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This national day of action comes in response to the annual convention ofAmerica's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the insurance industry lobbying groupdedicated to blocking healthcare reform.
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Families of those who have lost loved ones to these health insurers willgather outside the convention to demand solutions and answers. They will beled by Hilda Sarkisyan, mother of 17-year-old Nataline, who died when CIGNAdelayed her liver transplant last December, and by the family of NickyColombo, another 17-year-old whose life was saved only after a coalition ofRNs and bloggers pressured PacifiCare to overturn its denial. Their storieswill be remembered at a memorial wall, and in the patient story archive onlineat http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/your_story, an online testament to theabuse and pain caused by America's broken health system and merciless healthinsurers.
The patients will be joined by hundreds of nurses, school employees,seniors, healthcare activists, as well as Los Angeles' crusading City AttorneyRocky Delgadillo, who has sued insurers for illegal denials of care, and bySen. Sheila Kuehl, the author of SB 840, the groundbreaking bill to bringguaranteed healthcare to California.
Malinda Markowitz, RN, a co-President of the California NursesAssociation/National Nurses Organizing Committee said, "We march for those whocan't -- for those who have been denied care by the insurance companies, orbankrupted by their practices. The American people are ready for guaranteedhealthcare through an improved 'Medicare for all,' and it is time to passRep. John Conyers' HR 676 on the federal level and State Senator SheilaKuehl's SB 840 in California in order to finally end our healthcare crisis."
"My daughter survived two bouts of cancer, against all odds only to betold that she couldn't get the only treatment that could have saved her lifebecause some administrator in some insurance office thought it is was tooexpensive," says Hilda Sarkisyan. "Families should not have to hold massiveprotests to force insurance companies to do the right thing. We need the kindof healthcare reform where a doctor's recommendation for life-saving treatmenttakes precedent over cost-savings and profit."
Delgadillo also appeared Wednesday, as the convention opened, to discusshis legal efforts to crack down on the unlawful and fraudulent businesspractices of the insurance industry and to unveil a new television adtargeting insurance denial of care. The ad was produced by the CourageCampaign and funded by the California Nurses Association and Sen. Kuehl.Titled "Insurance Jive," it will begin airing Thursday in Los Angeles andSan Francisco. It can also be viewed on the CNA/NNOC website,http://www.calnurses.org.
The protests, the largest related to healthcare in many years, will beextensively covered at the new Guaranteed Healthcare Blog,http://www.GuaranteedHealthcare.org/blog, a project of the LeadershipConference on Guaranteed Healthcare. The Leadership Conference on GuaranteedHealthcare is dedicated to bringing America the benefits of a "Medicare forall," or single-payer healthcare system. These systems, common to mostindustrialized democracies, replace private insurance corporations, withuniversal, nonpro
