Single-Payer Activists met in Nashville, TN for Healthcare Rally
October 6, 2008 – Debby Hester of Healthcare-NOW! Nashville and PNHP in Tennessee were able to get a speaker on the Nashville rally’s agenda, and Garrett Adams of PNHP-KY accepted the spot. Then Jill Harmer from Kentuckians for Single Payer Healthcare called the rally organizers to see if she could sing the song she wrote about HR 676 and to see if there was a spot for Paul Whiteley who sang the “talking insurance blues” at our Humana demonstration in Louisville.
Both were accepted. Jill’s song is to the tune of Blowing in the Wind, and during her performance she draped a HR 676 T shirt across the lectern. She left the shirt up when she left the stage, but a rally organizer took it down.
Later in the program Tom Neilson sang a song for single payer to the tune of “Which side are you on?” That was particularly fun because HCAN is using the question “Which side are you on” to demand support for their principles that include choice of private insurance.
We organized 14 people to go down from Louisville with our HR 676 T shirts. We took the HR 676 stickers and covered the crowd so that 100 people were wearing them. The only ones who refused to wear them were those on the paid staff of organizations that are not for HR 676. Everyone else liked them.
We took bright pink leaflets with a brief explanation of HR 676, a coupon to send in, and a request to call or write your Congressperson to urge him or her to sign on to HR 676. On the back of the leaflet was the list and contact information for the Tennessee representatives.
We had 300 signs printed up with “Single Payer Health Care” on the front and HR 676 on the back. We distributed the signs to those who would hold them and many did. We circulated petitions to congress for HR 676 and got about 50 signatures. We had the opportunity to talk to many people about the need for single payer and HR 676. The response was very positive.
Debby had a Healthcare-Now table and was joined by several local nurses from CNA/NNOC who passed out their HR 676 information. Dr. Sutherland from Memphis had a PNHP table with their literature. We took our banner and hung it so that all could see “Health Care is a Human Right, Support Single Payer” with the PNHP-KY and KSPH names and logos.
Garrett was the best speaker, and the crowd cheered his call for surgical removal of the insurance companies from health care and the establishment of a single payer system by passing HR 676.
We had an impact. We did the best we could to insert the single payer message.
Kay Tillow
Kentuckians for Single Payer Healthcare
Lub Dup, Lub Dup, ….
My wife rolled over this morning a smiled at me while still asleep. Was I thank full. Sometime back she just passed out because the dup was missing. We were really fortunate because she worked for a company that provided a portion healthcare insurance costs to their retiree’s and we pay the balance. The system provided a monitor that she had to be wired and plugged and connected to so we could capture the next time an “event” occurred. It occurred and I “captured the event” by pushing the record button. The next morning we transmitted the “data” of the event by phone and a cardiologist told her to go to the hospital that day. About 8 hours later her new pacemaker was installed and for the last several years it has not used much battery power according to the people that monitor the pacemaker. She smiled at me this morning and I am lucky. There are more than 50 million people living in the United States of America without healthcare coverage that could not detect the problem, correct it and have it monitored because they are left out of a system that provides corporations 25% profit over their costs. Does this make you mad? It makes me mad and lucky.
What kind of health insurance does our elected officials have? They seem to be real healthy. We need to monitor these guys and get rid of the ones that are not for single payer health care. We control it. We can vote them out!!