SEARCH
Thousands Tell Big Insurance: Blocking Health Care Reform Is a Crime
 |
| AFSCME members declaring the Ritz-Carlton a crime scene. |
| AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told the crowd: “The CEO of the largest health insurance company makes 212 times as much as the average worker in a year. What do you call that? GREED.” |
 |
| AFSCME President Gerald McEntee to Congress: “You better take our side before we arrest you!” |
 |
| Activists took part in health care actions across the nation, like these in Seattle. |
Thousands of union members, community activists, religious leaders and others turned out in Washington, D.C., today to confront Big Insurance and demand insurance companies stop plotting to kill health care reform even as Congress debates bills to reform the nation’s broken health care system.
The boisterous, energetic, diverse crowd marched from the AFL-CIO and AFSCME buildings and DuPont Circle to the sound of beating drums and shouted slogans like, “Blocking health care is a crime” and “Health care can’t wait.” The crowd was so large, it completely encircled the block-long Ritz-Carlton hotel in Washington, D.C., where the front group for the nation’s biggest insurance companies, the America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) is meeting. Health Care for America NOW (HCAN) sponsored the rally and march. We live-tweeted the event here.
Nicole Varma from Arlington, Va., who has no health care insurance because she is unemployed was among those taking part in the rally.
I am unable to get my medications because I can’t afford them. We need to send a message to the insurance companies that they definitely need to listen to the people. We don’t want insurance abuses. We want real health care reform.
Workers repeatedly expressed how they struggle to afford health insurance, an ever-growing expense that is eating away at their ability to pay a mortgage or send children to college. Here’s George Estright, a member of AFSCME Local 2162 who traveled from Harrisburg, Pa., for today’s rally.
We support health care reform to control insurance company profits. It’s not right for working Americans to pay for 200 percent profits for insurance companies. We need something that is fair and equitable.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka laid it on the line, telling the crowd:
The insurance companies won’t stop unless we stop them—and we do that by passing health care reform legislation.
So today we’re here to put the insurance companies on notice: We will not allow you and your lobbyists to bully Congress into not acting. Not on health care or any of the issues important to America’s working families.
Marcus Grimes, a former English teacher from Virginia, says he lost his sight because he didn’t have health insurance o cover a $3,000 operation he needed. He told the crowd health care is the issue of this generation:
We are at the crux of our generation. This is our time. We ask you insurance companies. We ask you senators. We ask your representatives. What side of history do you want to be on? We should no more people dying…We stand as one. We walk softly, but we carry a big stick.
The crowd placed a crime scene tape around the hotel and several leaders and victims of health insurance abuse delivered a “warrant” to the front of the hotel calling for the arrest of the insurance company executives.
Check out rally photos from the Alliance for Retired Americans here.
AFSCME President Gerald McEntee told the crowd that Big Insurance “is devastating our families and they’ve been getting away with it for years. We’ve had enough.”
Listen up Congress. This is a life and death battle with the insurance companies. I’m here to tell everyone that justice will prevail.
AFT President Randi Weingarten said:
Our health care system exists to insure people who need it, not to make profits for insurance companies. That’s why we need real health care reform.
 |
Become a Fan on Facebook |  |
Follow Us on Twitter |  |
Subscribe to YouTube |  |
Subscribe to Blog RSS | ||||
8 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
President Obama is a Harvard educated lawyer and professor, using the “tools of the trade” (logic, argument, rhetoric), to become a brilliant demagog.
There is no critical discussion allowed in the mass media (like NPR or PBS) of the only economically affordable and universal “Medicare for All” legislation. Senate committee chairman, initially discussing the initial health care proposals over a year ago, took any consideration of “Medicare for All” completely “off the table” of discussion and allowed no advocates allowed a place at the table.
Obama and the Democrats are now desperate to ram this corporate backed legislation down the throats of the a Congress corrupted by tens of millions of campaign contributions. The AFL-CIO, in opposition to the explicit demands of the delegates to the Pittsburgh AFL-CIO convention in support of “Medicare for All”, continues to waste millions of union dues money and destroy whatever credibility it has left, in supporting this gangster corporate attack upon working people.
The following article gives the most recent example of abomination Obama.
Read the full article here:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/mar2010/heal-m10.shtml
Obama stumps for his cost-cutting health care overhaul
By Kate Randall
10 March 2010
(excerpts below)
Barack Obama is conducting a last-ditch effort to see his health care overhaul passed by Congress before lawmakers recess for the Easter break. It is still unclear whether he has the votes of Democrats in both the House and Senate to approve the legislation with a simple majority, with the numbers shifting on a daily basis.
…
He made no mention of the hundreds of billions of dollars to be slashed from Medicare under his proposals, while making the lying claim that reducing costs by going after “waste and abuse in our system, including in programs like Medicare” could be achieved “while protecting Medicare benefits.”
