Health care costs in Summit County are among the highest in the country.
Glenn Brady and his three daughters know well the struggles that follow those high costs. Brady has boxes and boxes of medical bills stacked next to his desk that he still has to pay off. They are all from his late wife’s cancer treatments.
“We didn’t have time the last few months to worry about is this in-network or out of network,” he said. “It was just, like, let’s try this new thing to see if it can extend her life or push the cancer back.”
“But, you know, it didn’t work.”
A couple of years ago, a group of Summit County residents had enough. So, they started a nonprofit working to lower costs: the Peak Health Alliance.
When Brady reached out to Peak Health Alliance in October, he was paying $1,800 a month for health insurance. One phone call later, his monthly premium was $800 lower.
"When I first heard about Peak Health Alliance I was kind of skeptical," he said. "I feel bad now because they delivered. Everything that they said was exactly, dead to rights, true."
Brady said that money now can go toward dentist appointments and dance and ski lessons for his 10, 12 and 14-year-olds.
"It just flies out the window as fast as it comes in," he said. "It goes toward filling up the refrigerator twice a week. I don't know how my daughters eat that much food, but somehow, it all gets emptied out."
Tamara Pogue founded Peak Health Alliance with funding from the Summit Foundation.
"We saw families making devastating decisions," Pogue said. "Families that just couldn't afford to take their kids to the doctor, and then you see those outcomes play out in school with kids not doing well. It was a crisis for our community, and we were fairly frustrated because we felt the state and the federal government had largely ignored our struggle."