By CASSANDRA SHOFAR

Staff Writer

MEDINA — After trekking more than 500 miles in the eastern half of the state to promote a health care initiative, Dave Pavlick made a final overnight stop Monday before walking the last leg home today.

Pavlick, 55, a member of SPAN (Single Payer Action Network) Ohio, left his hometown of Cleveland on Sept. 1 to walk for a cause he believes in — making sure everyone in Ohio has health care coverage.

Having hiked foothills and the Appalachian Mountains, Pavlick stayed with city resident Ken Klein, whom he hadn’t met before Monday.

“Somebody I knew that knew him asked if he could put me up for a night,” said Pavlick, who used vacation time to make the journey.

Klein added: “So I said, yeah — after I asked my wife, of course.”

SPAN Ohio — a grassroots group with 23 chapters throughout the state — has formulated an initiative petition called Health Care for All Ohioans Act, which members hope will come before the state legislature if they get enough signatures, said Pavlick, who joined the group in 2002.

“We need 120,000 in order to get it in front of the legislature. We’ve got around 90,000,” he said.

Wearing a T-shirt that reads “Ohioans are dying for health care,” Dave Pavlick could be seen walking state Route 57 toward Medina on Monday. He is taking his second walk across Ohio for a cause. Pavlick, who has great health insurance coverage, said he is walking for others and has been walking since Sept. 1. (Shirley Ware | Photo Editor)

Pavlick always has had health insurance. He grew up with a father who was a union carpenter, and then he joined the Marines before working 26 years with the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department. He now is an international representative for Region 2B of the UAW.

So his passion to help get all state residents insured didn’t come from his experience, but from hearing about the experiences of others and from a speech by a doctor from Toledo Mercy Hospital in 2002.

Pavlick said he’d always been of the mind that those uninsured should stop being lazy and go out and get a job.

“But the way (the doctor) laid everything out, got me thinking I was wrong,” he said. “I didn’t realize there were people out there working a lot harder than me who weren’t insured. You can’t blame the hospitals or the insurance companies; it’s the system that has to change.”

A single-payer health care system would establish a public fund that would pay health care bills without co-payments and deductibles, SPAN’s Web site says.

Pavlick explained it would eliminate all the insurance companies in the state and the state would serve as one insurance company, guaranteeing everyone’s coverage and allowing them to choose their own doctors and services.

“The 1,500 private health insurance companies that currently do this work — each raking in profits for its stockholders and each with its own expensive bureaucracy and complicated policies — would no longer be involved as middle men,” the Web site says. “Medicare is an example of a single-payer plan.”

Pavlick added: “The free market system (in place now) isn’t working. It’s just catering to where the money is, not the need.”

Having walked 600 miles along the western half of the state in 2006, Pavlick decided it was time to do the same along the eastern half, hoping to raise more awareness about the issue.

His favorite part of doing the journey is meeting people from all walks of life — teachers, waitresses, musicians, doctors and retired professors — and hearing their stories about health care.

“People are so nice,” he said, adding he has been put up for a night by churches, friends of people he knows or who are members of SPAN, and was even put up for an evening by the sheriff of Noble County, who brought a cot into the courtroom for Pavlick to sleep on.

“One lady saw me walking from Geneva to Ashtabula. She pulled in a driveway in front of me and decided I needed two bottles of Gatorade, so she gave them to me. Then she decided I needed sunblock, so she proceeded to put some on me and then shoved the bottle in my backpack for later,” Pavlick said with a laugh. “People do what little they can to help.”

Klein’s son, Adam, 35, was driving with Klein Monday afternoon on state Route 57 when they spotted Pavlick walking.

“We picked him up and it was like he was a part of the family right then,” Klein said, joking that if he’d been the one driving, he’d have passed him up and made him walk the rest of the way.

“I said to Adam, ‘you’re not supposed to pick up hitchhikers,’ ” he added with a laugh.

Pavlick said he wasn’t tired, adding this walk was a lot cooler than the last one, literally.

“I walked in July in 2006,” he said, adding this time the walk was a lot more scenic.

“Though there were some hills I didn’t like so much,” he said, laughing.

More and more people are joining SPAN, Pavlick said, and he hopes to get enough signatures to finally bring the petition before legislature.

He added while it will most likely get voted down, causing them to have to get a second round of 120,000 new signatures, once they get those, the bill will have to be put on the ballot for a vote by the people.

“I’ve spent many years banging my head against the brick walls, but what I’ve found is my head keeps healing, the wall keeps getting weaker,” he said. “Eventually it’ll crash down.”

Those interested in SPAN Ohio or the initiative petition can find information at www.spanohio.org.

Shofar may be reached at 330-721-4044 or cshofar@ohio.net.

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