Barack Obama’s campaign arm, Organizing for America, released on Tuesday a major new online tool designed to personalize the debate over health care reform and galvanize grassroots support for the president’s plan.
The organization, started during the 2008 election, launched a new web page that officials are describing as a “health-care story bank.” The site, officially titled “Health Care Stories for America,” allows OFA’s 13-million member list — as well as countless others — to share and find tales of individual health care struggles. Visitors can search for the stories by geography (using an online map), amplify the ones they find compelling through a voting mechanism, and describe experiences of their own. The goal, according to the site, is to illuminate a “common thread in crisis that affects us all.”