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17 Held in Protest Outside Health Insurer’s Offices
Right-wing and antigovernment activists — a few of them wielding not only signs but even loaded firearms — have organized some of the angry protests surrounding the health care debate. But in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday morning, a different sort of health care protest took place, led by left-leaning groups who accused insurers of greed and called for nationwide, single-payer health insurance.
(www.mobilizeforhealthcare.org) The police said that 17 people were arrested after refusing to leave the lobby of an office building on Park Avenue where the insurance company Aetna has offices. They were charged with criminal trespass. In addition, the police said, three of those arrested were charged with obstructing governmental administration.
Organizers said it was the first step of a national campaign meant to publicize their views and challenge claims made by right-wing radio hosts and Republican officials.
“The myths about government death panels are pure hysteria,” an organizer, Mark Milano, said on Park Avenue. “The real death panels are people who are paid by insurance companies to deny health care to patients.”
About 50 people arrived at the Park Avenue building at 10 a.m., participants said, and sent a representative to the Aetna offices upstairs to demand that the company agree to immediately approve “lifesaving” health care requests made by doctors. When that person was turned away, organizers said, 16 protesters entered the lobby of the building and sat on the floor.
Soon the police arrived and a senior officer used a bullhorn to inform those in the lobby that they were breaking the law and subject to arrest. By 10:45, officers could be seen removing the last of the demonstrators and ushering them into the back of police vans.
A spokeswoman for Aetna, Cynthia Michener, said that no protester visited the company’s office on Tuesday.
“Aetna has been actively engaged in health reform,” she wrote in an e-mail message. “When you put yourself out there like we have on this issue, you make yourself a target. But there is more agreement than disagreement on the need to get reform done. It is important we work together to make health care reform a reality this year.”
Ms. Michener added:
Broadly, Aetna ’s goals are to get everyone covered, improve the quality of health outcomes and provide better value for each dollar spent on care. We’re committed to guaranteed coverage without regard to pre-existing conditions along with an individual requirement to get everyone in the system and subsidies for those who can’t afford it.
Outside, a crowd chanted “patients not profits” and said that large insurers routinely made decisions on what sorts of treatment to cover based more on cost than medical necessity.
“This is very much a dignified, nonviolent response to what some people call the howler movement that erupted in August,” said Katie Robbins, part of an advocacy group called Healthcare Now.
There has been a backlash from some quarters against Mr. Obama’s support for a public insurance plan that would compete with private insurers.
Ms. Robbins advocates on behalf of a bill before the House of Representatives that would, essentially, expand Medicare to cover all citizens. She said organizers from several groups across the country, with networks in 40 states, had been working together for about six weeks on a campaign they called Mobilization for Healthcare for All.
The groups have organized using a Web site and Twitter. So far, organizers said, 300 people have signed up to take part in additional protests using civil disobedience and aimed at insurance companies that are being planned for October, while legislators are expected to be working on health care issues.
“We’re going to be in Chicago next week and L.A. the week after that,” Ms. Robbins said. “We’re timing this around the legislative efforts of Congress.”
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13 Comments so far
Show All“We’re going to be in Chicago next week and L.A. the week after that,” YEEHAAA!!! Sorry, couldn't resist. Does anyone knows where and when the Chicago protest will be?
No, but their message should be, "Single-payer OR SINGLE TERM!".
"Broadly, Aetna ’s goals are to get everyone covered, improve the quality of health outcomes and provide better value for each dollar spent on care. We’re committed to guaranteed coverage without regard to pre-existing conditions along with an individual requirement to get everyone in the system and subsidies for those who can’t afford it."
Of course that's what Aetna wants! What insurance company wouldn't? How much exactly do they stand to make with 40 million more people being forced to purchase their product for profit?
My medical insurance costs about $15,000 per year for a family of four (My employer self-insures and our insurance is not-for-profit). So let's multiply that by 10 million. That's 150 billion. With an approximately 30% profit margin, the insurance industry stands to make about 45 billion in profits with a subsidized public option. I am quite confident that I'm being conservative in my estimates.
What's not to love?
At first I didn't think that Pelosi would deliver, but now, I think I've changed my mind.
The people will dance in the streets thinking they've won.
The insurance company execs will take their celebratory junkets and invite a few congress people along to give speeches.
An infinite revenue stream.
Boy, the bankers must feel like fools.
Actually, the bankers, too, have a nearly infinite stream of money being funneled into their coffers, through various programs. At this moment, I think they're up to about $18 trillion -- according to the most recent article written by Nomi Prins. On about July 26 or 27, 2009, Glenn Greenwald, salon.com, interviewed Neal Barofsky, the Inspector General for T.A.R.P., and Barofsky told Mr. Greenwald that the so-called programs add up to $24 trillion. Inspector General Barofsky is receiving NO cooperation from the Dept. of the Treasury. No surprise!
Here's the actual link:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/26/barofsky/index.html
It was meant tongue-in-cheek... The banksters have it made. But the public option is a corporate gravy train in perpetuity.
Those who think the public option is a step in the right direction, it's competition, it's going to lead to universal health care, are under the delusion that government works for the citizens. The "pubic option debate" is a ruse. The government and the insurance companies are getting exactly what they want to get and spending millions to make the people want it to.
Kevin Zeese also advocated doing the same thing yesterday on Democracy Now!. As T.R. Reid points out in his book The Healing of America, the huge difference between insurance companies in the United States and those in countries like Germany where people are mandated to buy insurance is that the insurance companies in those countries that have universal health care are non-profit while those in the US are trying to squeeze every nickel and dime they can out of the insured. Also, in a country like Japan, the Japanese insurance companies, as Reid points out, "are non-profit; they exist to pay medical bills, not to earn a profit for investors."In Germany as well as in Japan, a worker who has lost his or her job keeps his or her health insurance, with government picking up the employer's share of the premium. On suspects that the chances are slim to none that the government would allow that to occur in this country.
