http://www.opednews.com/articles/Mad-as-Hell-Doctors-Tour-s-by-Don-Smith-090909-742.htmlThis afternoon they made a stop in Seattle, where the event began with street theater. I saw Count Bleed ya Dry representing the insurance, drug and hospital industries and Uncle Sam on a stretcher. Huge syringes extracted cash from the patient and fed it to Count Bleed ya Dry. Here's an excerpt of the skit (my camera and my photography skills are not the best):
Next the event moved inside, and there were a panel discussion by six physicians, discussion, musical performances, and high energy. There was also a chance for questions and answers, plus "Mad as Hell Minutes", where audience members got a minute to say why they're mad as hell.
I'd estimate that over 200 people were in attendance in the Langston Hughes Performance Hall, which is in a lower-middle class neighborhood of Seattle. I notice that the audience was mostly white. The hall was full.
As always, I worried that the event would be "preaching to the choir" (speaking inside the progressive echo chamber). A reporter and photographer from the Seattle Times were there. But even if the Seattle Times gives coverage, they won't have the time or space to go into detail about what's broken and how to fix it. And there were no TV stations covering it. We need our own media!
The Backbone Campaign has committed to sending the Count with two activists across the country in support of the Mad as Hell Doctors – linking up with local hosts in many of the 26 stops, a day or two before the the MAHD Caravan arrives, to provide media pre-publicity for the Doc’s events. You can make a tax deductible contribution to Backbone to help finance the trip at -
https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=19548http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/sep/10/physicians-make-their-case-for-single-payer/A group of physicians calling themselves “Mad As Hell Doctors” vowed Wednesday in Spokane to keep pushing Congress toward a government-run plan.
Two crowds gathered Wednesday, the first outside the U.S. Courthouse and the second at the Gonzaga University School of Law, drawing about 200 people each.
The campaign is a national push by family medicine doctors to create a national health care system that arranges the payment of services to doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers from a single source established and managed by government. Such a system would essentially replace private insurance companies with a single public entity.
In his speech to Congress on Wednesday, President Barack Obama mentioned single-payer only in passing. And critics have assailed such plans as socialized medicine.
Yet many who voted Obama into the White House are angry.
Dr. Katherine Ottaway, a family doctor in Port Townsend, Wash., told the crowds that insurance denials are hurting her patients and that hospital administrators have turned medical centers into profit treadmills that require doctors to meet patient quotas.
“This has to stop,” she said in support of a single-payer system controlled by an agency governed by public health officials.
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