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HEALTH CARE FOR AMERICA NOW
NEW YORK CITY ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 20, 2009
Statement by Mark Hannay, Director
Outside the Hammerstein Ballroom at Manhattan Center
Concerning President Barack Obama’s Appearance
at an Event for Organizing for America
We who are gathered here today are partners in the New York City Organizing Committee for Health Care for America Now (HCAN), a broad coalition of over 1,000 national, state, and local organizations fighting for REAL health care reform. In addition to my own coalition, lead organizations in our local committee include: ACORN, AFSCME NYS, Children’s Defense Fund of NY, Citizen Action of NYC, Committee of Interns and Residents, Communication Workers of America, Community Service Society, Make the Road NY, MoveOn, National Physicians Alliance, NY Immigration Coalition, NYC for Change, NYS AFL-CIO, Raising Women’s Voices, SEIU Local 32 BJ, 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, and Young Invincibles.
Health Care for America Now and our allies here in New York are gathered here this evening to welcome President Obama to New York, to thank him for his leadership on health care reform, and to say that we stand with him in the fight for REAL reform because he’s standing with us. We stand with him for aspects of reform that matter to New Yorkers.
The details of health care reform DO matter. Chief among these is the choice of a new public health insurance option linked to Medicare. A strong public option is indeed the real “game changer” that makes health care reform possible and makes health care reform work, and that reorients our health care system to assure access to comprehensive, quality, affordable health care for all in America. Our nation cannot succeed at this goal, one we’ve been striving for since the time of Teddy Roosevelt, without a strong public option. It is the necessary component, and it must be linked to Medicare in order to provide relief to the millions of uninsured and underinsured in American that need help now.
On numerous occasions, President Obama has called for a new public health insurance option as a part of health care reform. We stand here this evening to echo his commitment. We state emphatically, “We stand with you, Mr. President for a strong public option: doctors and nurses, working men and women, your former campaign volunteers, small business owners, young adults and senior citizens, women’s and children’s rights advocates, immigrant rights advocates, people of faith, and grassroots activists of many stripes. All of us stand with you in the fight for a public option because YOU, Mr. President, are standing with US in support of the freedom to choose a public health insurance option. The American people – by wide margins in many polls – strongly support a new public option. In short, Mr. President, we New Yorkers and we Americans have got your back!
Defeating the public option is the #1 goal of the private insurance industry, the very folks who’ve created our health insurance crisis in this country in the first place. Just recently, the insurance industry began coming out with phony, biased studies to scare-monger Americans about health care reform, just as they have done time and time again over the last 100 years. But the American people are not buying their lies this time around. We know that the vested special interests such as the insurance industry are the true enemies of health care reform and health care justice in America. We’ve had enough of their abuse that has brought about needless illness, suffering, and the premature death of Americans – 45 thousand every year – just so they can make profits for Wall St. investors. The jig is up!
In addition to the imperative for a public option, other aspects of reform are important to New Yorkers. These concerns include making sure that premiums and out-of-pocket costs are affordable if people and businesses are going to be required to carry coverage, making sure legal immigrants can benefit from reform just like all other tax-paying Americans, and funding reform through progressive taxation instead of taxing workers’ health benefits or comprehensive health plans required by people with serious illnesses. Several of our speakers today will be addressing these topics in more depth.
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