Why did we choose Thursday, June 19 for a rally?

From June 18th - June 20th, leaders of the health insurance industry will be meeting at San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Center for their annual convention. Their organization is euphemistically called America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP).

Their Thursday, June 19th program features:

• former US Senator John Breaux
• former US Senator Bill Frist
• former US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson
• former Counselor to President Bush, Dan Bartlett
• former Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Terry McAuliffe.

All these speakers oppose legislation - such as California's SB 840 or the US bill hr 676 that would remove the insurance industry from our health care.

We are planning this rally, which will involve several thousand single payer supporters from at least three dozen grassroots organizations to show these health insurance executives that they are not welcome in our healthcare system. Healthcare is a universal right, not a cash cow of for-profit corporations. Their policy of denying care to the sick is killing people, while their need for profits and the massive bureaucracy that they have created result in the waste of more that 30 cents out of every healthcare dollar. Healthcare YES, insurance companies NO.