Get News & Views Updates
Most Popular This Week
- Slaughter in Connecticut: 20 Children, 6 Adults Dead in Kindergarten Massacre
- Robots and Robber Barons
- The PSY Scandal: Singing about Killing People v. Constantly Doing It
- Study: World's Mighty Giants Dying off at Alarming Rate
- 'I'd Rather Fight Like Hell': Naomi Klein's Fierce New Resolve to Fight for Climate Justice
Popular content
Today's Top News
Protesters Plan ‘Citizens Arrests’ of Health Insurers’ Leaders in D.C.
A number of health reform advocates, including labor groups, plan to protest outside the hotel where a number of top health care executives are scheduled to meet in Washington, D.C., Tuesday (March 9).
People attend a 'Health Care for America Now' rally in Baltimore on February 22. (AFP/File/Tim Sloan) The protest, scheduled for 10:30 a.m. at Dupont Circle, is designed to disrupt a meeting of the Association of Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), an insurance industry trade group representing about 1,300 insurance companies who provide health plans to nearly 200 million Americans.
Protesters, organized by Health Care for America NOW!, which includes the support of a number of labor unions, say they want the event to increase support for President Barack Obama's heath reform proposal. The president continues to call for Congress to act on his proposal in the next few weeks.
Organizers of the protest say they plan to "deputize" participants so they can "conduct a mass citizens' arrest" of the insurance executives inside the conference, according to a website titled "Citizens' Posse." Those who cannot attend the protest are being told they can be "deputized online" by Chris Shiflett of Foo Fighters, a music group, for a virtual protest.
The protesters plan to "confront the insurance company defenders and CEOs who make money by jacking up rates while providing less medical coverage or dropping policyholders altogether," according to a statement on the Health Care for America NOW! website.
Like the president and some Democratic members of Congress, protest organizers accuse insurance companies of taking large profits while raising rates and making it harder for people to obtain coverage in the U.S.
"The insurance industry's lobby front group is back in D.C. to defend their criminal health care system and plot to kill health reform," according to a website for Health Care for America NOW! "Reform groups are gathering a citizen's posse to hold them accountable for their crimes against Americans' health - and make sure Congress passes reform now."
AHIP is scheduled to hold a policy conference at the Ritz Carlton in Washington March 9 and March 10, according to the protesters.
Officials from AHIP did not respond to phone calls seeking comment nor would they confirm that a meeting was scheduled in the Ritz Carlton hotel for March 9.
The protest is expected to include more than 50 major labor, organizational, and religious leaders, who will team up with 25 survivors of "health insurance industry abuse" to lead the crowd, the statement said.
Other members of the insurance industry also are holding a meeting in the District this week. The National Association of Health Underwriters (NAHU) is holding its annual Capitol Conference, where members meet their local legislators representing them in Congress to discuss bills affecting their businesses, at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Washington through March 10.
- Posted in
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
51 Comments so far
Show All"Protesters, organized by Health Care for America NOW!, which includes the support of a number of labor unions, say they want the event to increase support for President Barack Obama's heath reform proposal (sic)."
If you're going to take an extreme action to support healthcare financing reform then do so for genuine change and not the pile of dung that is currently under proposal.
q
Well said! Well framed!! Dung is explicitly what it is.
Yup, dung. And probably staged to make it LOOK like the current plan is acceptable, which it isn't...dung..dung...dung...that's a bell, the death nell bell for those who will die today for lack of proper health care in America.
I was actually at this protest today and can honestly say that most of you are wrongly accusing people that are either already on your side or would be if they were further educated on the current bill. From the speakers I heard and the protesters I spoke with, it was more of a protest in general support of public health care and against the insurance companies. The current reform plan was barely spoken of. Of course, I am not saying the promotion of "Obamacare" wasn't part of the agenda (as right now, that seems to be the only short-term alternative). From what I witnessed, most of the protesters were there to demand health care for all and symbolically "arrest" the sleazeball execs meeting inside the hotel. I know there is plenty of reason to be cynical but be careful you don't take all your negative energy out on the wrong people.
