R.I.P. Vic Chesnutt, Songwriter: Another Casualty of America’s Health Care Insanity

from Susie Madrak,

“It took our FUBARed health insurance system to finally push immense talent Vic Chesnutt over the cliff of despair this week. He needed kidney surgery and faced losing his home to pay for it. A songwriting hero to people like Kristin Hersh, Michael Stipe and Patti Smith, the Athens, Georgia performer took an overdose and spent his last few days in a coma.

In a “Fresh Air” interview a few weeks ago, he talked about the impossible economic demands he faced, despite help from Sweet Relief, the musicians’ health care fund. “I don’t want to die,” he told Terry Gross.”

US protest by 9/11 responders

Hundreds of emergency workers who responded to the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States have been protesting in the capital, Washington, DC.

They say they are angry that it has taken eight years for congress to discuss healthcare now needed for those who have fallen ill as a result of working in the skyscrapers’ ruins.

Many of those first responders are slowly dying from illnesses contracted at Ground Zero.

Congressman Grayson: Stories Of Those Who Died Because They Didn’t Have Health Insurance

Part Two

Part Three

Physician and Six Activists Are Arrested At CIGNA’s Glendale, CA Offices

At a little after twelve noon today Dr. Matt Hendrickson; an emergency room physician and six other protesters were arrested for trespassing and blocking the entrance to the CIGNA offices in Glendale, California. The action was part of a nationwide effort being made by Mobilize For Healthcare, who’s advocates want a single payer medicare plan for everyone, with no denials to anyone.

For more about http://mobilizeforhealthcare.org/

The cities where other nonviolent actions were taken were,

Newark, NJ – 7
Columbus, OH – 0
San Francisco – 0
Rochester – 4
Los Angeles – 7
New York – 9
Virginia Beach – 1
Warwick, RI – 0
Sunrise, FL – 2
Seattle – 7

Thirty seven people were arrested in all. Seventy three people actually sat in nationally, but due to various police tactics in San Francisco, Columbus and Warwick 40 were not incarcerated, including Robert Darling who has been refused a bone marrow transplant to treat his cancer.

Robert Darling’s story ….http://www.projo.com/video/?nvid=410234

Grigor Sarkisyan,the father of Nataline Sarkisyan appeared at the Glendale CIGNA offices and was told to leave or he would be arrested as well. He is a Mercedes technician and still carries his insurance through CIGNA. He produced his card and asked to see a CIGNA representative whereupon he was refused.
For the story on Nataline Sarkisyan please see ….

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nataline_Sarkisyan

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2009/10/231269.php

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2009/10/231847.php

The police presence in Glendale was large with at least two policemen for each protester and at this time all of the protesters have been released.

Mobilization for Health Care is staging five more national actions at this point.

Oct 29th,

Oct 30th,

Nov 2nd,

Nov 3rd,

Nov 4th,

To get involved in Los Angeles or nationally here is the contact list.

Upcoming Actions For Mobilize For Healthcare
Upcoming Sit-ins:

October 29th:

Baltimore, MD
When: 12:00PM
Contact: Kevin Zeese, kzeese@earthlink.net
Link: http://mobilizeforhealthcare-baltimore.ning.com

Louisville, KY
When: 10:00AM
Contact: Kay Tillow, nursenpo@aol.com, 917-621-7268
Link: http://mobilizeforhealthcare-kentucky.ning.com/

October 30th:

Philadelphia, PA
When: Noon
Contact: Jeff Muckensturm, 267-515-2400, jeff@healthcare-now.org
Link: http://mobilizeforhealthcare-pa.ning.com/

November 3rd:

San Diego, CA
When: 10:00AM
Contact: Jerry Malamud, aabs@aol.com
Link: http://mobilizeforhealthcare-sandiego.ning.com/

November 4th:

Albuquerque, NM
When: 10:30AM
Contact: Guy Watson, drguy0@gmail.com
Link: http://mobilizeforhealthcare-abq.ning.com/

Atlanta, GA
When: 10:00AM
Contact: Denise Woodall, denisewoodallksu@yahoo.com
Link: http://mobilizeforhealthcare-atlanta.ning.com/