…
Here he left out another detail: businesses will be under no obligation to provide insurance to their employees and will pay only nominal fees if their workers receive subsidized coverage.
The fundamental premise of the “current system” of health care is its subordination in every respect to the profit interests of various corporate interests. This framework will be maintained, and in fact expanded, under Obama’s proposals.
…
… Increasing numbers of people correctly see the health care legislation as a cost-cutting plan aimed at rationing care for working people and the elderly.
Obama’s stump speech at Arcadia University was a cynical attempt to conceal this reality and press for passage of legislation that will have devastating and far-reaching consequences for the lives of millions of working class families.
I participated in this historical moment. How wonderful it was to go to Washington. The insurance companies can blame the drug company’s but we all know that the Ceo’s have been taken us across for years. I participated in the late 80′s when we tried for National healthcare and this may finally happen. But I would like to say to Congress; You have all these commercials telling Congress to go back and get it right, don’t go by the presidents plan. What I say to this you had years to work on it, now finally a president who isn’t afraid to be for the middle class. Congress get it right listen to the people and give us the same healthcare that you have
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is tops. His leadership has been fantastic. The huge turnout of union members at Whirlpool Headquarters in Indiana last week, protesting American jobs being sent to Europe and this protest in our nation’s capitol to show Americans the greed on the part of the health insurance companies can only end with legislation for health care reform, is a spark that Labor has needed for a long time to stand tall and fight for CHANGE. Michael Zullo, Upper Eastside, Manhattan
Unions have long been a great source of strength in negotiations and their ability to feel out just what strength workers have when confronting the other side of the table. That is why workers even in this tough economic environment still do an excellent job representing workers and their families. Measuring strength and weakness is essential in winning strategies whether at the bargaining table or in the halls of congress. Right now, we have a situation in congress where it is very doubtful we can get all we need in health care reform but, we shouldn’t necessarily leave the bargaining table and settle for nothing. When we find that is all we are going to get in this round we would be foolish to say we rather settle for nothing. We did that in the 70s in health care reform and it has been a long 30 plus year struggle just to get this far. We didn’t get every thing we wanted in 1935 when Social Security was passed by congress nor did we get all we wanted in 1965 when we got Medicare but we built on that what we could get just as we do with every contract we sign with an employer. Life isn’t perfect and the struggle for a better life for those we represent will forever be organized labors one and only mission. Labor will always be there making sure workers and their families are well represented, not just at the bargaining table but in the halls of congress, in state houses and city halls, and not just for the short term but for all the long enduring battles that lie in the future. We supporters of a single payer or Public option in health care reform should stay strong till the end and above all make wise choices. After-all, we workers are not going anywhere so we will be around calling for improving that we can mussel this round and build on our accomplishments in the coming years. Solidarity Forever.
Here are three videos that I have posted on YouTube, with respect to the very spirited rally of March 9, 2010, in Washington, D.C.
1. Billionaires for Wealthcare, at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZyMwgjJAtc
2. Scenes from Rally in D.C. for Healthcare Reform, at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igDt-vj48Tw and
3. Civil Disobedience at Health Insurance Fat Cats’ Confab, at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBpQZsGbcy8
Time for all of us to take a look at what we or our employers are investing in and start a cal to divest.
my public pension fund (CalPers) owns $67 Million in Wellpoint shares.
Wellpoint is the parent profiteer of Anthem/ Blue Cross that is threatening to raise rates on individual subscribers 39%.
PROFIT does not belong in health care delivery,
WE HAVE TO MANY PROBLEMS IN THIS COUNTRY AND WERE MARCHING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION , AMERICANS NEED TO WAKE UP AND TAKE CONTROL OF THERE LIVES , WE NEED TO VOTE OUT CANCER FROM CONGRESS AND THE U S SENATE MANY DEMOCRATS NEED TO GO IN WASHINGTON THEY HAVE HAD 3 YEARS PLUS OF CINTROL AND THIS IS WERE THEY HAVE BROUGHT US INTO A VERY DEP DEPRESSION AND NO SIGHT OF ITS END AND NO JOBS , JUST FOR ACORN AND 10,000 GOVERNMENT JOBS EACH MONTH FOR 15 MONTHS ALONG WITH NOW , AND IN EACH MONTH 125,000 FOREIGN BORN WORKERS TAKING AMERICAN JOBS , THATS THE NEW AMERICA NOW ,
THE HEALTH CARE REFORM WITH 4,600 PAGES PLUS SHOULD BE THROWN IN THE TRASH , WHO IN THERE RIGHT MIND WOULD THAT , WHATS WRONG WITH THE UNIONS THINK, DO THE HAVE THERE HEADS UP THE VERY BUTTS THAT HAVE HEART THE UNIONS , WE HAVE GONE FROM DOUBLE DIGITS TO LOW SINGLE DIGITS AND ITS NOT THE REPUBLICANS AMERICA ! AMERICA WAKE UP !
Jerry Wells nailed it.