You mean, stupid people? Because that's what Obama supporters are, unless they're explicitly looking for a centrist Republican to get behind.
Look, have you ever noticed the difference in the general quality of comments at CommonDreams versus, say, DailyKos or HuffPost? Ever notice that sudden twenty+ IQ point plummet when you head over to a place like that? One sad and little-noted fact of democracy is that smart people are automatically marginalized. Mainstream parties exist to dupe mainstream morons.
The people you speak of had plenty of chances to stand with someone like Nader of Gravel or McKinney or Kucinich, someone who would genuinely fight for their interests. Instead they waddled en masse over to Obama's slick circus to yowl for more of the neoliberal shaft because they are f*cking STUPID.
Regardless of the fact that Obama supporters are either stupid or ignorant, what I aimed to clarify with my comment was that not everyone at the protest was an Obama supporter. I think most people were there to show their support for public health care, not Obama's plan specifically. I was one of these people and I know the current plan is ridiculous.
"I know the current plan is ridiculous."
Thought so! It just didn't fit with prior posts you were supporting that trash.
You obviously have not read these bills and certainly not the Senate bill.
You obviously have not read my comments. This protest was in support of public health care in general, not of any particular bill.
I did read them. Sure looked like a rally for Obamacare to me. Thats what most of the signs were about I thought. Sorry if I was wrong.
But with the Unions behind it the first thought without seeing the signs would be its for Obamacare.
Agreed.
Obamabots don't let facts get in the way of Obama's great stories. They are no less faith-based than Dubya's religious right followers.
The logic of this protest escapes me. "Protest organizers accuse insurance companies of taking large profits while raising rates and making it harder for people to obtain coverage in the U.S.," the article says.
In that case, why would the protesters want "to increase support for President Barack Obama's heath reform proposal," which is nothing but a give-away to the very same insurance companies that they claim to be protesting?
I can't help but think that the USA is hopelessly braindead, both on the right and on the "left". There's no sense of strategy, no sense of justice, no sense of sacrifice for anything worthwhile.
Hopelessly braindead. Or uncreative, uninspired, lazy, who knows. As Jim Morrison said, 'You can't petition the lord with prayer'. But then it's a lot easier to to just run around with signs and bullhorns for a few hours than doing the long term work of forming a cooperative structure and creating a community-based non-profit heasth organization as an alternative to the commercial corporations.
Yes, indeed, running around with signs and bullhorns is a lot easier. I don't even necessarily have anything against that, lord knows I've done my share. But if you are going to demand something, why not demand something worthwhile, like single-payer or at least a public option? The logic of this protest is so muddled, it really makes me question the basic intelligence of the American people. Personally I hate these insurance companies and their greedy, filthy rich chief executives -- which is the precise reason I hate the current legislation in Congress. They want to force me to buy an overpriced policy from the same companies that have been ripping the American people off for decades? Well, fuck them!
"Hopelessly braindead. Or uncreative, uninspired, lazy, who knows."
Protesting's fine. It's just that this is not a protest--it's a pr stunt to help rationalize why the the Democrats are trying to pass a bill that's a giveaway to the health insurance industry.
Your view of real protesters as "lazy" and your healthcare co-op scheme are straignt out of the conservative handbook.
So, who's brain-dead?
Protesting accomplishes exactly this: Voicing of opinion. Feeling of doing something.
But what motivation is there for the status quo to change? For those in power to listen? Is there any shift in power at all? In the eyes of the US elite, you are just throwing a tantrum, and as any parent knows, the best way to handle that is to ignore it.
A health-care coop means cooperation, egalitarianism, collaboration, public and worker ownership. These are hardly the values one associates with hyper-individualism, the value that defines the conservative movement in the US today. It means giving up autonomy, individual ownership, and power dominance and having to share with people not like you. And this is just too scary for most people in the US.
"These are hardly the values one associates with hyper-individualism, the value that defines the conservative movement in the US today."
(much laughter!)
Oh, you are a joy.
