An activist at a health care die-in
(Photo: Bud Korotzer / NLN)
NEW YORK — On the afternoon of November 2 the sidewalk in front of the New York Times building on 8th Avenue in N.Y.C. was strewn with the symbolically “dead” bodies of people who had lost their lives because they didn’t have affordable health insurance. Members of MoveOn.org and their supporters held a Stand for Health Care – Dying for the Public Option Rally. The action was just one of many taking place nationwide between October 24th and November 4th to urge the Senate to pass health care reform with a robust public option. Every year 45,000 people die in this country because they are uninsured. They don’t go to doctors because they cannot afford to. That is 122 people each and every day – while the unconscionable health insurance companies continue spending $5 million a week to protect their profits by maintaining the status quo.
122 people die every day for lack of adequate health insurance
(Photo: Bud Korotzer / NLN)
Participants told true stories of individuals who had died and then they laid down on the sidewalk – a memorial for those without insurance who die every day. Dr. Sharon Phillips spoke of her work in the hospital emergency room – of people who waited too long to go there – only to be too sick by then to be saved. That could be a person with chest pains who stayed home hoping they would go away, arriving in the emergency room only to die. Or, a 50 year old man with previously controlled diabetes who lost his job and his health insurance. Eventually, feeling very ill, he went to a hospital. His kidneys were totally dysfunctional and he will have to spend the rest of his life on dialysis.
(Photo: Bud Korotzer / NLN)
On November 3, a different group working for health care reform, Mobilization for Health Care for All, announced that eight people were sitting-in at the offices of Rep. Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco because she reneged on her promise to support the Kucinich Amendment to Obama’s health care bill. The Kucinich amendment would have allowed individual states to establish a single payer system (Medicare for all) if they opted to do so. She also reneged on her promise to allow a floor vote on the Weiner Amendment, which would have replaced the bill, HR 3200, with HR 676 which is also for a single payer (Medicare for all) insurance plan. It is believed that it would have paid for itself by eliminating $400 billion in insurance company administrative waste. Weiner withdrew his amendment on November 6.
On November 7, H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, passed a House vote and headed for the Senate. The vote was 220 to 215 and split on party lines.
Protesters outside Rep. Mike McMahon’s Staten Island office
(Photo: Thomas Good / NLN)
The following day a group of Staten Island activists made up of NAACP, MoveOn and Peace Action members protested outside Congressman Mike McMahon’s mid-island office. McMahon voted against H.R. 3962 and the protesters demanded to know if he represented his constituents — or Big Insurance. Although the bill has major flaws, including the Stupak Amendment that denies funding for abortion services, McMahon said that he voted against the bill because of the cost involved in providing universal health care.
The NAACP’s Karen Blanding and Ed Josey with NLN’s Thomas Good
(Photo: Kathleen Kelly / NLN)
In an interview with NY1 reporter Natasha Ghoneim, NLN’s Thomas Good said that “If we stopped invading other people’s countries we could easily afford universal, single payer, health care.” Good also said that he wants to see Stupak stripped in the Senate and is counting on McMahon to help make that happen.
“Rep. McMahon: Whose Side Are You On? Big Insurance Or The People?”
(Photo: Thomas Good / NLN)
A second protest at McMahon’s office is scheduled for 4 p.m. on Thursday, November 10, 2009. The office is located at 265 New Dorp Lane, Staten Island.
