Marc Stier at Large

The last committee hurdle has been jumped. The Senate Finance Committee has reported a bill. It’s not great. It’s not we want. But it moves us a step closer to the real reform we must get in 2009. I want to give you some idea of how we are going to get the reforms we want this year. What we know and don’t know Now if anyone tells you he knows what will happen in Congress this year on health care, he or she is not to be trusted. As Yogi Berra once put it, predictions are hard, especially about the future. And they are especially hard in politics, where so many factors—ideology, interest, ambition, and skill—play a role in determining what happens, especially on issues as difficult and complicated as health care. But I do have a sense of how things will play out this year and I want… Continue reading

Businesses often do things that harm innocent people or the public. But the health insurance industry is the only business in America that ties to increase its profits by deliberately targeting people who are sick or likely to be sick. Dawn Smith has a rare but treatable brain tumor and health insurance with CIGNA. But CIGNA has been denying her the health care she needs. And recently, CIGNA raised the co-pay for her pain medication from $10 to $1000. Dawn has traveled from Atlanta to Philadelphia in a mobile home to demand a meeting with CIGNA’s CEO, Ed Hanway. A rally with Dawn will take place tomorrow, Thursday, October 15 at noon at CIGNA’s headquarters at 2 Liberty Place (16th St and Chestnut St). Can you take a few minutes to join us in support of Dawn! RSVP here. The actions we are doing here are making the case, throughout… Continue reading

We got a fair amount of press coverage of our civil disobedience action last week. And people also posted video of most of the event. There was a good report about the campaign in general I the Philadelphia Inquirer There was a radio report on KYW Local TV coverage Coverage of HCAN protest & arrests at CIGNA: NBC 10, 5 pm, 10/6/09 Coverage of HCAN protest & arrests at CIGNA: Fox 29, 5 pm, 10/6/09 Blog posts on FireDogLake http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/8795 http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/8784 Two of our blog posts explaining what we did and why: http://blog.hcanpa.org/?p=204 http://blog.hcanpa.org/?p=206 YouTube Overview of event http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI56EMceY50 More Complete Video coverage on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSlK3w6Vw08&feature=related Rally followed by Introduction by Marc Stier and stories about insurance company abuses. Stacie Ritter telling her story, Joan Kosloff talking about her son, Eric Julian Aycox , Michael Ladson talking about his younger brother Samuel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TroigMwRgNI Dawn Smith’s story told by Ray Torres… Continue reading

Click here to send a fax to your Members of Congress and let them know that you consider the insurance industry to be engaged in criminal behavior. Dennis Short Joan Kosloff, Michael Ladson, Ray Torres and I were arrested yesterday at 12:30 pm for blocking the doors to CIGNA’s world headquarters in Philadelphia today. The fourteen hours I was in jail were not much fun—although it was a day in the park compared to the suffering that insurance companies in America regularly deal out not only to those they refuse to insure and but those they do insure. The crowded cell, noise, stench, stale air, and hard steel bench were not were not really conducive to thought. But I had time on my hands and spent some of it thinking about how to explain, especially to those of you who may have had some doubts about our action, why we turned… Continue reading

  Michael Ladson, Joan Kosloff, Dennis Short, Marc Stier, Ray Torres Today we were arrested for blocking the doors to the offices of the CIGNA Insurance Companies world headquarters in Philadelphia. Taking this action was not easy for us. Most of us have been political activists for many years but some of us have never been arrested before and for others of us, it has been a very long time since we felt so strongly about an issue that we were moved to take part in civil disobedience. A decent respect for the law and our fellow citizens leads me to explain why we are taking this action today. All of us believe that the law should be broken only when doing so is a means to preventing a great evil. We are acting on that principle. The laws that regulate the health insurance industry need to be reformed in… Continue reading

Today, Tuesday, October 6, at 11:30 am at 1601 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia to we are going back to CIGNA’s world head quarters in Philadelphia to protest business practices that deny people insurance coverage and health care and their political efforts to block health care reform. A few of us are going to risk arrest by blocking the doors to CIGNA’s lobby. We need as many of you as possible to join us and show support for this action. Please RSVP here. We are not eager to engage in civil disobedience. We have been organizing for months, built a huge campaign and have had a clear impact on our Senators and Representatives. But what we have seen in the last few months from the opponents of health care reform, who are partly financed by health insurance companies, is a campaign of deceit, lies and distortions. Continue reading