Chelsea Now/Gay City/The Villager/Downtown Express

New York, NY

http://chelseanow.com/articles/2009/12/06/news/new_york/doc4abba42316847125613569.txt

By Jefferson Siegel

The health insurance debate landed full-throttle in Chelsea on Tues., Sept. 22, as several hundred people protested outside the offices of one of the nation’s largest health insurers.

A vociferous crowd gathered across Seventh Ave. from the Penn Plaza offices of United Healthcare on 32nd St., holding signs and blowing whistles while demanding a public health insurance option.

“We need a guarantee of good coverage we can afford,” said Bernadette Walker, a member of MoveOn.Org and one of half-dozen speakers to address the rally over the lunch hour.

“United Healthcare had the worst complaint record in our state in 2008,” said Mark Hannay, the director of the Metro New York Health Care for All Campaign, citing a recent report by the Public Policy and Education Fund of NY.

Hannay went on to cite specific criticisms of United Healthcare from the PPEF analysis, including United’s having the worst complaint record of commercial, for-profit insurers, failure to provide coverage and charging excessive premiums. The PPFE is an affiliate of the group Citizen Action of New York, which also advocates for public financing of election campaigns and a progressive tax system.

Since President Barack Obama first proposed an overhaul of the nation’s health insurance industry, a firestorm has erupted over the plan, especially regarding the idea of a “public option” that would provide competition to established health insurers.

As each speaker excoriated the health insurance industry, the crowd chanted, “Big insurance, we’re sick of it” and “A public option is what we need.” Speakers noted various statistics, including how health insurers spend millions of dollars to lobby against insurance reform while more than 47 million people go without health insurance because of high costs.

One group of speakers, the wryly ironic Billionaires for WealthCare, received a mixed reception. Descendants of the satiric Billionaires for Bush, the group took to the stage in tuxedos and evening gowns. Phil T. Rich, chewing a big cigar while holding a glass of champagne, joined the group in chanting “Claim denied!”

Several people in the crowd apparently believed they were being addressed by a bespoke cadre of rich health insurance executives, and a half-dozen rushed the stage, screaming and holding oversized signs to block the Billionaires from view. One woman even tried to block a journalist from photographing the Billionaires.

Unable to continue, the Billionaires left the stage to continue their unique brand of protest. Locking arms, they walked backwards across Seventh Ave. as several union members from the rally pushed them toward the insurance offices.

Another costumed protester, Laurie Wem, dressed in a hospital gown along with four others from the group “Private Health Insurance Must Go!” Their gown’s open backs displayed fake buttocks below signs reading, “Chances are your ass ain’t covered.”

“During the Bush administration, the hope for progressive health care reform was relatively small,” explained Wem, a longtime Chelsea resident who moved Uptown last year.

“Health care has always been an issue, especially for the 45,000 who die each year because they didn’t have health care,” she added.

Standing nearby, Dave Travis, a theater director from Brooklyn, held his 7-month-old daughter Indigo.

“Indy has a pre-existing condition. She’s insured with her mother’s policy and now her mother can’t change jobs,” said Travis, who added he has remained uninsured for 12 years because of the cost. “We can’t understand why we can’t be given a choice.”

Wem’s group is planning a rally and march on Tues., Sept. 29. They plan to gather at 4 p.m. in front of Bristol-Myers Squibb on Park Ave. and 51st St. before marching down to Aetna’s offices. Wem said the march, in addition to calling for universal health care, will call attention to a cancer patient unable to afford medications or chemotherapy.

The Tuesday rally was organized by Health Care for America Now (HCAN), MoveOn.Org and the union SIEU 32BJ. Similar rallies were held in four other cities across the state.