Conservatives like to think that "hyper-individualism" is the value that defines the conservative movement. As if that's something to be proud of.
But the sad truth is, what defines the conservative movement is not even that.
Although today's conservatives still like to preach the myths of the "free" market and their role in it as rugged individualists "competing" against other like-minded rugged individualists (more laughter!) this pathetic lie fools no one.
Especially these days.
Just look at all the monopolies, oligopolies and too-big-to fail business that are today's corporate America that conservatives just love to work for, worship and be controlled by.
Look at the same situation with the for-profit health insurance industry where in 34 states 2 companies control 60 percent of the market and in 16 states 2 companies control three quarters or more of the market--all while 4 companies control 75 percent of all health insurance sold in the U.S.!!! Did I mention these particular companies are also exempt from ant-trust regulation? (much, much, more laughter)
What defines conservatives and their movement--if it isn't abundently clear by now is one thing:
Business.
With conservatives, all the other things they preaach about gets left by the wayside--family values, compassion, competition, the Constitution... everything except, what benefits the interests of business.
So it should come as no surprise that you would prefer a co-op approach that keeps the for-profit business in the healthcare system. And the fact that it would be these "community" co-ops--once again, "competing" against a multi-TRILLION dollar healthcare industry that owns Congress--is for you just the cherry on top.
With regard to all this, if conservatives were even the least bit concerned about any kind of individualism--not to mention independence from power--they would see the value of protest.
But what you see instead is business as life.
DC-CPH
"In that case, why would the protesters want "to increase support for President Barack Obama's heath reform proposal,"
Check who is organizing this "protest"...they are some of the folks that directly benefit from this little plan.
First of all, the fact that the article says "they want the event to increase support for President Barack Obama's heath reform proposal," doesn't make it so.
If you go to their website look at what they say they want you will find ten points, this is #2:
A choice of a private insurance plan, including keeping the insurance you have if you like it, or a public health insurance plan that guarantees affordable coverage without a private insurer middleman.
Doesn't sound like Obama's plan to me. And it seems that none of the posters I've read bothered to verify this and instead went into vilify mode.
Second, I think that political theatre is great and certainly better and more active than writing comments that weren't even properly researched.
Wasn't that Obama's plan a few months back, before he backed off of even that weak effort?
Won't the insurers keep the costs up and sack the public plan with all the sick people?
Medicare for all now!
Arrest the health insurance industry gangsters now!
AD
americans should do what the FRENCH have done....
when industry CEO's tried to "cut costs" by laying off workers or cutting salaries ....or threatening to "close down" - the french simply ACTED;
they surrounded the PRECIOUS CEOs - LOCKED THEM into their precious OFFICES - fed them nice french lunch - but NOT LET THEM OUT until they OBEYED the workers.
PERIOD. it worked. there wasn't a "financial problem" after all!
even the POLICE couldn't do a DAMN THING!
oh -- and by the way - FRANCE stands as the most STABLE economy in europe...despite its most highly SOCIALIST policies........hmmmm.....
"when industry CEO's tried to "cut costs" by laying off workers or cutting salaries ....or threatening to "close down" - the french simply ACTED;" -- teddy
Exactly! I use this example all the time -- and, all ages, creeds and colors pour out into the streets in France, and they stay there until the law is changed or voided! That's a REAL "mission accomplished," in the name of the people.
"oh -- and by the way - FRANCE stands as the most STABLE economy in europe...despite its most highly SOCIALIST policies........hmmmm....." -- teddy
I'm continuing the "hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm"
Here, they will bring cops with riot gear to beat up peaceful protesters.
I thought I saw restraint by the cops in the student protest videos last week, but alas, that wore off and they started beating students up. What really surprised me in a recent reading of the incident where Howard Zinn was beaten was the admiration of some of the aggressors. Some of those cops talked with Zinn before the agressions and expressed deep admiration. I don't get it. When the riot commanders give an order to act, how can someone beat up a person they admire and have civil conversations with?