I saw Kevin Zeese on Democracy Now! Dr. Paul Hochfeld, one of the "Mad As Hell" doctors from Oregon, also appeared on the same program.
This morning, Amy again interviewed Wendell Potter, the ex-Cigna employee, turned whistleblower, who is doing every thing he can to try to change the debate by our elected officials. He has testified before congress, etc. Both Amy Goodman and Bill Moyers, on his Journal, devoted an entire hour to Mr. Potter on earlier dates.
Here's the link:
www.democracynow.org
As Pat LaMarche pointed out in her article posted on CD today, our elected officials are NOT representing their constituents. Of course, many of us already knew that -- but it's important to keep pointing to that fact!
Why do so many liberal pacifist types always want to go out and get themselves arrested? These groups would do much better to go out to the hospitals and nursing homes in the cities and suburbs repeatedly and protest without any arrests being involved. That would show the general public that something was wrong much more than a hidden away sitdown in Mid Manhattan does.
Now these folk will be in a courtroom facing misdemeanor charges against themselves. Are medical personnel really supposed to engage with this tactic over the long run? Maybe a few nuns and priests will but the rest of us NOT.
Don't you just love it when concerned citizens are "informed that they are breaking the law" by a law breaking corporate asshole?
Dictatorship is here, folks.
To the police officers who are "JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS".
I hope you've got a good medical insurance plan, because when they jack up your co-pay, reduce your benefits and price YOU out of catastrophic health care, we won't be able to help you. Stop being stupid. You are being used.
Trainer12
People just don't understand nonviolent campaigns. By getting arrested at health(death panel) insurance companies and putting the spot light on these profit sucking evil doers it does more for the healthcare rights movement. It is a classic "dilemma demonstration". If the for profit health care insurers stop denying claims and dropping coverage, that will put them out of business and bring about single payer, universal health care. By staying in jail, the protesters will have healthcare. Sooner or later, the government and the people will realize that it is cheaper to have single payer health care. I myself was in jail for only 4 days because I refused to pay a fine for sitting in at a nuclear power plant to stop it. While in jail, I had a complete physical by a physicians assistant, which I thought was weird. He took a complete health history. It may not be the best care, but better than none. I had my own HMO coverage that I paid for myself at the time. I only worked part time. Remember your history. When the Civil Rights movement filled up the jails and the MSM showed pictures of people lining up to register to vote or to "peacefully assemble to present their grievances and they were fire hosed, bitten by police dogs, beaten by police, gassed and arrested. People started lining up at the jails, children to, signing: "I ain't sacred of your jail, cause I want my freedom now." So let our anthem be in the Pete Singer tradition. "I ain't sacred of your jail, because I want my health care now!"
PEOPLE:
DENNIS KUCINICH HAS BEEN CONSISTENT IN SPEAKING OUT FOR SINGLE-PAYER MEDICARE FOR ALL HEALTH CARE.
PLEASE SUPPORT HIM WITH YOUR VOICE AND MONEY.
THE MAJORITY OF HIS CAMPAIGN DONATIONS COME FROM INDIVIDUALS. THIS IS WHY HE IS NOT A TOOL FOR THE CORPORATIONS AS OBAMA IS.
HE NEEDS THE FUNDS JUST LIKE THE REST, THOUGH, TO KEEP RUNNING AND GET ON THE BALLOT.
DENNIS KUCINICH WILL DELIVER ON HIS PROMISES.
HE IS NOT A HARVARD ELITIST LIVING IT UP ON MARTHA'S VINEYARD AND SPEWING HOLLOW RHETORIC OF "HOPE" AND "CHANGE".
HE SPEAKS IN SPECIFICS AND IS FOR THE PEOPLE AND IS ONE OF US.
Senators Rockefeller, Schumer, Stabenow and Widen of the Senate Finance Committee Sub-committee on Health, did a great job of pointing out that the Medical Industrial Complex's contribution to Health Care Reform, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is $20 BILLION and in return they will get $500 BILLION in TAX-PAYER FUNDED SUBSIDIES. Democratic Senators baucus, conrad, carper, lincoln and nelson voted with the republicans to kill the public option 09-09-29.Criminally corrupt politicians are the reason the U.S. is ranked near the bottom of every catagory when ranked next to other modern, industrialized nations. Time for publically funded elections.
lieberman $12.6M, mcconnell $7.8M, baucus $7.7M, cornyn $6.7M, kyl $5.6M, grassley $5.4M, ensign $5.2M, conrad $5.1M, cantor $4.9M, nelson $4.9M, burr $4.8M, boehner $4.4M, hatch $4.4M, lincoln $4.1M, vitter $3.9M, carper $3.6M were paid by the Medical Industrial Complex to kill Health Care Reform. (Source: OpenSecrets.org Aug. 09)
Follow the Money: http://hmc-lavadogs.livejournal.com/20128.html
Call Congress and demand, Single-Payer Health Care for All!
(Toll Free # House and Senate)
1-866-338-1015 _____ 1-866-220-0044
1-800-473-6711 _____ 1-866-311-3405
Sign Single-Payer Petitions: http://www.singlepayeraction.org/join.html http://www.americacantwait.com/TrueMajority
Don’t let the Medical Industrial Complex steal your Health Care from you and your family by donating huge sums of money to Crooked Politicians in order to maintain the Status Quo. Keep up the good fight.
SEMPER FI!