Rock legend Elvis Costello takes the stage tomorrow night in a benefit performance for Open Door Family Medical Centers in Ossining, NY. Costello, whose musical career spanned more than three decades and produced such classic hits as the ballad “Alison,” will take the stage solo at the Performing Arts Center at Purchase College. The cause of affordable and accessible health care was enough to convince Costello, who told the local Journal News that the mission of Open Door piqued his interest.
“I could quite literally say I wouldn’t be here today were it not for the fact that there was accessible health care (in England), with all the flaws — and no one pretends it’s a perfect system,” he says. “My parents’ and grandparents’ generation, being working-class people, did not have that. There are members of my family who lived shorter lives than they might have done, because they couldn’t get it.”
Founded in 1972, Open Door provides medical and dental care, as well as school-based health centers and social services to low-income county residents. Funded by local, state and federal grants as well as private foundations and individual donations, Open Door treated 41,000 patients — including 13,482 children — last year alone.