Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Healthcare-Now! outreach at Five Points Station this Thursday Feb 25th at 5pm
Hello everyone. we will be handing out flyers and talking to people outside the Five Points Station this Thursday, Feb 25 at 5pm in conjunction with Obama having his negotiating conference with the Republicans. We will be near the corner of Peachtree St. and Alabama St. look for us and a Healthcare-Now banner.
We want to educate more people in Georgia about Single Payer/Medicare for All Healthcare and how it could reshape the health system and our nation for the better.
So everyone who is free this Thursday at 5pm please come out to Five Points and help us spread the message that we could have a better health system with everybody in and nobody out.
View Larger Map
We want to educate more people in Georgia about Single Payer/Medicare for All Healthcare and how it could reshape the health system and our nation for the better.
So everyone who is free this Thursday at 5pm please come out to Five Points and help us spread the message that we could have a better health system with everybody in and nobody out.
View Larger Map
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
CNA/NNOC Statement on the House bill on healthcare
by CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro
For Immediate Release
November 9, 2009
For Immediate Release
November 9, 2009
Of all the torrent of words that followed House passage of its version of healthcare reform legislation in early November, perhaps the most misleading were those comparing it to enactment of Social Security and Medicare.
Sadly no. Social Security and Medicare were both federal programs guaranteeing respectively pensions and health care for our nation's seniors, paid for and administered by the federal government with public oversight and public accountability.
While the House bill, and its Senate counterpart, do have several important reform components, along with many weaknesses, neither one comes close to the guarantees and the expansion of health and income security provided by Social Security or Medicare.
By contrast, if the central premise of Social Security and Medicare was a federal guarantee of health and retirement security, the main provision of the bills in Congress is a mandate requiring most Americans without health coverage to buy private insurance.
In other words, the principle beneficiary is not Americans' health, but the bottom line of the insurance industry which stands to harvest tens of billions of dollars in additional profits ordered by the federal government. Or as Rep. Eric Massa of New York put it on the eve of the House vote, "at the highest level, this bill will enshrine in law the monopolistic powers of the private health insurance industry, period."
Healthcare-NOW! GA 2nd Strategy Meeting: Wed, Nov 18 - 5pm at AFSC
We will be having the second part of our Strategy Session this Wed Nov 18 at 5pm at the American Friends Services Committee in Decatur at at 189 Sams St. Decatur, GA 30030.
We will be continuing our discussion on strategy by brainstorming which groups we can expect to become allies for our campaign. Also we will discuss tactics we will use to educate people about single-payer healthcare to build a base of organizers and allies and tactics to exert power over those who can enact a single-payer health system.
So we ask everyone to come with a list of:
1. potential allies for our Single-Payer Campaign
2. tactics to conduct popular education to build a movement and tactics to exert our power to enact reform
We will be continuing our discussion on strategy by brainstorming which groups we can expect to become allies for our campaign. Also we will discuss tactics we will use to educate people about single-payer healthcare to build a base of organizers and allies and tactics to exert power over those who can enact a single-payer health system.
So we ask everyone to come with a list of:
1. potential allies for our Single-Payer Campaign
2. tactics to conduct popular education to build a movement and tactics to exert our power to enact reform
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Patients Not Profits Protest - Tuesday, Nov 17th - Cancelled
The Patients Not Profits Protest is canceled for Tuesday, November 17th. Look back here for more upcoming events.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Healthcare NOW GA Photo Sharing now on Flickr.com
We've set up a flickr group for any Healthcare-NOW Georgia member to share their photos and videos of our events with the group and on our website.
Go to http://www.flickr.com/groups/healthcarenowga/ and join this Flickr group. You can then add your pictures to our flickr site and this should automatically update the photos section of our site.
Go to http://www.flickr.com/groups/healthcarenowga/ and join this Flickr group. You can then add your pictures to our flickr site and this should automatically update the photos section of our site.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Patients Not Profits - Protest & Press Conference Nov 4th 10AM
Patients Not Profits - Protest & Press Conference
Healthcare-NOW! Georgia: Mobilizing for Healthcare Atlanta Style
Wednesday, Nov 4th 10 AM
At BCBS GA Headquarters - 3350 Peachtree Road, NE Atlanta, GA 30326
Next to the Buckhead MARTA Station/N-7 Red Line (Map/Directions)
Email healthcarenowga@yahoo.com if you have any questions about the event.
