Single-payer rally in CA

The California Nurses show us how. They had a rally -- more than a 1,000 of them came out to rally for single-payer universal healthcare.

The People's Weekly World wrote it up. Could Denver do this?

There was a press conference, then the rally, with “Hey ho, hey ho, private health care is sick-o,” and “What do we want? Single payer! When do we want it? Now!”

Rally participants urged adoption of the single-payer bill now before the state Legislature, SB 840, the California Universal Healthcare Act, sponsored by state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, and HR 676, the U.S. National Health Insurance Act, introduced by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich).

“There is no room for the concept of profit when it comes to taking care of people who are sick,” Moore told the crowd.

Also addressing the rally were Drs. David Himmelstein and Quentin Young, leaders of Physicians for a National Health Program.

This is an important article. Take a look and take notes.

For the June 29 official openings, the CNA/NNOC and Physicians for a National Health Program, together with other health care workers’ unions, are planning a “Scrubs for Sicko” campaign with caregivers in “Sicko scrubs” at every theater where the film is shown.

Though at the start of this week the campaign had just begun to mobilize for these actions, involving some 3,000 showings, “we’ve already signed up over 500 nurses,” CNA/NNOC spokesman Shum Preston said in a telephone interview.

Preston said caregivers at the openings will ask people to urge their elected officials to support Conyers’ HR 676. “We’re also starting a nurses’ pledge movement to withdraw all investments from for-profit insurance companies, and calling on politicians to stop accepting donations from insurance companies,” he added.

“‘Sicko’ is the right movie at the right time,” Preston said, “because it crystallizes a lot of feelings people have about health care, and points to the basic problem being the insurance companies’ profits.”

One effect of the mobilizations around the film is that nurses’ organizations from all over the country are coming together to work on national policy, Preston said. “It’s already changing the health care debate from ‘what about the health care crisis?’ to ‘what about the insurance companies and their profits?’”