Detroit, MI
When: 12:00pm
Contact: Precious Daniels, vincious1@hotmail.com; 313-361-4318
Link: http://mobilizeforhealthcare-detroit.ning.com

Portland, OR
When: TBA
Contact: Jim Ferner, vjday153@hotmail.com
Link: http://mobilizeforhealthcare-oregon.ning.com

In His Mother’s Footsteps: California Man Jailed for Five Days After Sit-In at Blue Cross Office in Los Angeles

“I went into jail with the demand that Blue Cross immediately approve doctor-requested treatment for anyone with a life-threatening condition. And I was prepared to stay in jail until I got a meeting with Blue Cross. But last night I was not even put before a judge. Every day that I was in jail, there was momentum building for the support of our cause. We had lots of media coverage. We had people signing up across the country. And in the end, I was discharged against my will. The charges were dropped. There was no bail. And therefore, you know, I [inaudible] it was a real victory for our movement to show that they knew that I was more powerful in jail than I would have been on the outside.

So, right now we’re asking other people to do the same. On October 28th, there’s going to be a series of sit-ins across the country. Right now there’s over twenty cities where people have already signed up and are planning actions. And we’re asking people to join in and be part of a sit-in. If you go to our webpage—it’s www.mobilizeforhealthcare.org—and on there you can sign the pledge, you can sign up to get arrested, plan a sit-in in your own city. And we believe that this is going to be one of the largest campaigns of civil disobedience that we’ve seen since the civil rights movement. And my hope is that people across the country will join with us in doing these sit-ins so that a very clear message is given, that the American people will no longer let insurance companies stand between us and the healthcare the we deserve. So, we just ask people to join us in the movement.”

Aetna Sit-In for Single Payer, Medicare for All, September 29, 2009

Over 500 lobbyists representing 25 health care and health insurance organizations donated roughly $2.8 million to 61 members of Congress

A new collaborative investigation by the Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Responsive Politics has found that many of the major players in the health insurance reform debate have hit members of Congress with a one-two punch of campaign contributions from at least 10 of their hired, outside lobbyists on top of donations from their employees or political action committees.

Read more here.

Direct Action to Promote Single Payer

Dr Paul Hochfeld,

“I think that nothing that’s being proposed right now is going to fix this problem. And as near as I can tell, we’re just getting Medicare Part D revisited. This is a government giveaway to the insurance industry, with or without the public plan option.

This public plan option, at least as it’s written in HR 3200, is a lame, failed, designed-to-fail public plan option. It’s not available until 2013. When it’s available, it’s not available to people who get insurance from their employers. Those are healthy people. It’s not available to people who are upper middle class or wealthier. Those are healthy people. So the public plan option is designed to attract the sickest, most expensive people. And when it fails in 2017 or 2018, by design, the insurance industry is going to point at it and say, “See, the government can’t do healthcare.” And it’ll be the wrong lesson. And I just—this whole thing is being manipulated by the industry with our legislators being complicit in this process.

And it’s going to take civil disobedience. I’m totally supportive of what’s being proposed with these insurance companies. And this is the next civil rights issue of our time. It is the civil rights issue of our time. If we assume that healthcare is a right, which it is, then we need to design a healthcare system in which we get the most health we can for our public and private healthcare dollars. And that’s only going to be able to be accomplished with single payer.”

Mobilization for Health Care for All

New Study Finds 45,000 Uninsured Die Every Year

“Nearly 45,000 Americans die every year—that’s 122 deaths a day—due to lack of health insurance. That’s the startling finding of a new study that appears in the current issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

The figure is about two-and-a-half times higher than an estimate from the Institute of Medicine in 2002. The Harvard-based researchers found that uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts, up from a 25 percent excess death rate found in 1993. Deaths associated with lack of health insurance now exceed those caused by many common killers such as kidney disease.”

DR. STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER: “Baucus’s plan is a complete sellout to the insurance industry. The counsel on the Finance Committee that oversaw the development of the bill is a former vice president of WellPoint, a major insurer. And the insurance companies’ interests are protected in the bill, but the interests of the American people really aren’t.

At best, this bill is going to cover—is going to leave 25 million Americans with no health insurance. And our study indicates that about 25,000 will die annually as a result. Really, what Baucus is doing is protecting the profits of the private health insurance industry and sacrificing American lives.”