Tomorrow in DC - the battle for the Ritz-Carlton
Posted on March 8th, 2010 by Jason Rosenbaum in Take Action!
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Tomorrow, it's time to arrest the insurance companies.
Thousands of people will descend on the insurance companies, who are having a conference in DC and plotting how to kill health reform at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on 22nd Street. We're going to shut down their conference and stop them and business as usual, and we'll do whatever it takes to succeed.
Leaders will be there to stand with us and confront the insurance industry. Online leaders like Howard and Jim Dean from Democracy for America, Michael Kieschnick from CREDO, and Justin Ruben from MoveOn will be there. Labor leaders like Rich Trumka of the AFL-CIO, Anna Burger of SEIU, Randi Weingarten of the AFT, and Gerald McEntee of AFSCME will be there. Community leaders like Deepak Bhargava of Campaign for Community Change, Jeff Blum and William McNary of USAction, and Bob Edgar of Common Cause will be there. We'll have leaders of faith, leaders from the doctor and nurse professions, and perhaps most importantly, victims of insurance company abuses.
Regina Holliday, a local resident of the District of Columbia, will be there.
She lost her husband, Frederick, 39, last year because he didn't get health insurance in time to diagnose his kidney cancer. By the time he found his dream job teaching at a major university - with good health insurance - his cancer was Stage 4 and had spread to his lungs and bones. Since her husband's death, Regina now cares for her two children, 11 and 4, and spends all her free time painting murals on Connecticut Avenue to draw attention to the need for health care reform and patient rights.
Stacie Ritter, someone who should be familiar to readers of this blog, from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, will be there.
Stacie is the mother of twin daughters, now 11, who were diagnosed with leukemia when they were 4. Both girls needed stem cell transplants and other cancer treatments. The twins survived, but the glands controlling their growth were damaged. Doctors recommended that they receive daily growth-hormone injections. But Stacie's husband's company had switched to CIGNA for health insurance, and CIGNA refused to cover the hormone shots. With $30,000 in medical debt, a mortgage, her husband's brief unemployment and food costs, the family of six filed for bankruptcy in 2003. The twins now get their growth hormone drug free from Eli Lilly. But the family still pays about $4,012 a year in premiums to CIGNA, plus $650 co-pay for an annual cancer survivorship visit.
These people are going to put themselves on the line for what's right - health reform that works for the American people. And they're going to show Congress what standing up for what you believe in looks like.
If you're in town, you should join us. If you're not, you can follow the action live at CitizensPosse.com.
Now is when we need this kind of leadership from Congress. The insurance companies are making record profits. They're raising rates by 40% or 50% in over a dozen states. They face no competition and feel no remorse when they cut people off from their care to make a buck.
They must be stopped. Tomorrow, we're going to stop their conference. Then it'll be up to Congress to finish reform right and stop them for good.
Yes it is sad that she lost her husband because of health care companies. But our wonderful reps back in congress gave them that power back in 1970 with the HMO's act. Because they thought that would save the health care system. But it started before that cause the congress saw a way for more money. Taxing the medical services. Yes the health care companies have gotten to greedy but that was after the goverment helped protect them so the could become greedy. So do you really think more laws will fix the problem when they helped start the problem? I dont think so. But I also look back to the past and see what the government did to help cause the problem cause of their greed. But keep going the way you want just be ready to prostest the new health system when it is not what you wanted.
Yeah yeah, government can't solve it because Republicans made a bad decision when Nixon was President. Gotcha.
Arrest them, jail them, throw away the key, and deprive them to access to health care!
Wish I could be there!!!! My daughter, Belinda, was a victim of the medical racketeers in the insurance industry. She couldn't get insurance because she had asthma and migraines (preexisting conditions). She eventually died of hepatic encephalopathy (secondary to acetaminophen toxicity) because she could never get comprehensive care for these relatively simple conditions.
I am a never going to practice medicine again unless they fix this mess Doctor. I've been holding out in the hopes to start a career with health care reform…but no jobs if health care reform doesn't pass. I've got stories from the doctors side, my child with disabilities and fighting the insurance companies side, me going 20 mo without any health insurance side while never seeing a physician to avoi8d ANY preexisting claim…bought single payor insurance whoo lied through their teeth and do not cover ANYthing and increased my monthly payments exactly the amount that the covered something for me the year before.
I was a heart transplant specialist but couldn't bear losing a patient because of insurance delays and denials due to "lifetime limit claims."
I am a great speaker and VERY passionate about this issue and how the insurance companies have held us as PRISIONERS because our gov't is STILL letting them call all the shots. They need AGGRESSIVE REGULATIONS and people like you and me to monitor their compliance.
Please help me find a way inside to help before it's too late.
Is it too late to join you for the arrests? was it today or tomorrow.
I am very knowledgeable and well spoken, previous director of the heart transplant program at a major university hospital with great credentials and well published. I would be a perfect person to speak the truth from both the doctor side, mother's side and patient uninsured for a long time side.
Please have SOMEONE contact me, I am desparate to helop prevent this bill from going down the tubes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rebecca Quigg, MD, mother and patient