People Protest Insurance Companies Around the Country Today (photos)
Posted on September 22nd, 2009 by Jason Rosenbaum in Take Action!
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Today, people stood up and said they're sick of big insurance. They're sick of denied claims. They're sick of discriminatory practices. And they're sick of their premiums being used to lobby against reform and pad the pockets of health insurance executives who care nothing about their health, only the next quarter's stock price.
In West Virginia, a crowd gathered outside of Coventry's office:
In New Hampshire, more ordinary people protested Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield's bad practices like denying care for pre-existing conditions and using our premiums to pay for lobbyists intent on killing health care reform and a public health insurance option:
In Chicago, more people came out to protest Blue Cross:
In Indianapolis, hundreds marched against WellPoint (click here for video), and WellPoint lashed out:
Earlier today advocates for government-run health care staged a "National Day of Action" with public demonstrations at WellPoint's headquarters. The demonstrations were a coordinated effort by Health Care for American Now, and only serve to further polarize the debate over health care reform.
As was made clear by news reports throughout the weekend, the demonstrations were not a spontaneous reaction by Americans to the health care reform debate, but instead were part of a heavily scripted campaign with pre-approved talking points, slogans and tactics. This runs opposite to WellPoint's goal of participating in a constructive, open dialogue about how to improve our health care system and counter to the Administration's call for civil discussion of health care reform.
The people gathered in Indianapolis were WellPoint's customers, customers who are sick of their lies. WellPoint is using their premiums to lobby Congress against health care reform and these people are mad about it. WellPoint is going to have to deal with that reality.
Today in DC, this ad ran in newspapers:
Insurance companies are using your money to kill reform that will hurt their bottom line. Today, people are speaking out about it. Tomorrow, they will still be speaking out about it. This issue is not going away. If anything, it's going to escalate.
Why? Because we need real health care reform, reform with the choice of a public health insurance option to keep the insurance companies honest. We'll settle for nothing less, and we'll keep attacking the enemies of reform - the insurance companies - until we get what we want.
Here's some pics from Philadelphia today. If you're interested in putting a couple up, please contact me first for proper credit format.
In case I screwed up that last comment, I've got some pics from Philadelphia today. Please contact the email submitted with this comment for more info.
I was at the St. Louis event. I showed up, but I am a supporter of universal healthcare (HR676).
Teabaggers also showed up, a dozen of them and they kept silent.
In all, a good event.
we should have u other other otherniversal health care because every other idustrialize country has it
Hi Activists!
I attended the rally in Chicago with my satirical Political Action Committee, DEATH-PAC.
I made a video of the rally and the self-care clinic we set up across the street from the Blue Cross building. It's on youtube, and embedded on my little blog.
http://www.yourcivicdoody.com
Hope it entertains and informs.
Cheers,
Aemilia