As he begins overhauling America’s health-care system, President-elect Barack Obama said he wants to hear what average Americans have to say on the subject.

He will be hearing from Corvallis, said Betty Johnson of the Mid-Valley Health Care Advocates.

She led a forum Friday at the Sunnyside-Up cafe, where more than 50 people crowded in to share their thoughts. “We really think our health-care system is broken, and we want to fix it,” she said.

The crowd agreed. And what they seem to agree on most is that the system cares more about profits than people.

“As long as it’s a profit-driven system, we’ll never have a decent health-care system,” said Steve Hoop. The people who make the money have a financial interest in treating people when they’re sick rather than keeping them well, he said. “It’s a system that makes more money off people being sick.”

Obama has said he and his health-care team — headed by former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle — want to work jointly with Congress to overhaul the health-care system, rather than produce a separate White House bill.

“The only way for this to work is to have both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue working hand-in-glove,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said in a press release. “And all signs are that’s how it will proceed. It’s not Congress or the White House. It’s both together.”

The American people are also an integral part of that process, Obama has said.

If Obama and congressional leaders are sincere, Mario E. Magaña said at the forum, there needs to be a fundamental shift in how government leaders view health care. “We treat health care as a commodity, and that’s obscene,” he said.

Molly Montesano told people at the forum she spends $13,000 a year on private health insurance, and there are far too many things not covered by insurance. “I want to see affordable health care for everyone and not have it tied to employment,” she said.

Jenni Malm said many people are afraid of the concept of universal health care because of the specter of socialism. People need to realize America is not a purely capitalistic or purely socialistic society, she said. “We need a blend of both.”

Forum participants offered a number of solutions to help solve America’s health-care problems. These solutions — including a single-payer system and more emphasis on preventative care, alternative medicine and tort reform — will be forwarded to Obama’s team.

The more people involved in the process the better, said Len Nichols, a health economist at the New America Foundation and the senior manager of health policy at the White House budget office in 1993 and 1994, in an interview in the Boston Globe.

“That is the right strategy,” he said. “Clinton tried the alternative, which is to go write it yourself in a hotel room and drive it up there and plop it down before Congress. It didn’t work too well.”