I’ve been to a lot of political rallies and events. And, if truth be told, a lot of them are pretty dreary. Speeches go on for too long. And pretty much every rally is subject to the funny observation I first hear from Mo Udall about political conventions, after the first 15 minutes “everything has been said but not everyone has said it.”
I think the Pennsylvania town hall yesterday was a little different, especially at the beginning and the end.
In May and June, HCAN PA has ramped up its efforts. We are holding four to five health care events every week.
The picture, which links to a short video, is from a Health Care Rally in Pittsburgh on May 28 which came a day after we did a Health Care Town Hall in Erie and two days after an event in Montgomery County. (Our rally was held at Mellon Square underneath Senator Specter’s office, to which I was pointing.)
Since our Pittsburgh event, we have had multiple town halls, house parties, meet-ups in Montgomery County, Delaware County, Bucks County, Erie, Philadelphia, Lehigh County, Luzerne County and other places throughout the Commonwealth.
At each event, big and small, we find healhcare activists who then take on the task of recruiting other people to join this movement. And, at critical points in the fight for health care reform we have brought those activists into the fight, particularly to call or email Senators Specter or Casey or their members of Congress. And that’s one reason the Pennsylvania delegation in Congress has been one of the most strongly supportive of health care reform.
You can join our effort. First, tell a friend about the campaign and ask them to join it. Second, call (215 880-6142) or email (marcstier@hcanpa.org) us to volunteer to help us arrange a meeting, house party or other event in your neighborhood.
The Pennsylvania chapter of Health Care for America Now released a new report today showing that consolidation in the private health insurance industry is creating skyrocketing premiums for both patients and employers. Pennsylvania’s two largest health insurers, Highmark and Independence Blue Cross control 72 percent of the market statewide. When looked at a local level, however, the situation is even worse, with three out of four local market ratings being dominated by a single company. From the point of view of the regional insurance markets, Pennsylvania has levels of concentration exceeded by only twelve states.
This kind of consolidation means that an insurer can, without fear of consequences, raise premiums and/or reduce the variety of plans or quality of services offered to customers. This is what we have seen: from 2000 to 2007, premiums in Pennsylvania had risen 86 percent compared to a meager 13 percent increase in wages. This means health insurance premiums grew 6.4 times faster than wages from 2000 to 2007.
So I have been organizing around access to health care for over a year and a half now. I was there to help kickoff Health Care for America Now coming to Pennsylvania last July. Before that I was organizing for health care reform at the state level. I serve as the regional Health Care organizer for the Philadelphia Unemployment Project. Over the past year and a half I have traveled around Eastern PA talking and listening to consumers, grasstops, labor unions, physicians and everyone imaginable about health care. As health care reform heats up in DC this summer I think it is important to hear what people are thinking and saying at the grassroots level.
This past week we organized house parties and community meetings in three locations to educate and engage individuals on the need for a public option plan. We were in Wynnewood on Tuesday, Norristown on Wed and Swarthmore on Thursday. The commonality among the three events was the stories that everyone shared. Everyone was affected by the health care crisis we are having in America. We heard the usual stories of individuals who have been discriminated against by insurance companies for having pre existing conditions. We heard from individuals who lost their jobs and their health care. We heard from the mother whose children just graduated from college and can no longer be on her health insurance. The one story that really stuck out in my mind was one that I had never heard before. In Norristown we met a really concerned father. He shared with us that his son was in the Navy and he was getting married. He then shared with us that he believed the reason why they were getting married so soon was because his son’s fiancé did not have health insurance.
It was clear this week that change to the American Health Care system cannot wait. The public is behind President Obama and his public option plan. We will continue to hold house meetings, discussions in coffee shops and on street corners so that everyone is educated and engaged in one of the biggest legislative battles we will see over the next few years. Stay tuned as we continue to share updates from the field. If you would like to hold a Be There for Health Care Houseparty please let us know my emailing akraus@philaup.org. We will provide you with everything you need including a celebrity surrogate to moderate the event.
One of the bizarro aspects of being an issue activist is that you wind up in a bubble and sometimes forget that most people, most of the time, aren’t paying attention to the issue that consumes your life day in and day out.
Given that the primary goal of a political activist is to find people who care about an issue and motivate them to become active in one way or another, you would think that it would be hard to forget that most people live outside the bubble. But activists spend time a lot of time with other activists, both professional and amateur, and with politicians and their staff members, and with members of the media. And we are all inside the bubble.
If you are reading this, you at least stick you head inside the bubble once in a while. And from time to time, you take action to bring engage your friends, neighbors, and co-workers in political action, bringing them inside the bubble as well.
This is the time to do so with regard to health care.
N. And, as a little thank you for your efforts, we are going to raffle off one of these beautiful, union-made HCAN t-shirts every week for the next five weeks, to people who use our tell-a-friend email tool to invite their friends and family to join HCAN
Press Conference: IBC rate hikes show why we need a public health insurance plan
These shocking increases point to the urgency of creating a public health insurance plan to compete with private insurance. Senator Specter is inching toward support of such a plan. Click here to call him in support of a public health insurance plan.
Lance Haver and I did a press conference about these rate increases yesterday. Click the photo to see an excerpt from it.
IBC is seeking rate increases for three “non-group” insurance programs that are purchased by individuals not by businesses or other groups for their employees and members.
As reported in Roll Call, earlier this week, Senator Specter has moved a bit closer to our position in support of a public health insurance plan. He’s not there yet and he still needs to hear from us. But we are making progress.
Some of us have been working on this campaign since July 8 of last year, building piece by piece an organization that could move a lot on the ground quickly. Volunteers all over the state have been joining us. And our movement has been growing.
We’ve not always been able to achieve what we hoped. But on Wednesday we saw just how much we are capable of doing around the state all on one day.
We can start with five press events we did all over the state, introducing our new TV ad and building pressure on Senator Specter