Health

Vision

Families experience healthcare not as a budget line or legislative talking point, but as a question of whether life can be sustained with dignity and security. Can I see a doctor without risking financial ruin? Will my child receive mental health support in a crisis? Can a farmworker who feeds the state remain healthy enough to work and care for family? Health is shaped not only in clinics and hospitals, but by the conditions of daily life — work, housing, environment, and public infrastructure.

Across faith traditions, protecting life means more than responding to emergencies; it means building the conditions for people to flourish. In civic language, this is the common good — the shared responsibility to safeguard the health and well-being of every community.

West/Southwest IAF affiliates organize where systems fail to protect life.

In Arizona and Nebraska, leaders overcame partisan division to win Medicaid expansion, bringing coverage to tens of thousands of working adults. In Los Angeles and Monterey County, One LA and COPA negotiated county programs — Esperanza Care and My Health LA — extending access to undocumented and low-income residents and influencing statewide policy. In Central Iowa, AMOS built a new child crisis response system and secured public investment to expand and diversify the mental health workforce. In Texas, affiliates secured hospitals in high-need areas and continue pressing officials to expand coverage for students and families.
Healthcare, in our work, is not charity. It is organized people strengthening civic foundations so that life — in its full human breadth — is protected and sustained.

Impact

1. Medicaid Expansion in Arizona and Nebraska

   Pima County Interfaith, Valley Interfaith Project (VIP), and the Arizona Interfaith Network worked across party lines to pass Medicaid expansion in Arizona.

   In Nebraska, with healthcare access on the line for 90,000 residents, OTOC leaders and allies advanced a successful statewide ballot initiative to expand Medicaid.

2. Supporting Children’s Mental Health & Mental Healthcare Workers in Central Iowa

   In 2021, AMOS developed a new child crisis support system—including a hotline, youth stabilization center, and trained mobile crisis team (more here and here). The following year, they leveraged a $1.8 million county investment to grow, diversify, and retain the local mental health workforce (more here).

3. Healthcare Access in California for Undocumented & Low Income Residents

   In 2026, COPA revived Esperanza Care, a county-supported health program they developed and expanded that has served more than 4,500 undocumented adults (more here, here, and here). When undocumented immigrants were later at risk of losing state health coverage, California IAF leaders successfully urged legislators to restore access.

   One LA leaders played a pivotal role in launching and implementing My Health LA, expanding care for low-income and undocumented residents. Years later, they advanced county action to preserve and enhance the program, protecting access for 146,000 people, and integrating mental health services.

4. Increasing Access to Healthcare in Texas, Especially for the Most Vulnerable

   After its first 1985 victory securing legislation for indigent healthcare, Texas IAF has continued to expand access statewide. In recent years, its organizing contributed to expanding eligibility for an additional 127,000 children to receive free or low-cost coverage, to extending Medicaid for low-income mothers to one year postpartum, and to securing new health clinics, a children’s hospital, a diabetes care center, a Level One Trauma Center, and a hospital expansion in El Paso, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston (more here).

5. Preventing Senior Hunger in Nevada

   When over 1,000 food-insecure seniors were on the waiting list for meal assistance, Nevadans for the Common Good (NCG) proposed and secured $3.4 million in state funding for Meals on Wheels, eliminating the waiting list and providing increased annual investment.