Sam Pullen, staying in police custody for health care for all, interviewed from jail
Making the Ultimate Sacrifice for Health Care Reform
By Kevin Gosztola | OpEdNews.com
Sam Pullen, 31, honored his mother’s spirit on October 15th by engaging in a sit-in at a Blue Cross in Los Angeles with a group of individuals who gathered to demand that insurance companies immediately grant approval for treatment of all their members with life-threatening conditions.
The sit-in was part of Mobilization for Health Care for All’s nationwide sit-ins and protests held to bring attention to the need for a single-payer health care system in America.
Pullen was arrested for participating in the sit-in. Once in jail, he decided to pledge to stay in jail in L.A. until Blue Cross stops denying care to those that need it most.
I spoke to Pullen from his jail cell and we had an intensely powerful and moving conversation.
Pullen’s mother was diagnosed with multiple myeloma cancer when he was a teenager. She was covered by Blue Cross when she wanted radiation and chemotherapy to treat the cancer, but when she found out she would need a bone marrow transplant if she expected to continue to live a bit longer, Blue Cross denied coverage for the procedure and claimed it was “experimental.”
To fight death, Pullen’s mom was put in the unfortunate situation of having to fight the insurance companies while also fighting her cancer. She staged a one-person sit-in and refused to leave until Blue Cross covered her transplant.
She managed to win coverage when she asked an insurance representative if they would give coverage if it meant having a few more years to spend with their kids.
Her willingness to fight taught Pullen “if you are being denied coverage by your insurance company and if your life is in danger, you need to fight. You need to stand up. You need to insist that you be covered.”
“The major obstacle to health care reform is that the insurance companies are standing in the way. They’re putting in lots of money to try and prevent health care reform,” said Pullen. “The insurance companies are clogging the heart of our democracy with money to prevent a real health care system from taking place.”
Pullen described the feeling he got from joining an action and sitting down and speaking up for health care reform and knowing it’s going to make a difference for future generations as “one of the most liberating things” a person can do.
He said, as police took him away, he looked up and saw employees cheering those who had participated in the sit-in. It was “the most amazing feeling.”
Pullen told me that being in jail has deepened his commitment to directly challenging health insurance companies.
Pullen is uninsured. He explained that many of his fellow inmates are as well.
“I’m hanging out with all kinds of people who don’t have access to insurance,” Sam explained. “A lot of people have been affected by medical conditions that can’t be covered.”
While I interviewed him, he asked fellow inmates if they were for health care for all and if they would rather be arrested for a cause instead of whatever reason they are in jail for. The inmates yelled out “Yeah!” and “A cause!”
He said what really angers him about the politicians in Washington is that “for every representative in the Congress, there’s five insurance lobbyists that are trying to influence health care reform.”
On doctors and nurses, Pullen described how he believes doctors and nurses are supportive of the cause and talked about an anesthesiologist who joined him and others in the sit-in at Blue Cross that he was arrested at.
“We need more doctors and nurses who are willing to sit down and take a stand on this issue,” said Pullen.
Pullen made a sacrifice that he thinks will “inspire people to step up and be willing to target the insurance companies.”
Pullen knows Americans far outnumber insurance lobbyists and he understands a rising tide of Americans taking direct action is what’s needed to shift the political center of gravity and force those leading this nation to give Americans real health care reform.
His hope is that more Americans find inspiration in injustices they have experienced or that their friends and family have experienced and participate in the next wave of actions being organized by the Mobilization for Health Care for All.
Kevin Gosztola is a trusted author who publishes his writing regularly to OpEdNews and Open Salon and a 2009 YP4 Fellow.
He is a documentary filmmaker currently completing a Film/Video degree at Columbia College in Chicago. Currently, he is working on a documentary project on Renaissance 2010 and Chicago Public Schools.
On Columbia College’s campus, he helps organize events and programming with a humanities/social sciences group known as Critical Encounters. He is currently working with the group to plan a media summit for Chicago in April 2010.
