Here are four vignettes about four women who have been fighting and still are fighting for health care each in their own way. It's interesting that this fight has been taken up at least on the front lines by women. It has been women who have been the activists. It has been women who have been arrested for trying to be heard. It has been women who have been shouted down at Town Hall meetings. It has been a woman whose only recourse, due to a preexisting condition, was to advertise for a husband who already had health care insurance to which she could be added as a spouse.
Marianne Hoynes was heckled and jeered at a town hall meeting in Red Bank, NJ by an angry mob who had no consideration for the fact that she was disabled or was in fear of losing her home. Her cost for one medication was $389. every two weeks. The crowd basically had no sympathy for her. Were these people on the payroll of the health insurance corporations whom they seemed to be siding with? I don't think so. It goes deeper than that. It was reminiscent of the 1923 beer hall putsch in Germany where speakers were shouted down by Nazi brown shirts. The hecklers and jeerers at this meeting were participating in sheer political hatred as commentator Lawrence O'Donnell stated: "This is just blind political hatred."
These people seemingly on the side of the insurance companies were just there to shout down any political views that they disagreed with, the same tactic the brown shirts used in Munich beer halls. This is hatred of the strong for the weak, hatred of the healthy for the sick and hatred of the able bodied for the disabled. And it's tied up with being macho, with the kind of male ego who thinks it's unmanly to show any kind of sympathy for the less fortunate, the kind of egos that think only the strong should survive. Right wing demagogues have been able to tap into this facet of the male ego since time immemorial. That has a lot to do with the fact that poor white males vote against their own economic interests, side with insurance companies who are ripping them off and vote for those politicians who are the most angry, warlike and hard nosed and have the least sympathy for those who need help.
Although many women at the Town Hall meeting sided with their male counterparts, there is a primary affinity to war and destruction for the male ego while women tend to be the nurturers of society. War, hatred, machoism and jingoism seem to be woven from the same cloth, the cloth elaborately stitched together by right wing politicians. While women fight for heath care, men deprecate their efforts.
Here is a video of Marianne's experience at the Red Bank Town Hall meeting:
Marianne is now involved in a project to get health care for musicians. They are making a movie about musicians and health care. This is from their website:
We are a small, not for profit group, creating a documentary film about Musicians and their access to affordable health care in the U.S..
If you are willing to speak on camera, tell us whether or not you have health insurance, and how this has impacted you or your family, please contact us. This video is strictly not for profit, and there is no financial compensation for speaking with us.
The Musicians Project is not religious, political or partisan in any way.
Donna Smith has a different story. Here it is in her own words.
A Mother’s Personal Mission: Healthcare Not Warfare
This week, the Healthcare Not Warfare campaign I help co-chair for Progressive Democrats of America becomes even more deeply personal for me. My son leaves for his volunteer tour of duty in Afghanistan. And I won’t be there to say goodbye. Because I advocate a position of peace, my son believes my priorities are off kilter, and for some time now he has believed that he goes to war so whiners at home can keep griping about less critical concerns — like healthcare or economic justice.As is sadly the case with many parents and grown children, my son and I do not see eye-to-eye and that causes a distance of the heart that hurts everyone involved. Though separated, we are both on a mission.
Peace nearly always seems the better path than war to me, and providing healthcare for all seems the better offering than enrichment of the health-industrial complex. These basic energies drive me and millions of my fellow advocates to give time and money in anti-war efforts and also in the effort for healthcare justice. There is little personal enrichment for any individual advocate through this struggle aside from the shared hope that we may leave this nation a safer, healthier place for future generations.
Healthcare not warfare is my life’s mission. I am as mission-driven as many of our best soldiers have trained to be, as this battle for healthcare is not for the weak of spirit or the meek. And it is a war that claims 45,000 American lives every single year. It’s a war carried out on American soil, by Americans allowing the preventable deaths of 45,000 of their fellow Americans, so I do think it’s a war we must fight as aggressively as any threat that caused that much loss of life.
Though some may not think sacrificing one’s home, life savings, personal safety and health is as deep a commitment to a mission as risking one’s life in military battle, I tend to think of all preventable suffering and death as, well, preventable.
