reduce the number of our residents living without health insurance and seeks to strengthen our capacity to promote innovative and comprehensive health reform at both the state and national levels. This effort is strengthened by our ability to:

• Analyze complex legal and policy issues in order to develop achievable policy alternatives that will attract broad support.
• Engage opinion leaders and build a strong grass roots base of support.
• Design and implement media and other communications strategies to build timely public and political support for reform and weaken opposition arguments.
• Build and sustain strong broad-based coalitions and maintain strategic alliances with other stakeholders.
• Develop and implement strategic health policy campaigns.
• Generate resources from diverse sources to build organizational infrastructure and maintain core functions and implement enrollment and outreach campaigns.