Guaranteed Healthcare

By Donna Smith, community organizer

California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee 

WASHINGTON, DC – Well, the American Patients United and Healthcare-Now second annual healthcare justice week has been filled with memorable moments as events reach out across the nation to remember those lost to the healthcare crisis and to honor those still fighting.  In DC, CNA/NNOC and several other groups joined in an amazing protest action targeting the AHIP folks (American Health Insurance Plans) as they met at the Capital Hilton and then we held a small, quiet vigil at the Capital Reflecting Pool.

And what a week of intense contrasts – in Washington and around the nation. On Sunday in New Jersey, citizens marched in a New Orleans' style funeral procession, and in the picture above you see nurses, med students, patients, doctors and community activists marching in front of the Humana building in Chicago demanding, "Single payer healthcare not corporate welfare."

And on Friday, the amazing nurses of CNA/NNOC will march across the Golden Gate in San Francisco and call for true reform.  It's a week of purpose and of action for single payer...

At the DC vigil, one wonderful nurse who flew all the way from Arizona  brought laminated copies of the patient stories featured on this guaranteedhealthcare.org site, and Katie Robbins of Healthcare-Now brought copies of the murder by spreadsheet booklets she put together.  We read stories aloud and shared our thoughts on people we’ve met along the way and patients we know are suffering.  We had nurses, patients, med students, doctors and other concerned citizens quietly gathered as the First Lady held a posh event across the lawn which had created permit problems for our action at the last moment.  But no one bothered us.

We shared – as I had heard a hundred times or more on the street yesterday – our disgust as citizens about the unfolding financial bail-out of the big Wall Street firms and financial interests that now threaten worldwide doom if a huge bail-out isn’t forthcoming from our elected officials.

“Disgusting” is the word I heard said so many times…

Disgusting that our government can act so quickly in some situations yet allow years and years to pass while hundreds of thousands of American citizens die needlessly from preventable deaths in a healthcare system gone mad with profits and greed very much like Wall Street, folks acknowledged.

From the cab driver who works three jobs to support himself yet still doesn’t have healthcare coverage – disgusting.  From the waiter who brought me coffee in a nice DC hotel but who cannot go get his teeth fixed – disgusting.  From a homeless man from Michigan who slept in Lafayette Park across from the White House wondering if he could sell his home while inching ever closer to foreclosure – disgusting.  From the young couple I chatted with as they toured the city and took in all the patriotic sights and sounds but wondered how their own financial future will unfold – disgusting.

From a small, purposeful group of citizens from all over the nation gathered in the setting sun at the Capital Reflecting Pool, disgusting, truly disgusting.  We said their names aloud – patients who are suffering and some who have died.  We stood silently looking toward that beautiful domed Capital where we place our hope and our passion and our commitment to make this healthcare system just and get the profit motive out.  We lit our candles in the gentle breeze and sang “We Shall Overcome" just as we had done last year on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

In New Jersey, in Chicago, in Washington, DC, and all across the nation this week, we are gathering to make even more clear our citizen demand for a truly just and sound healthcare system -- single payer.  Publicly funded, privately delivered... One nation, one plan.  And that's anything but disgusting.  Now we must keep the pressure on and make sure we take the energy of this week forward into the election and beyond.  Onward...