Dr. Margaret Flowers has spoken out at congressional hearings only to be ushered out of the room by security. She's attempted to deliver a letter to the White House only to be arrested. Maybe if she had attempted to sneak into a State Dinner, she would have been more successful. Here's her story:
A Statement From the Baucus 8
Why We Risked Arrest for Single-Payer
By MARGARET FLOWERS, M.D.
On May 5, eight health care advocates, including myself and two other physicians, stood up to Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and the Senate Finance Committee during a “public roundtable discussion” with a simple question: Will you allow an advocate for a single-payer national health plan to have a seat at the table?
The answer was a loud, “Get more police!” And we were arrested and hauled off to jail.
The fact that a national health insurance program is supported by the majority of the public, doctors and nurses apparently means nothing to Sen. Baucus. The fact that thousands of people in America are dying every year because they can’t get health care means nothing. The fact that over 1 million Americans go into bankruptcy every year due to medical debt – even though most of them had insurance when they got sick – means nothing.
And so, as the May 5 meeting approached, we prepared for another one of the highly scripted, well-protected events that are supposed to make up the “health care debate” using standard tools of advocacy. We organized call-in days and faxes to the members of the committee requesting the presence of one single-payer advocate at the table of 15. Despite thousands of calls and faxes, the only reply – received on the day before the event – was, “Sorry, but no more invitations will be issued.”
We knew that this couldn’t be correct. We had heard Sen. Baucus say on that very same day that “all options were on the table.” And so, the next day, we donned our suits and traveled to Washington. We had many knowledgeable single-payer advocates in our group. And as the meeting started, one of us, Mr. Russell Mokhiber, stood up to say that we were here and we were ready to take a seat. And he was promptly removed from the room.
In that moment, it all became so clear. We could write letters, phone staffers, and fax until the machines fell apart, but we would never get our seat at the table.
The senators understand that most people want a national health system and that an improved Medicare for All would include everybody and provide better health care at a lower cost. These facts mean nothing to most of them because they respond to only one standard tool of advocacy: money, and lots of it.
The people seated at the table represented the corporate interests: private health insurers and big business and those who support their agenda. The people whose voices were heard all represented organizations which pay huge sums of money to political campaigns. These interests profit greatly from the current health care industry and do not want changes that will hurt their large, personal pocketbooks.
And so, we have entered a new phase in the movement for health care as a human right: acts of civil disobedience. It is time to directly challenge corporate interests. History has shown that in order to gain human rights, we must be willing to speak out and risk arrest. We must engage in actions that expose corporate fraud and corruption. We must make our presence known.
And that is why the eight of us, knowledgeable health care advocates and providers, most of us parents, some of us grandparents, spoke out one-by-one at the Senate Finance Committee. And it is why we will continue to speak out and encourage others to do the same. Our voices must be strong enough to drown out the influence of corpo rate dollars.
Health care must become the civil rights movement of this decade. The opportunity is here. And we can create a single-payer national health care system.
Yes, we can.
Dr. Margaret Flowers is a pediatrician in the Baltimore are and co-chairs the Maryland chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP). Her statement was co-signed by Mark Dudzic, Labor Campaign for Single Payer; Russell Mokhiber, Single Payer Action; Carol Paris, M.D., PNHP; Katie Robbins, Healthcare-NOW!; Pat Salomon, M.D., PNHP; Adam Schneider, B’more Housing for All; and Kevin Zeese, ProsperityAgenda.us.
Terri Carlson is a Vista, CA woman who, because of a preexisting condition could not get health care insurance. So she advertised for a husband with the main characteristic that he should have a health care insurance policy to which she could be added as a spouse. This divorcee has a genetic disorder called C4 Complement Deficiency, and there are no known cures. Here's her website.
Terri has gone from seeking a personal solution for her problem to being an activist in general for health care reform for all the suffering people out there. She's created a number of YouTube videos. Here's one:
It may be that women will be the primary force behind ending war and providing health care for everyone. They are the ones who give birth, who want their children to grow up healthy, who don't want to see them die in war. While the male ego affliates itself with the hardness of war which calls for a lack of sympathy, the softness and nurturefulness (to coin a word) of women lends itself to an identification with the well being of all God's chillun'.
Margaret Flowers http://www.counterpunch.org/flowers05082009.html
Terri Carlson
http://www.10news.com/news/22371454/detail.html
Marianne Hoynes
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