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Right now and throughout 2020, people across the country are convening National Issues Forums on health care as part of the Hidden Common Ground initiative. And for good reason. Gallup reported just a few weeks ago that 81 percent of Americans said health care is “very important” in this year’s presidential election, more than any other issue.

Hidden Common Ground. This year-long initiative is an innovative research and engagement partnership of USA TODAY, Public Agenda, NIF, the Kettering Foundation and America Amplified, a network of public radio stations. It’s putting new attention squarely on the kind of work we do – bringing citizens together to deliberate about the issues that concern them the most. The aim of Hidden Common Ground is to learn more about how people think about important public issues – health care, immigration, economic opportunity – not only how we differ about the best ways to address those problems, but also how we agree.

What you can do

• Convene a health care forum. A new issue guide, “Health Care: How Can We Bring Costs Down While Getting the Care We Need?”, has just been published, and NIF is making the guide and the supporting materials available free of charge. SIGN UP HERE
• Micro-grants of $150 are available from NIF’s partner organization Up to Us for forums using the “Health Care” guide. Applicants must be affiliated with a US-based college or university. It’s easy to apply!
• Join us February 18, 2020 at 2pm EST for a webinar to learn about our media partners in the Hidden Common Ground initiative and strategies for working with media in your community during the initiative and beyond. Register here.
• Need to get up to speed on Hidden Common Ground? Take a look at our December presentation introducing the initiative. 
• Want to learn more about moderating health care forums and what’s in the new guide? Take a look at our January presentation.

Although NIF is concentrating on health care over the next three months to coordinate with Public Agenda and USA TODAY, we are encouraging the network to hold forums on this issue throughout the year. 

Let us know what you’re doing and what you’re hearing

More than ever, we want you to tell us what happened. This partnership opens up multiple avenues for research and reporting, and we want to pursue as many as possible.

USA TODAY and America Amplified are very interested in the insights of these forums, and we already have been able to place op-ed pieces in USA TODAY and its affiliated newspapers. We also want to gather as many forum questionnaires as possible. We’ll be reporting on all of our Hidden Common Ground forums in early 2021.