Hawkins to join Health Care Activists

Eagle Newspapers
staff reports
2009 November 3rd

http://www.cnylink.com/cnynews/view_news.php?news_id=1257260057

Activists in Non-violent Civil Disobedience, Will Risk Arrest Outside Wellpoint/Excellus Offices on South Salina Street Wednesday, Nov. 4.

Whether he wins or loses his 4th District Council bid today, Howie Hawkins has plans for tomorrow: He will join local citizens at the demonstration outside of the Wellpoint/Excellus offices at 400 South Salina Street in Syracuse. The long-time Green Party activist and candidate has pledged to sit in at the offices, committing civil disobedience and risking arrest.

"I'm sitting in because health care should be a public service and a right, not a commodity people have to buy or die," Hawkins explained in a written statement. A recent study conducted by Harvard Medical School researchers and published on Sept. 28, 2009 in The Journal of Public Health found that 45,000 people die in the United States every year because they lack access to health care.

Hawkins' statement continues: "These private insurance
companies like Wellpoint and Excellus deny payments for care as a matter of policy to boost their income. That should be prosecuted as a crime, not supported with more taxpayer subsidies as all variants of the so-called reforms now before Congress will do…the Congressional proposals are corporate options, not the real public option, which would be Medicare for All."

Wednesday's demonstration is being organized by area members of Single-payer New York and the local chapter of Physicians for a National Health Plan, in coordination with a wave of recent national actions sponsored by Mobilization for Healthcare for All.
Wednesday's action is scheduled from noon to one p.m.