Healthcare Demo Gains Momentum

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

"When the heads of the nation's insurance companies come to Washington, D.C., this week to plot strategies for killing real health care reform, they'll be greeted by thousands of union members, community, health care and religious activists with one message: Stop," reports James Parks on the AFL-CIO's blog, "We're sick of the obscene high rates and insurance company abuses. We want health care reform now." With growing enthusiasm and numbers, demonstrators are planning to declare the Ritz-Carlton - where AHIP, the health insurance lobby, is holding its annual meeting - a crime scene, completely surrounding the building with crime scene tape. AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka and Change to Win Chair Anna Burger are leading major feeder marches to the Ritz Carlton, joined by leaders like Teachers president Randi Weingarten, AFSCME president Gerald McIntee, Metro Washington Council President Jos Williams and more. One feeder march begins at AFSCME headquarters and the other at Dupont Circle; click here for details. - photo: at the "Hands Off Our Health Care" rally at the Capitol Hilton last October; photo by Chris Garlock