May 18, 2007
ACT UP GOES UNIVERSAL
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It's time to stop the health care bull. |
When ACT UP celebrated its 20th anniversary this March, it wasn't just looking backward. In addition to joining forces with the HASA for All campaign that seeks to expand benefits for poor New Yorkers with HIV, ACT UP vowed to make universal health care one of the top priorities in the 2008 presidential elections. Stepping into the universal health care debate has helped give the legendary-but-struggling direct action group a much-needed bounce. Attendance at meetings has nearly tripled, and the first gathering of its "No More Bull: Healthcare for All" committee, which will lead its efforts on universal health care, attracted representatives of numerous community-based organizations, including Housing Works, Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP), Healthcare Now (HN) and Metro New York Health Care for All.
"Universal health care is a natural outgrowth of AIDS groups' commitment to supporting programs like Medicaid and Medicare," says GMHC Senior Policy Associate Coco Jervis. "We are experiencing severe cutbacks and constant assaults on Medicaid, and we need a guarantee of health care to end this epidemic."
This week's meeting was largely a way for groups interested in allying with ACT UP on universal health care to network and find common ground. Everyone was in agreement about the need to evaluate presidential candidates' health care plans and create a well-organized bird-dogging network. Whether to get behind a "single payer" national health plan, which would likely dismantle the private health insurance industry, was one of the more complex issues that still needs to be hashed out.
Sorting out single payer
While PNHP and HN are dedicated to the adoption of a single-payer system, ACT UP hasn't endorsed it as the only possible path for universal health care, despite endorsing the single-payer concept in general. Long-time ACT UP member Mark Milano says he's in favor of single payer but that it isn't realistic to insist on it, or in keeping with ACT UP's mission. "ACT UP has always made broad demands: 'HIV drugs that work,' or 'We want research to move in this direction,' or, in this case, 'We want everyone to have health care coverage.' Some people say that when you bring up getting rid of private health insurance [via single payer], you're barking at the moon — I want to call for whatever works," he says.
Another ACT UP veteran, Eric Sawyer hopes Milano and others will eventually get wholeheartedly behind single-payer as well as the specific plan put forth by Michigan Congressman John Conyers, Jr., in HR 676. "If you don't ice insurance companies out of the mix, you shouldn't bother doing anything. Their purpose for existing is profit — that dilutes health care delivery," he says. Sawyer likens the battle to end private insurance to bringing HIV treatment to the developing world: "Everyone said it would never be feasible. It took more than 10 years to convince people it was a moral imperative — had we bowed down to those who thought the battle was too hard to win, the developing world wouldn't be getting access to treatment. This is gonna be a hard fight that might take 10 or 15 years."
Both men agree that ACT UP can play a crucial role in forcing the presidential candidates to make universal health care a priority — they both point to the 2000 elections, when ACT UP hijacked the early stages of Al Gore's presidential campaign with bird-dogging efforts that forced him to change his pro-pharma stance on making generic AIDS meds available in South Africa.
Housing Works supports a single payer plan and Conyers bill but not necessarily to the exclusion of other options. "I do understand concerns about taking on entrenched interests like insurance companies. But people also thought doctors would never allow the creation of Medicaid," Housing Works legislative counsel Michael Kink says.
GMHC is also on board with HR 676 but Jervis says there are still discussions to be had about moving forward with universal health care. "We have a large goal of a single payer health system but we're looking to work within ACT UP and the universal health care movement to build consensus," she says.
If you want to get in on the universal health care discussion, come to the next "No More Bull: Healthcare for All" meeting at GMHC on June 6 , from 6 to 8 pm, 119 W. 24th Street, Room 900.
For more information about getting involved with "No More Bull," contact Eric Sawyer at sawyer@igc.org or 917-951-5758 or Mark Hannay at metrohealth@igc.org or 212-925-1829.