Health Care

Insurance profits not only make us sick; they often kill us.

Enough is enough. 20,000 die each year. Millions suffer needlessly. We can't take it any more! A coalition of peace groups has launched a Des Moines-based Healthcare Campaign. The campaign begins by focusing on the abuses of health insurance corporations. The first action of the campaign is a weekly vigil in front of Wellmark Blue Cross Blue headquarters in Des Moines.

Why Health Insurance Companies?

Because the denial of coverage and care driven by their profiteering is the reason for

the current national healthcare crisis. A leaflet we’ve prepared may be read here.

Why Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield headquarters?

The Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield Insurance Corporation, with about 600,000

customers, is the largest health insurance seller in Iowa. Its national headquarters

is based in Des Moines.

The destructive impact on health care by Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield may warrants confrontation. The Blue Cross/Blue Shield name has been linked to several scams and scandals in recent years; and their arbitrary denial of payment has caused innumerable deaths. Originally non-profit, the company became a for-profit mutual in the mid-1990s, eliminating the public’s ability to know how they spend the premiums they collect. We do know they spend millions on marketing and capital ventures to increase their income which often goes to their other for-profit subsidiaries. Estimates are that as much as 40% out of every dollar they take in from customer premiums goes to things other than healthcare, such as 20 million offered to the University of Iowa for a naming opportunity, a PAC that gives about $200,000 a year to candidates, and 200 million for a luxury building in downtown Des Moines that is scheduled to be completed next year. Perqs and salaries for Wellmark CEOs are exorbitantly high. While providing increasingly wealthy lifestyles for its officers, Wellmark continues to increase premiums while cutting services for its customers, regardless of the expense to human life.

Join us!

The "Insurance Profits Make Us Sick" campaign will encompass a wide range of strategies and tactics including weekly vigils, educational programs, speakers, movies, public prayer services, legislative advocacy for single-payer health insurance, direct actions, demonstrations, and nonviolent civil disobedience.

For more info contact:

Watch these videos to learn more.

Read and/or download our flyer here.

Obama ignores single-payer bill at Healthcare summit.

Democracy Now interview with Luke Mitchell., author of the article “Sick in the Head: Why America Won’t Get the Health-Care System It Needs.”

Bill Maher’s succinct take on the problem.

Dr. Linda Peeno confesses to congress that she let people die to protect profits.

Update from Dr. Linda Peeno.

HERE

Des Moines activists in front of Wellmark headquarters.

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Iowa Campaign Video on Single-Payer.

An Open Letter on Howard Dean’s Appearance, May 28, 2009

"A populist is for the people. We're also more fun. We don't vote to hurt average Americans, even if the corporate payoff is really big." -Molly Ivins

“Over and over again, we hear single payer, single payer, single payer… Well, it's not going to be a single payer. Case closed." -Nancy Pelosi (May, 2009)

Dear Friends,

Howard Dean will be appearing in Des Moines on May 28, 2009, to give a talk titled, "A Prescription for Health Care for All."

Unfortunately Gov. Dean's prescription is a deadly solution and a partisan capitulation to big insurance. Dr. Dean is part of the Whitehouse campaign to make HR676, single-payer healthcare "go away." HR676, a bill in congress introduced by John Conyers is the ONLY chance we have now to save lives. If Democrats cared about the will of the people, it would pass easily. More than 60% of Americans want this bill passed.

The Obama administration has caved to the health insurance industry for one reason, the money. And, not only the millions in campaign contributions, but the even more millions this industry pours into war bonds. It will be next to impossible to pay for current and escalating wars without this funding source. When Dr. Dean said on MSNBC's The Ed Show last week that "single-payer is not off the table," he was lying to us. He was intentionally misusing the term "single-payer" and applying to the Obama "public option" plan, which will leave millions still without access to healthcare.

People will die as long as our healthcare is linked to employment and in any way influenced by the health insurance industry. The Obama administration has chosen to sacrifice lives to protect financial sources.

War and healthcare are inextricably linked because funding for both are informed by the same corporate interests. The healthcare industry profits are dependant on war, and funding for war depends on them.

We are killing people in war and in our denial of single-payer healthcare for corporate greed. The 20,000+ who die each year —that's more than 55 a day—are not simply dying. They are being killed. They are as much casualties of war as those on a battle field. If we had an epidemic that cost this many lives, and nothing was being done, we'd be screaming with alarm. I have met some of these families, and their pain is unspeakable. Many had health insurance but payment was denied for bogus reasons.

I know what I've written is difficult to consider. I know millions had great hopes that this administration would be different. I know how wrenching it is when your heroes let you down. People with jobs linked to loyalty to the Democratic Party will not be able to help us. But, at least for the rest of us, aren't those who will die and the families who love them more important than partisan or candidate loyalties?

So, for the families who suffer, I beg you to carefully and honestly investigate this matter. Please don't simply take my word for this, or even the word of the 15 (including doctors and nurses) who were arrested last week trying to get single-payer considered in Senate healthcare hearings. The truth is very available. Click the cube above for links to more information.

This summer we will be giving programs to better inform Iowa about HR676. Please come.

If you go to Dr. Dean's talk, please ask him, "Why?" "Why, if most Americans want HR676, have we refused to even consider this bill? Shouldn't it at the very least be part of the debate?"

There is a vigil every Monday, 4:00-5:00 p.m. in front of Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield on 6th and Locust, in downtown Des Moines.

People are counting on people like us. We shouldn't let them down.

Mona Shaw

Des Moines Catholic Worker

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