Health care is our right.

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Medicare for All

On September 29th, the Mobilization for Health Care for All launched a national campaign of "Patients Not Profit" sit-ins at insurance company offices to demand an end to a system that profits by denying people care. We want the real "public option": Medicare for All, a single payer plan that cuts out the profit and puts patients first.

In recent weeks, over 150 everyday Americans challenged the corporate control of the health care system and were arrested in nearly 30 cities across the country, thousands supported them, and the nation heard our message that we must get profit out of our health care system.

As health insurance reform churns through the Congress, the fight for health care for all continues. To succeed, we need to keep targeting the insurance companies, but we also need to take our message to those who are making the decisions about our health - the US Congress. They need to know that we are serious when we say cut out the profit and put patients first with Medicare for All.

We continue to make our demands to support Medicare for All and if the Congress can’t enact universal health care, they should step aside and let states do it.

We know that the implementation of Medicare for All is not seriously considered in Congress because of the money and power of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies, but we demand a vote on this historic legislation. Further, if the US Congress cannot enact universal health care, states that pass single-payer plans should be given the resources to implement them. With these demands, we can make historic gains towards the right to health care for all people.

We know that Insurance companies are the real death panels in America. They make billions in profit and millions for their CEOs while millions of Americans have no health insurance and over 45,000 die every year because they can't get the care they need. That's more than 120 people every day. These insurance companies deny care to their members and the American people for profit. We need to make sure Congress listens to the people to implement real reform.

America deserves better, and that's why we voted for change. But the insurance companies are spending millions to confuse and scare the public to keep us from ending their grip on our health and our money. When the civil rights movement faced serious challenges in the struggle to end segregation, nonviolent civil disobedience moved the nation and made reform possible. Just like the lunch counter sit-ins did for the civil rights movement, we have to make it impossible for the media and our country to ignore how outrageous the status quo of private insurance is for the American people.

It only takes a small group of people to do a sit-in in your community, but our actions can inspire every American who has been abused by the insurance companies and believes it's time for real reform to fight for it. This campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience will continue until the insurance companies no longer stand between the American people and the health care that is our right.

Already, doctors, nurses, patients, and people just like you are signing up to be one of the 1000 ordinary but courageous people who will launch this nonviolent battle to end private insurance abuse and win health care for all. Join us! We can't wait any longer - every day more people die because of the insurance company death panels. Let's make sure our voices our heard.

Sign up to sit in and join the battle today!

Video: Kai Newkirk, 29, is an uninsured American who believes that health care is a right

Friday, November 6, 2009

Kai Newkirk, 29, is an uninsured American who believes that health care is a right. He helped launch the Mobilization for Health Care for All and participated in the first sit-in of the campaign at an Aetna office in New York City on September 29th. He then helped lead over 200 people in 26 cities across the country to risk arrest in other sit-ins to win health care for all.

Yesterday, Kai was arrested at a sit-in in Senator Joe Lieberman’s office calling upon him to publicly pledge that he will stop taking any money from insurance companies – money that those companies should be spending to pay for the care they deny to their members every day. Until Senator Lieberman takes this pledge, the American people cannot be certain that he is representing the people of Connecticut who need health care and not Aetna and the insurance companies that want to make huge profits. Kai has committed to remain in jail as long as he can until Senator Lieberman agrees to this pledge.

We need your support. Some of us can give a lot and some can give a little. Please give what you can to support the movement for health care for all!

Sign the petition: “We demand that Senator Joe Lieberman publicly pledge that he will no longer accept any money from any insurance companies.”