Sit-in today at Aetna office in New York to demand an end to insurance company abuse

Aetna is the real death panel, and any health insurance companies who deny doctor-recommended lifesaving treatment: www.mobilizeforhealthcare.org.

Citizens and health care providers today staged a sit-in at the offices of Aetna, one of the nations largest health insurance companies, in New York City (99 Park Ave @40th. The action is part of a national mobilization to end health insurance abuses such as the denial of coverage for lifesaving treatments, and win support for the only real public option Medicare for all, a single payer plan. The action was part of a Mobilization for Health Care for All campaign that includes actions in Chicago, Los Angeles, and other cities across the country.

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."

Participants in the action demanded that the insurance company immediately approve all doctor-recommended lifesaving treatments in their files, stating that they would not leave until Aetna approved care. Aetna, however, refused to meet with their representative.

Insurance companies are denying care to people who need it right and left, but thats not how it should work. Health care is a right, not a privilege, said Constancia Dinky Romily, 68, just before getting arrested. Romily is a retired nurse and a resident of East Village, New York. Im putting myself on the line and getting arrested to end insurance abuse and win health care for all, she says.

The sit-in is part of the Patients Not Profit campaign of the Mobilization for Health Care for All. The mobilization was launched by the organizations Prosperity Agenda, Health Care NOW!, and the Center for the Working Poor. Todays action has been organized by the Private Health Insurance Must Go coalition, a local New York organization.

"People are dying because these corporations put profits before patients, and the health care bill currently on the floor of Congress fails to address the real cause of the health care crisis the insurance companies." says Katie Robbins, an organizer with Healthcare-Now! "The only solution to our health care crisis is the real public option, Medicare for All, a single payer plan."

Laurie Wen, 38, a Manhattan resident, is one of the everyday Americans who are fed up with the state of health care in our country, and was arrested today to stand up for the hundreds of Americans who are denied lifesaving care every day, and to call for the only solution for health care for all, Medicare for all. A friend of hers, she says, was recently denied by Aetna for coverage for a bone marrow transfusion to treat cancer for three months, setting his care back for three months.

We will continue to stage these sit-ins as Congress debates legislation that expands the insurance company stranglehold over our health, our lives, and our government, says Wen. We need a better system to end insurance abuse and win health care for all.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• health care
• health care debate
• single payer
• sit-in
• protest
• Aetna

[drakenfly]

Aetna thru Ball Aerospace was responsible for having my disability and my insurance health coverage dropped and was responsible for having me involuntarily terminated from my job because of their "over the phone" examination. If you get sick while at Ball Aerospace expect to die if it is serious its what Ball Aerospace and Aetna want. I was a full time employee when I became disabled. I believe Ball Aerospace along with Aetna hope I die before any of this gets resolved. STAY AWAY FROM AETNA!

[independentview1]

What Private Healthcare is ever forced on anyboby? If you don't like the product they sell don't buy it. It's called Freedom.

[introduire]

To Independentview1:

You do not have a clue about what the facts are on healthcare. If you are going to quote John Ensign, a senator in the pockets of HMOS, save yourself the trouble. Not everybody is as dumb as you are to allow themselves to be brainwashed by a senator who has to have all his statements prepared by staffers. You don't want to be forced to buy healthcare, we don't want to have a private healthcare system imposed on us. By the way, your views are not welcome in USA anymore!

[independentview1]

Look it up for yourself.

Oh, I forgot. Facts are Liberals Arch Enemy.

[swckswck]

That's an outright lie.

[independentview1]

If you don't buy ObamaCare, Obama will see to it you go to prison. At least in prison you will get free health care. That's Hope to a Liberal.

P.S. Get your information from somewhere besides Keith Olbermann. You are really uninformed.

[independentview1]

Americans who fail to pay the penalty for not buying insurance would face legal action from the Internal Revenue Service, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

The remarks Thursday from the committee's chief of staff, Thomas Barthold, seems to further weaken President Barack Obama's contention last week that the individual mandate penalty, which could go as high as $1,900, is not a tax increase.

[independentview1]

Under questioning from Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), Barthold said the IRS would "take you to court and undertake normal collection proceedings."

Ensign pursued the line of questioning because he said a lot of Americans don't believe the Constitution allows the government to mandate the purchase of insurance.

[independentview1]

"We could be subjecting those very people who conscientiously, because they believe in the U.S. Constitution, we could be subjecting them to fines or the interpretation of a judge, all the way up to imprisonment," Ensign said. "That seems to me to be a problem."

Ensign's argument , however, wasn't persuasive to the committee -- which rejected an amendment from Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) to eliminate the individual mandate

[swckswck]

"No Insurance company CEO ever came up with the idea of putting people in prison for not buying their product. It took Democrats to come up with that one." Uh, dude, that's not part of anybody's plan. No proponents of universal health care have ever called for that. The weak Obama plan didn't call for that either. The insurance companies might not "put you in prison for not buying their product," but they will let you go straight to the morgue for not being able to afford their product.