Citizens ‘Arrest’ Insurance Reps
March 09, 2010
HEALTH CARE REFORM NOW! – Members of AFSCME’s New York affiliate, DC 37, march with thousands of others to protest the tactics of insurance company lobbyists who were meeting in Washington, DC. (Photo credit: Jon Melegrito)
Hundreds of AFSCME members joined thousands of demonstrators in the nation’s capital this week for a “mass citizens’ arrest” of health insurance executives who are planning to defeat health care reform legislation now before Congress.
“We are here to speak truth to power,” said AFSCME International Pres. Gerald W. McEntee. “We’re here to arrest the CEOs of Big Insurance because they are devastating our families and businesses and getting away with it.”
AFSCME activists from Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania joined others from Washington, D.C. to protest in front of a Ritz-Carlton hotel. Inside, the health insurance lobbying group, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), was holding its annual policy conference.
Outside, marchers circled the hotel chanting, “We’re fired up, can’t take no more.” A yellow police barrier tape was unfurled in front of the hotel with the words “corporate crime scene” emblazoned on it.
“We will not allow the big corporations and their lobbyists to bully Congress to a standstill,” said Dorothy Bryant, a phlebotomist with the city of Baltimore’s health department and vice president of Baltimore City Municipal Employees Local 44 (AFSCME Council 67). “I’ve decided that if Congress can’t hear me from Baltimore, then I’m going to DC to make my voice heard.”
“The insurance companies and their cronies in Congress have done everything they can to muddy the issue and drag down reform,” added New Yorker Jackie Rowe Adams, president of AFSCME Local 299 (DC 37). Members of Congress “can stand with us and support real change, or they can side with the insurance industry.”
The rally was sponsored by Health Care for America NOW! (HCAN), a national grassroots campaign organized in 2008 to win quality, affordable health care for all. AFSCME is a founding member of HCAN, which represents a collective 30 million people nationwide.
Learn more online at www.citizensposse.com. For news coverage of the event, check out this CNN report.