Click here for the event on Facebook
Health insurance companies are subverting democracy and sabotaging health care reform, a citizens health care group will charge at a PRESS CONFERENCE at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 4 in front of Blue Cross/Blue Shield’s Buckhead office, 3350 Peachtree Road, NE.
“The insurance companies use our own premiums to lobby against us,” said Margie Rece of Decatur, a retired nurse and coordinator of HealthcareNow-GA. “This year alone, insurance companies and other vested health care interests have spent $263 million to oppose any reform which would threaten their obscene profits and power.
“Unfortunately, they have bought enough members of Congress to kill for now the most logical, cost-effective type of universal health care, Medicare for All, and substitute instead a system which transfers hundreds of billions more taxpayer dollars to the insurance giants.”
A recent Harvard study concluded that 45,000 Americans died last year because they could not get health insurance, Rece noted. “These companies hold the power of life or death over most Americans. That’s why we call them death panels.”
After the press conference, the group will attempt to deliver a letter to BC/BS president Monye Connolly. They will demand that BC/BS use its policyholders’ premiums on health care, not lobbying; and stop denying coverage for “pre-existing conditions,” a death sentence for many.
“The half-hearted reforms dictated by the insurance companies will never solve our health care crises,” Rece said. “We will continue our work until all Americans are automatically covered by Expanded and Improved Medicare from birth to death, with no co-pays, deductibles or lifetime maximums. Everybody in, nobody out!”
Healthcare-NOW! Georgia: Mobilizing for Healthcare Atlanta Style
Wednesday, Nov 4th 10 AM
At BCBS GA Headquarters - 3350 Peachtree Road, NE Atlanta, GA 30326
Next to the Buckhead MARTA Station/N-7 Red Line (Map/Directions)
Email healthcarenowga@yahoo.com if you have any questions about the event.
Click here for the event on Facebook Health insurance companies are subverting democracy and sabotaging health care reform, a citizens health care group will charge at a PRESS CONFERENCE at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 4 in front of Blue Cross/Blue Shield’s Buckhead office, 3350 Peachtree Road, NE.
“The insurance companies use our own premiums to lobby against us,” said Margie Rece of Decatur, a retired nurse and coordinator of HealthcareNow-GA. “This year alone, insurance companies and other vested health care interests have spent $263 million to oppose any reform which would threaten their obscene profits and power.
“Unfortunately, they have bought enough members of Congress to kill for now the most logical, cost-effective type of universal health care, Medicare for All, and substitute instead a system which transfers hundreds of billions more taxpayer dollars to the insurance giants.”
A recent Harvard study concluded that 45,000 Americans died last year because they could not get health insurance, Rece noted. “These companies hold the power of life or death over most Americans. That’s why we call them death panels.”
After the press conference, the group will attempt to deliver a letter to BC/BS president Monye Connolly. They will demand that BC/BS use its policyholders’ premiums on health care, not lobbying; and stop denying coverage for “pre-existing conditions,” a death sentence for many.
“The half-hearted reforms dictated by the insurance companies will never solve our health care crises,” Rece said. “We will continue our work until all Americans are automatically covered by Expanded and Improved Medicare from birth to death, with no co-pays, deductibles or lifetime maximums. Everybody in, nobody out!”
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Can the Democrats Avoid a Populist Health Care Rebellion?
By KEVIN ZEESE
The leadership of the Democratic Party is on the verge of passing health insurance reform. The centerpiece of the “reform” is requiring Americans to buy overpriced insurance from private corporations. But, it is evident that many in the Democratic voting base see the insurance industry as the problem – not the solution – and are getting angry about a new law that will force people to buy from corporations they don’t trust.
Just a few weeks ago the Mobilization for Health Care for All was announced (www.MobilizeForHealthCare.org). The Mobilization focuses on the denial of doctor-recommended care by the insurance industry. Sit-ins were planned at health insurance companies with demands that insurance corporations stop the denials. The Mobilization sought 100 people willing to sit-in at insurance corporations and risk arrest as people sat in at lunch counters two generations ago.
The response has been explosive, nearly 800 have signed up to risk arrest and thousands have signed up to join the protests. In the last 20 days 78 people have been arrested protesting the real death panels – the private insurance industry – who according to a California study deny doctor recommended care 20% of the time.