I Agree. piles of dung..from the current to the s0-called "reform packages".
they're ALL schemes at imprisoning people in america...
imprisoned while paying the pharmaceuticals, insurance and medical community's greedy individuals for the privilege of being imprisoned that cost americans their very lives and all their dreams and all their hard work...
just to be "seen by a doctor".....
In America the health care industry is practically the most insidious modern version of SLAVERY...whether you are "in the system of insurance" or outside it - you are a SLAVE to the "health care" that either is "delivered" by RATIONING through the insurance or NOT by its absence.
American "health care" system = SLAVERY.
ewe..
it's the entire american health "care" system that is a PILE OF DUNG that is actually an INFECTIOUS DISEASE.
"Organizers of the protest say they plan to "deputize" participants so they can "conduct a mass citizens' arrest" of the insurance executives inside the conference, according to a website titled "Citizens' Posse." Those who cannot attend the protest are being told they can be "deputized online" by Chris Shiflett of Foo Fighters, a music group, for a virtual protest."
I read about this yesterday and thought why? You're going to "arrest" these people -- or attempt to -- and then tell them you support Obama's plan which had no public option and will deliver them 30 million new mandated customers, most of whom will be able to afford a crap policy with co-pays, high deductibles, no dental and no vision?
Where do they get this idea that there's any slice of a PO in the current bill? A real PO, as Dennis Kucinich said, based on at least 125 million people opting for it, and a clear path to single payer? Obama's insurance pals would never opt for such a thing. If that was what Obama wanted he would have been fighting for it all along stead of doing everything he could to slice it down and call it a sliver, and then ditch it all together.
This will be the one "protest" that will make it to the evening news.
" . . . and then tell them you support Obama's plan . . ." .
Nope.
What is needed is sanctions against Congress for voting for big health insurance co.; big Pharma; torture and illegal wars. Talk about regime change! We need it here! Too bad we cannot have a citizens arrest of Obomba and the U.S. Congress, then you would see real healthcare for all.
"Like the president and some Democratic members of Congress, protest organizers accuse insurance companies of taking large profits while raising rates and making it harder for people to obtain coverage in the U.S."
I wish Americans weren't so brain-dead, as others have said. Obama accuses the insurance companies, Obama accuses the banksters, Obama accuses Wall Street of bad acts against the American people -- take your pick which one he is accusing today -- and then shovels more billions of taxpayer money their way -- funny money and bonuses to one and millions of new customers to the other with no competition of a real public option. And yet Obama has managed to convince his zombie supporters that this is the way you reform bad players who have by turns destroyed the health care system and destroyed the economy.
People can argue, but I truly believe that we're going to be in trouble when the USPS is totally trashed and our mail is delivered exclusively by private carriers. I work as an independent contractor for a small business and I rely on the PO for my work and my paycheck and in the last two months there have been numerous, marked breakdowns in service. Do you think Obama will try to save the USPS after he spent the summer using that entity as a reason why we don't want "government-run" health care?
Gee whiz, do we get armbands, whistles, secret decoder rings?
Get Real.
#####
Two skinny buzzards are overlooking a barren landscape.
One says to the other:
"Enough with that patience crap. Today I'm gonna kill something."
Sooo, where is National Healthcare? Paying money to the Big Insurance Bookie to bet I'll get deathly ill isn't what I want, I want to be kept well by a congress that spends my taxes for Public Health and passes no law permitting corporate poisoning of my environment. Smoke `n Mirrors ain't healthy!
Skewering a few top health care executives on their own Caduceus might help though...
The caption under the picture should read:
"While thousands of people are slaughtered by US Forces in the Middle East and bombed out slums are filling up with orphans and widows, clueless idiots wait to bitch about their health care."
Medicare-E (Everybody). Eliminate the Health Insurance companies for basic healthcare. They are only making this nation sicker, causing fear and terror with their "Pay or Die" mentaltity. Arrest them all for crimes against humanity!
"Protesters, organized by Health Care for America NOW!, which includes the support of a number of labor unions, say they want the event to increase support for President Barack Obama's heath reform proposal."
