If there is one villain to rail against besides oil corporations it is the leeches of the health insurance corporations. They will do everything in their power to ensure that no form of universal publicly funded healthcare becomes a reality. This is why it’s good to see people starting to protest these monsters.

This past Thursday, June 19, was the National Day of Protest Against Health Insurance Companies. Protests took place in cities all across the country. The New York action, which was attended by about 100 people, began at the GHI headquarters at 441 9th Ave. and moved to the offices of United Health at One Penn Plaza. The march was composed of members of a number of unions and a large number of retirees. Additionally, there were a number of speakers, including Ralph Nader. Much of the protest was focused on the GHI-HIP for-profit merger and H.R. 676, which would cover all US residents with all necessary health medical care.Thursday’s event was co-sponsored by a number of organizations including Coalition Against Privatization (CAP), Healthcare-Now, Private Health Insurance Must Go, and PNHP New York Metro Chapter. This march followed a smaller May 30th protest, also outside of the GHI offices, a there will be a follow up meeting to plan more actions on June 26th at 6:30 pm at 339 Lafayette Street (Buzzer #11).

Technorati : ghi, united health

You can learn more about their efforts by reading this PDF file. It is indeed the health insurance industry and it’s lobbying tentacle AHIP, that stands in the way of single payer or any universal healthcare plan. I’d probably throw Big Pharma and it’s thugs over at Phrma in this as well. In addition to protesting at AHIP’s love fest, the nurses will also be protesting at the offices of Cigna, Humana, Blue Cross/Blue Shiled and GHI to name a few.