The Mobilization hoped to have “patients not profits sit-ins” in three cities last week, and instead it had them in nine cities. On the next Mobilization day, October 28th, there is likely to be twice as many cities protesting the insurance industry – just as Congress considers forcing Americans to buy insurance. This may be developing into the largest campaign of non-violent civil resistance since the Civil Rights era.
Many of the protesters supported Obama and were active in Democratic campaigns. Does the Democratic Party think that people willing to risk arrest against the corruption of the insurance industry will support Democratic candidates with time, money and votes who force them to buy insurance from these corporations?
The leadership of the Democratic Party is on the verge of passing health insurance reform. The centerpiece of the “reform” is requiring Americans to buy overpriced insurance from private corporations. But, it is evident that many in the Democratic voting base see the insurance industry as the problem – not the solution – and are getting angry about a new law that will force people to buy from corporations they don’t trust.
Just a few weeks ago the Mobilization for Health Care for All was announced (www.MobilizeForHealthCare.org). The Mobilization focuses on the denial of doctor-recommended care by the insurance industry. Sit-ins were planned at health insurance companies with demands that insurance corporations stop the denials. The Mobilization sought 100 people willing to sit-in at insurance corporations and risk arrest as people sat in at lunch counters two generations ago.
The response has been explosive, nearly 800 have signed up to risk arrest and thousands have signed up to join the protests. In the last 20 days 78 people have been arrested protesting the real death panels – the private insurance industry – who according to a California study deny doctor recommended care 20% of the time.
The Mobilization hoped to have “patients not profits sit-ins” in three cities last week, and instead it had them in nine cities. On the next Mobilization day, October 28th, there is likely to be twice as many cities protesting the insurance industry – just as Congress considers forcing Americans to buy insurance. This may be developing into the largest campaign of non-violent civil resistance since the Civil Rights era.
Many of the protesters supported Obama and were active in Democratic campaigns. Does the Democratic Party think that people willing to risk arrest against the corruption of the insurance industry will support Democratic candidates with time, money and votes who force them to buy insurance from these corporations?
Sunday, October 25, 2009
PROTEST Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Georgia Wed, Oct 28 at 4:30 to 6:00 pm
PROTEST Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Georgia
at Blue Cross & Blue Shield Georgia HeadquartersWednesday, October 28 at 4:30 to 6:00PM
Next to the Buckhead MARTA
Wear costumes reflecting denial of pre-existing conditions, sick patients and other healthcare horror stories. Examples: the Skeletons, Ghosts, Grim Reaper, R.I.P., coffins, blood soaked, bandaged patients etc. Use your creativity to create your costume and/or signs!
Signs and costumes are not necessary to participate in on-going demonstrations against health insurance companies. We will provide some signs and banners.
Friday, October 16, 2009
54 Arrested in Nine Single-Payer Actions on October 15th
The Mobilization for Health Care had a very strong showing in nine cities around the country yesterday. At least 54 people were arrested in the nine cities.
In New York City, the brave protesters were supported by a crowd of 50 legal protesters. We were prepared to start the action with 10 people risking arrest, and 4 more people joined us to stand up to the corporations that steal our money, our health, and our lives.
Our next task on October 28th is to grow the Mobilization. We want to see the number of cities with mobilizations to be at least 15 and well over 100 people risking arrest.
The task now is to spread the word. Let friends, families and others know about the Mobilization and urge them to sign up at www.MobilizeForHealthCare.org.
It is our job to create a political environment that makes single-payer the inevitable solution to Americas healthcare crisis. It is obvious that what is happening in Congress will not provide healthcare for all tens of millions will be without insurance ten years from now under the best estimates and will not control the cost of healthcare as the insurance industry if projecting a 111% increase in cost over the next decade of their already overpriced products.
Here's news coverage from yesterday's actions (we'll add more as they come in):
Boston, MA
Protest leads to arrest of 11 Daily News Tribune
11 charged with trespassing at health care protest in Newton Boston Globe
Protest leads to arrest of 11 Daily News Tribune
11 charged with trespassing at health care protest in Newton Boston Globe
Thanks for all that you do,
Healthcare-NOW! National Staff
Healthcare-NOW! National Staff
P.S. Call Congress for single-payer now! It's easy and toll-free.
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