Andy Moore
Bobby Peterson: “I knew this was the kind of work I wanted to do as an attorney.”
The offspring of a Milwaukee working-class family, Bobby Peterson felt out-of-place surrounded by privileged classmates at UW-Madison Law School in the early 1980s. Peterson says he “kind of stumbled into law school” and lacked purpose on campus — until he began a research project that would take him into rural Wisconsin and inspire his life’s work.
For the project, called “The Needs of Wisconsin’s Rural Uninsured,” Peterson dug through the court records of farmers and rural residents being sued over unpaid medical bills, and then interviewed them in order to learn more about their situations.
It was the beginning of Peterson’s education about which federal programs could provide some relief and what loopholes led to people getting denied benefits. “I was really kind of stubborn and knew this was the kind of work I wanted to do as an attorney,” says Peterson, whose soft voice belies his gangly, six-foot-plus frame. “It resonated with me and I said, I can help these people.”
That research gave Peterson purpose in his law studies and helped launch ABC for Health, the nonprofit he runs out of the former Mifflin Street Co-op building. The organization is celebrating its 25th year. And the deck remains stacked against the poor who seek health care in many of the same ways as when Peterson started.
The “ABC” in the law firm’s title stands for “Advocacy and Benefits Counseling for Health.” Since 1994, Peterson and his small staff have dedicated their time to helping families obtain, maintain, and finance health care coverage and services. With a priority of low-income families and families with children with special health care needs, ABC has responded to over 60,000 family member requests for assistance. That said, the organization provides referral services to anyone who contacts the office. These days the firm’s average client is an uninsured single female with one child who is living under the poverty level and has medical debt.
The ABC organization now offers many services that didn’t exist at its founding, including a new software Peterson’s team developed called “Advocus,” a patient health care coverage program that — sort of like TurboTax — responds to the input of information by instantly sending the user to applicable services and government programs.
ABC partners with health providers, too. The firm advocates for patients alongside the administration at St. Mary’s hospital, for example. Frank Byrne, president of St. Mary’s from 2004 to 2015, says “ABC for Health is improving and saving lives every day with every person they touch, with every family they touch.”
To hear Peterson describe the work, it’s clear he wears several hats on any given day: attorney, advocate, educator, human being. When asked what he believes is the most important hat, he says, without hesitation, human being.
Indeed it was the human being who briefly pushed back tears when he thanked the crowd of staff and supporters at ABC’s 25th birthday party on July 1 at the organization’s headquarters. The people-first history of the building, the site of one of Madison’s early food co-ops, provides daily inspiration for Peterson’s group. In fact, plans are afoot for the restoration of the old mural that is painted on the co-op’s flank of bricks facing Mifflin Street, including the script at the top, a slogan that has more than a little carryover into ABC’s mission: “Control of Our Food is Control of the Life Within Us.”