Our Action at CIGNA Today

 

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 order to protect Americans from the dangerous practices of these companies.

We have all been are part of the movement for health care reform that has grown in this country over the last few years. The political system in this country has begun to respond to it. But many of us who have been dedicated to cause have become more and more disturbed by the path the debate on health care reform has taken.

We are activists and we know that building a political movement requires mobilizing people, and marching and chanting. Over the past eighteen months, we have done our share of that with our partners at Health Care for America Now. But what we have seen in the last few months from the opponents of health care reform, who are partly financed by the large corporate health insurance companies that are also spending $641,000 a day lobbying against reform in Washington, is a campaign of deceit, lies and distortions.

Our opponents have not been successful in stopping good health care reform legislation. But the charges and counter-charges have lead all of us to lose sight of the fundamental moral issue that should be at the heart of this debate.

For us, the cause for which we fighting is a moral truth that is so hard and clear that in this current debate it shines like a beautiful diamond struggling to be seen in a piece of black coal: everyone in America deserves good health care they can afford

We were arrested today advocating on behalf of individuals who have suffered and / or died at the hands of insurance companies that have denied them health care.

We were arrested today because Stacie Ritter’s children were denied the medical care they need by CIGNA. Stacie’ twin girls were afflicted with cancer at the age of 4, and Cigna refuses to cover the human growth hormone treatments they need to grow properly.

We were arrested today because Joan Kosloff’s son died as a result of a treatable case of meningitis because he could not afford health insurance.

We were arrested today because Samuel Ladson, who was born with Hemimegaencephaly, a rare brain disorder which causes severe life-threatening seizures and had major brain surgery at the Cleveland Clinic, was denied the therapy sessions he needed, in his case, by Aetna.

We were arrested today because Dawn Smith is today fighting CIGNA for the treatment she needs. Dawns has have a brain tumor. Doctors are ready to help her. But CIGNA has been blocking her from treatment for two years, while almost doubling her premiums.  Last week CIGNA’s pharmacy called Dawn to say that the co-pay on the medicine that helps controls her my debilitating head pain is skyrocketing from $10 to $1,115. That’s in addition to her premium of $753 per month.

We were arrested today because CIGNA refused to consider insuring Billy Koehler, who died of a heart attack shortly after CIGNA said it was unwilling to insure him because he had a pre-existing medical condition. Without insurance, Billy couldn’t afford to maintain the internal defibrillator that was controlling his arrhythmia  

We were arrested today in front of one of the largest health insurance companies in America, because these four people represent thousands of others.

People like Stacie Ritter and her children and Dawn Smith can’t wait for the insurance companies to change or for the politicians to recognize that we need reform. That’s why today, across the country, people with stories like theirs are visiting insurance companies to put the their profits ahead of the health of the people they insure. In 50 cities across America, advocates and consumers like us are saying “Enough is enough!” and declaring that the way CIGNA and other private insurance companies conduct their business is fundamentally immoral.

It is immoral to deny people health insurance or charge them more because they have a pre-existing condition

It is immoral to charge anyone premiums or out of pocket costs so high that insurance is unaffordable.

It is immoral to drop people from health insurance because they get sick.

It is immoral to deny health care to people who have health insurance, who pay their premiums faithfully, and who expect their health insurance to be there when they need it

Without real reform, a moral catastrophe will continue in our country.

Every day in America, 120 people die because they are denied health care by an insurance company.

Every day in America thousands of people, most of whom have health insurance, enter bankruptcy because their medical debt has become overwhelming.

This health care crisis has gone on for decades. It must stop this year, in 2009.

But it won’t stop until Congress takes decisive action to check companies CIGNA. Until we have laws that stops CIGNA from discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions, stops CIGNA from dropping the coverage of people who get sick, stops CIGNA from denying health care people need, and stops CIGNA’s stranglehold on the market by forcing them to compete fairly with other companies and a public health insurance plan, people like Stacie, Dawn and countless others will continue to struggle.

We were arrested today in front of CIGNA because injustice is here. And the injustice that is here is found everywhere in America today.

We took the actions that lead to our arrest today because we had no other choice. We have appealed to CIGNA change its policies by taking our message directly to the CEO’s office and his house. We have gotten no response.

We have taken part in demonstrations and have lobbied our Members of Congress to solve the problem. But Congress is moving slowly and is under constant pressure from the enormous lobbying effort of health insurance companies to retreat.

We were arrested today because we are determined to bear witness to all who have suffered at the hands of private insurance companies and to say that we are no longer going to tolerate the damage to human lives that results from CIGNA’s practices, practices that violate the moral principles for which we all stand.

It is long past time for Congress to heed those principles and to act. Our elected leaders have a responsibility to make companies like CIGNA treat people fairly and in a way that guarantees their well-being. We’re here as an example to the community and to our political leaders. It’s time to stand up for what’s right, to stand up for what’s fair and to stand with those who would otherwise be fighting alone against corporate giants like CIGNA. We challenge our legislators to pick stand with us.