This audio podcast is a talk by health activist Jerry Call given at the University of Maine on Thursday September 17, 2009. The full title is CAN MEDICARE FOR ALL SOLVE THE HEALTHCARE CRISIS? Jerry Call is a cancer survivor and co-founder of the grassroots organization Maine Health Care Reform. Jerry is one of the key statewide single-payer advocates in Maine. He was one of the “Baucus 13″, arrested for disrupting Congress during an industry-heavy Senate Committee hearing last May (see the incident by playing the video HERE, and also the May news conference at the Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine.) He is a tireless campaigner for the Medicare for All bill, HR 676.
Archive for the 'Health' Category
On Saturday a vocal group of nearly 100 gathered at Pickering Square in Bangor to demand health insurance reform in America. The target of the demonstration was the harm done to the American people because insurance companies cruelly are organized with insistence for high financial return and callous disregard for health outcomes. Anthem was singled out for quite strident criticism. The quality of the speakers and the compelling stories told along those lines make this event very worthwhile. A link to my 24-minute video of the full program along with additional commentary is above right. This post has the audio-only podcast.
WLBZ/WCSH television provided statewide coverage, story HERE. The Bangor Daily News also has a story up on the web, HERE.
Locally the Maine People’s Alliance (MPA) and labor-oriented Food AND Medicine supported this event. The related national organizing effort is under the flag of Health Care for America Now, a broad coalition of labor, economic justice, and other social change groups that promotes “10 principles for reform that have been endorsed by President Obama and more than 190 members of Congress.”
This is the list of speakers in order of first appearance:
- Don Todd, activist from Etna, Maine
- Dr. Elizabeth Weiss, Bangor physician
- Leslie Mansfield, Bangor business owner
- Dr. Benjamin Schaefer, Bangor cardiologist
- Alice Knapp, Esq., Attorney in Richmond
I attended a press event and legislative hearing in Augusta concerning the fledging DirigoChoice health insurance program. We are enrolled in this program and consider it vital not only to our own continued health, but to that of the entire state.
The Maine People’s Alliance is a pro-Dirigo grassroots organization. I am a member. The 2006 press event was held for the purpose of releasing the results of a small experiential study concerning how the private contractor–the insurance giant Anthem, now responsible for marketing and servicing Dirigo for the state of Maine–is meeting its responsibilities for Dirigo. It’s a checkered report. The situation as described by MPA and supporters is that Anthem is the “fox in the henhouse” where Dirigo is concerned.
This podcast is audio from the Tuesday Maine People’s Alliance (MPA) “FOX IN THE HENHOUSE” press action at the State House in Augusta, Maine.
Additional information is posted at Deep Blade Journal and from MPA
Below is my statement given at the press event and in testimony in support of LD 1845 before the Maine State Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Insurance and Financial Services.
20 min; 5 MB; 32 kbps mp3; download link here ->
Continue reading ‘Maine Dirigo Health February 2006 press action’
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