Universal health care activists -- supporters of Medicare for All -- are moving into the deadly serious civil disobedience stage of the campaign. Beginning this week, sit-ins will be staged at health insurance offices across the country. Seventeen were arrested on Sept. 29th at a sit-in at Aetna in Midtown Manhattan. "They were charged with criminal trespass."A Sit-in at Aetna: "Aetna Is the Real Death Panel": The 19 participants, wearing T-shirts with slogans that read "Medicare for All" and chanting "patients, not profits!" linked arms and sat down in the lobby of the Aetna building, prompting Aetna employees to step around them on their way into their offices, where insurance claim reviewers are busy looking for ways to deny people the lifesaving treatment that they need. A crowd of supporters picketing outside the building held signs that said "Aetna is the real death panel," and "Single payer now." Watch it!
Mobilization for Health Care for All is launching 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. . .
We hope that our actions will save the lives of some of the people who are being denied critical care by these death panels today. But we know we can save the lives of millions in the years to come by putting a spotlight on just why our system is broken and how urgently we need fundamental change. We will go to jail to demand that the insurance companies stop denying care to their members immediately, but our sacrifice will be a call to our entire nation to stand up to these death panels and demand real reform - Medicare for All - that finally ensures that every one of us gets the health care we need.
We hope that our actions will save the lives of some of the people who are being denied critical care by these death panels today. But we know we can save the lives of millions in the years to come by putting a spotlight on just why our system is broken and how urgently we need fundamental change. We will go to jail to demand that the insurance companies stop denying care to their members immediately, but our sacrifice will be a call to our entire nation to stand up to these death panels and demand real reform - Medicare for All - that finally ensures that every one of us gets the health care we need.Sit-ins are being organized across the country. Visit Mobilization for Health Care for All and sign up to organize a sit-in in your town. / See: A Sit-in at Aetna: "Aetna Is the Real Death Panel" / Sixteen Arrested in NYC as Campaign for Single Payer Begins.
