A Field Trip To Tampa

On March 28th we kicked off the 1RG Incubator. We brought together the six participants in the incubator, a sizeable contingent of our mentors, and just one of the 1RG co-founders. I was nowhere to be seen. Instead I was in Florida. For work, no less!

1RG encompasses three ventures: a space for tech weirdos, an incubator for projects with community benefit, and a consulting lab focused on technology in the public interest. This is a story about a 1RG Labs project.

One of our clients works on organizing progressive campaigns in the United States, and we build internal tools for them to automate their processes. I was in Florida to help them get set up for Florida Decides Healthcare. This is a campaign that's very near and dear to my heart, so it was a privilege to get to contribute to it and meet some of the people involved.

I grew up in the States. I moved to Canada at 18, and one of the things that I was always keenly aware of is the healthcare system here. When I started my first startup, we went through Y Combinator, and the question of whether we would stay in Silicon Valley or go back to Canada came up a lot during fundraising. We always knew the answer, we would go against the conventional wisdom of Silicon Valley people at the time and would go back to Toronto after YC.

In Toronto, we had access to cheap housing (at the time!), and I knew that if we raised a pittance we could use it to grind away on our startup for as long as we needed to. Because we had healthcare in Canada. I knew that I had the safety net that would treat me when I got sick, and this gave me the freedom to choose to take big risks in my career. I knew that I would never have a medical emergency that would force me to find a job with benefits, so I could take risks like start co-working spaces, incubators and consultancies.

Back to Florida. Medicaid is a blanket term for a series of state-run programs that provide healthcare access to people making below a certain income. The story is that during the Obama era, as part of the Affordable Care Act, they expanded Medicaid. The Supreme Court ruled that the Federal Government couldn't force any state to expand their state-run program, so they could just offer the money to do so, but the states had to agree to do so. Ten states chose not to take the federal money to expand healthcare access, including Florida. Right now, in Florida you have to make a combined income of less than $7,500 a year to qualify for Medicaid. If they expand coverage, using money that's already available to them, the income cut-off goes up to $34,000. This will give healthcare to 1.4 million Floridians!

A cool thing about Florida is that they have direct voting for referendums. So if you get enough signatures from registered voters, you can ask the people of Florida a question at the next election. That's where Florida Decides Healthcare comes in, they want to get a measure on the ballot to expand medicaid access, and if they succeed, and the people of Florida vote yes on this measure, 1.4 million Floridians will have access to healthcare.

This project involves democracy, and saving people's lives! It's a real privilege to get to contribute to this sort of work as part of 1RG Labs. Although, I did have a lot of FOMO about missing the incubator's kick-off.

I didn't have a lot of time to do things other than work this trip, but I can report to you the following three Tampa facts:

• Tampa Pride happens in March (I guess it's too hot in June?)
• One of Tampa's signature dishes is deviled crab, a deep-fried concoction that I am very glad I ate but am not rushing to have a second time.
• I came across a very cool art-deco sign for the church of scientology. It's big in Florida!