Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2007. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Washington Blade - April 6, 2007
Trenton Straub
The dramatization staged March 29 was the finale of a march for universal health care. AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) co-sponsored the protest along with Healthcare NOW, Housing Works, the Metro New York Health Care for All Campaign and others.
"The 50 body bags represent the 50 Americans who die every day because of lack of health insurance," said ACT UP member Eric Sawyer. He explained that originally 20 activists, including doctors, planned to lie in the street near Wall Street's famous bull statue. It's an act of civil disobedience that results in arrest.
"By lying in the street, they are 'dying' of lack of health care," Sawyer said. The number 20 signified the 20th anniversary of ACT UP, a grass-roots activist organization that fought against homophobia and HIV/AIDS bias. The group was influential in spearheading research that led to today's HIV medications.
"We'll show you what activists are capable of," ACT UP founder Larry Kramer told the crowd before the march left the Federal Building at Broadway and Worth Street.
"This is the beginning of a demonstration to take the country to task," Kramer said. "It's appalling that our country doesn't have universal health care - we're the wealthiest country in the world."
Dr. Oliver Fein, chair of Metro New York Physicians for a National Health Program, told the media and crowd that the only feasible plan that would insure all Americans is a single-payer plan. "It is the only plan that challenges America's dependence on the private health insurance industry."
Under the single-payer system, the government would collect money from everyone who works, similar to Social Security. Those funds would pay for the delivery of care. Doctors and hospitals would not work for the government; they would remain independent. The difference is that they would be paid by the government's health tax, not insurance companies.
About 30 percent of insurance companies' expenses are related to overhead and marketing, Sawyer explained. That number is 3 percent for administrative costs at Medicare and Medicaid, two government programs.
According to the World Heath Organization (WHO), Americans spend 16 percent of the country's gross national product on health care. That is three times more than other nations, but WHO ranks the U.S. 42nd on infant mortality, 43rd on life expectancy and 37th in overall assessment of its national healthcare system.
"More than 46 million Americans have no health care insurance and another 50 million Americans are underinsured," Sawyer said, adding that the numbers proved the system is a failure.
ACT UP may be most associated with in-your-face gay activism related to HIV and AIDS. But Sawyer, who was a founding member of ACT UP, said the group always demanded health care for all.
"We had success in getting AIDS drug assistance programs set up and special programs like Medicare and Medicaid to provide care and HIV medication," Sawyer said. "But we realized that we put an HIV-specific Band-Aid on the health care system."
AIDS funding, such as the Ryan White CARE Act, has flat-lined and even dwindled over the past two decades of the AIDS crisis. This is problematic because there are 40,000 new infections each year and people with AIDS now live much longer.
The march for universal health insurance included stops at City Hall, Trinity Church and the Wall Street bull statue. At each spot, speakers from various organizations addressed different aspects of universal health insurance.
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