Rebecca Cerese

Rebecca Cerese is a social justice activist, award-winning documentary filmmaker and a passionate healthcare advocate. She was the first ever Health Engagement Coordinator at the NC Justice Center, and is now the Health Policy Advocate, working with coalition partners and community members around the state to promote better healthcare policies for all North Carolinians.  In that role, Cerese partners with people who have been directly impacted by our dysfunctional healthcare system to amplify their stories and fight for policy changes.   

Her passion for healthcare justice comes from a very personal place:, watching her mother struggle through breast cancer treatment without any insurance. Never wanting another family to have to deal with that kind of financial stress, Cerese got involved with health advocacy during the ACA hearings and has been pushing to transform our healthcare system ever since.  

For the last 5 years, Cerese and the Health Advocacy Project (HAP) have worked on a campaign to expand Medicaid that centered the experiences of individuals and families who had been negatively impacted by North Carolina’s decision to delay enacting Medicaid expansion. Utilizing personal stories, advocacy days, letters to the editor, press conferences, postcards campaigns and other tactics helped to push the state legislature to finally expand Medicaid.  The HAP team is now focused on enrolling every last eligible person into Medicaid with a robust education and outreach strategy in partnership with organizations and individuals across our state.  

She is also a proud founding member of the NC Medicare For All Coalition – a diverse coalition made up of 45 different organizations and individuals committed to fighting for a universal single-payer healthcare system that puts patients over profits.  

 

View Rebecca Cerese's Publications