Leslie Boyd Email and Phone Number

I spent nearly three decades as a newspaper reporter covering social justice issues. I was writing about the health insurance crisis back in 1992, when a mere 16 million people were uninsured. I knew the system well, but not well enough to save my own son's life when he was denied insurance because a birth defect is a pre-existing condition and then was denied care because he couldn't pay up front. I learned the Emergency Room is not the answer and I learned that tens of thousands of people die for those same reasons every year in the United States. So, in 2009, I founded a nonprofit, Life o' Mike, which last year became WNC Health Advocates. Now I get to learn about running a nonprofit.We offer health care advocacy, education and support to people in the system, most significantly, to those not being served adequately by the system, and we work toward a system that will be accessible to all people.