Syracuse Health Care for All Demo

Essential Dissent

2009 November 4th

Essential Dissent
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Healthcare Reform: People Not Profits

http://essentialdissent.blogspot.com/
November 4, 2009

400 S. Salina Street; Syracuse, NY
Offices of Wellpoint and Excellus

A small but committed group gathered to protest America's for-profit healthcare system. Howie Hawkins, a Green Party member who is well-known throughout New York State, was arrested trying to deliver a letter to Wellpoint.

Statement from Mobilization for Health Care for All:

On September 27th, the Mobilization for Health Care for All launched a national campaign of "Patients Not Profit" sit-ins at insurance company offices to demand an end to a system that profits by denying people care. We want the real "public option": Medicare for All, a single payer plan that cuts out the profit and puts patients first.

Together, through this campaign, we can turn the tide and win the fight for health care for all. To succeed, we need to organize sit-ins in as many cities as possible in the month of October. The campaign began with the local leadership of Private Health Insurance Must Go (PHIMG) in New York City on September 29th and continued in Chicago on October 8th and in 9 cities across the country on October 15th. The next wave starts on October 28th and we will continue to organize actions in as many cities as possible until we win health care reform that ensures that the insurance companies no longer stand between the American people and the health care that we need. It's time to cut out the profit and put patients first with Medicare for All.

Insurance companies are the real death panels in America. They make billions in profit and millions for their CEOs while millions of Americans have no health insurance and over 45,000 die every year because they can't get the care they need. That's more than 120 people every day. These insurance companies deny care to their members and the American people for profit.

America deserves better, and that's why we voted for change. But the insurance companies are spending millions to confuse and scare the public to keep us from ending their grip on our health and our money. With teabagger town hall protestors and the right-wing noise machine on their side, they're winning. We can't let that happen. It's time to take the fight to the real villain in the health care debate.

When the civil rights movement faced a similar challenge in the struggle to end segregation, nonviolent civil disobedience moved the nation and made reform possible. Just like the lunch counter sit-ins did for the civil rights movement, we have to make it impossible for the media and our country to ignore how outrageous the status quo of private insurance is for the American people.

It only takes a small group of people to do a sit-in in your community, but our actions can inspire every American who has been abused by the insurance companies and believes it's time for real reform to fight for it. This campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience will continue until the insurance companies no longer stand between the American people and the health care that is our right.

Already, doctors, nurses, patients, and people just like you are signing up to be one of the 1000 ordinary but courageous people who will launch this nonviolent battle to end private insurance abuse and win health care for all. Join us! We can't wait any longer - every day more people die because of the insurance company death panels.

Sign up to sit in and join the battle today!

Related Link: Single Payer New York

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