Let me get this right. People are making citizen's arrests of insurance exec profiteers. And at the same time they're encouraging support for Obama's so-called health ins reform bill that transfers what's left of the treasury directly into their pockets.
Is this some new form of group schizophrenia? A new S&M thing where you torment just a little and then provide economic orgasm?
Actually I do get it. These are the same labor 'leaders' who filed the 'friend of the Court' brief along with Citizens United because they thought it would be a good idea if they could all up their level of potential contributions. Level playing field and all that.
The part I don't get is: Are these people really this out of touch and clueless or have they been bought off?
Unbelievable.
iowapinko
Excellent points.
I was one of these protesters and would like to make it very clear that I do not support the current plan for healthcare reform. I, and many other protesters I'm sure, were there to express support for public healthcare and disgust with the current system. It would be nice if people here, obviously a very intelligent crowd in general, could keep an open-mind and not jump to conclusions.
Glad you clarified why you and others were there. The spin on this--that you guys were there in support of OBAMA's plan--is despicable, sophisticated propaganda.
Let me remind everyone that the extreme republican opposition to health care reform (as with their opposition to the 'socialist' Obama) has one purpose and one purpose only: to make people go begging for the 'compromise' corportist plan.
The corporate state, with Obama as its willing and eager patsy, once again uses fear as its main weapon.
"The spin on this--that you guys were there in support of OBAMA's plan--is despicable, sophisticated propaganda."
What's "dispicable, sophisticated propaganda" is what HCAN--and the other groups behind this pr stunt--is all about.
Yes, you're right. But to me it's clear that the democratic corportist administration is behind it all. Gotta seal the deal now before any more cries from progressives--corporate welfare simply can't wait!
( Kinda reminds me 2000, and of all those republicans--including, if you look closely, real populists like Mike Chertoff--pretending to be outraged citizens, banging on doors and demanding that the Florida recount be stopped!)
Faux populist outrage and fear, propagated by a complicit media, has worked beautifully to get the corportists what they want. It'll work just as well now.
Diana
You are right! You wouldn't want those damn progressives and liberals messing everything up with that darn Single Payer would you????
Diana
No blame on health care attaches to the republicans. This has been and is a strictly democratic show. The republicans have no power here.
It was the "Citizens Arrest" that made their presence laughable.
"I, and many other protesters I'm sure, were there to express support for public healthcare and disgust with the current system"
Yea I sure saw all those signs showing disapproval of Obamacare! Oh wait..No I didn't..I also saw NO signs supporting single-payer.
Were you there? Why weren't you holding such a sign?
Anyway, I was there and I saw all sorts of signs, most expressing support for universal healthcare AND anger at corporate lobbyists. I didn't hear or see much about Obamacare at all. Of course, I agree there should be tons of outrage at the current bill but that's not exactly what this protest about – and I don't see how that makes all these protesters Obamacare supporters.
Is this from The Onion? This is hysterical!
LOL I know! Next thing they'll say is..."We hate insurance companies" then vote for politicians who will give away our tax dollars to them and not allow single-payer to see the light of day!
I think these protesters are forgetting something: how are they going to make a citizen's arrest when these CEOs will show up with an army of body guards consisting of former Shitwater and Triple Canopy mercenaries? Wait till these guards show with automatic weapons and assault clubs and some of these protesters start getting manhandled and beaten.
If they are promoting Obama's "insurance care" plan, the insurance execs are in on the propaganda stunt and won't need to manhandle anyone but the real protesters outside trying to expose the scam and demand an end to insurers' crimes.
(Sorry for the long sentence)
Medicare for all now!
I did NOT know that Health Care Now supports any part of Obamacare. Either this article misrepresents the protesters and their mission, or I have been mislead by the group. I receive all of their notices and am directly involved with a group here in NYC. The group here in NYC is advocating for single-payer.
I'm going to e-mail my contact person here in NYC to see if I receive a response on this issue.
The name of one of the particular groups helping Obamacare mentioned in this article is HCAN--and not the one you mention in your comment..