It was May Day in Montpelier, and single-payer advocates made it their day. After marching down State Street, more than 2,000 activists descended on the Statehouse lawn where, for an hour, thanks to gigantic loud speakers that carried their voices for blocks, they told anyone who would listen with the story of their campaign and stories of people who had suffered because of health insurance companies denying care.
They came from every county of the state and from manyl walks of life. Some came dressed in costumes, others in red “Health Care is a Human Right” t-shirts. Some tooted horns or beat on drums. Others sang, and chanted: “Everybody in; nobody out.” Bread and Puppet Theater performed “The Saints Go Marching In.”
Many of the activists carried the printed Vermont Workers’ Center signs. Others carried handmade placards with slogans like “Want health care? Get insurers off our backs, pass single payer.” Another sign read “We are not Arizona,” in reference to an amendment that would exclude undocumented residents from access to coverage under the federal health care exchanges and the single-payer plan.
More than 2,000 people came to the parade and what was billed as the people’s rally, according to James Haslam, a member of the Vermont Workers’ Center and organizer of the event. Liberal groups – including unions, Planned Parenthood of Vermont, the Sierra Club, VPIRG, 350.org, Vermont Climate Action — provided the dominant support for the rally.
Their message, which has been reiterated in numerous press conferences, forums, public hearings and testimony before lawmakers, hasn’t changed much. Activists said they want nothing short of universal health care, and they took aim at lobbyists from businesses, insurance brokers and insurance companies who they say have attempted to weaken the universal health care bill, H.202. They also told horror stories about Vermonters who have been denied care. They claimed credit for the introduction and imminent passage of H.202, billed as Vermont’s first step toward universal health care reform.
Laura Oshman, a nurse at Fletcher Allen Health Care, described a man in his 20s who complained of strep throat but didn’t go to the doctor because he didn’t have health insurance. He developed an aggressive form of the infection that led to the loss of a leg and part of an arm that could have been avoided had the strep been treated, according to the nurse.
Peg Franzen, president of the Vermont Workers’ Center, echoed the slogan “This is what democracy looks like” — now made famous by the thousands of union workers in Wisconsin who protested Gov. Scott Walker’s repeal of collective bargaining rights. Franzen, a grandmotherly figure who wasn’t much taller than the podium she stood behind, called the assembled crowd “the people’s team.”
“I want you to get to know the people around you because this is what citizens who care look like,” Franzen said. “This is what it is, this is democracy. This is how we will make health care a public right. (Democracy) looks like a struggle and a celebration.”
Franzen described that struggle in her short remarks. She recounted how activists were told two years ago that a single-payer system was politically not possible. “We knew it was not going to happen in a year,” Franzen said. “We know it will not happen in three years.” She advised activists to continue their efforts over the long haul. Franzen characterized the health care conflict as a struggle between corporate interests and “real Vermonters.”
Franzen has made single-payer her personal crusade. She said she has been in the Statehouse every day, watching as insurance company executives, hospital administrators, doctors and business leaders try to influence health care policy.
“What I see is the special-interest lobby working behind the scenes, and they are being listened to (by lawmakers),” Franzen said. “I don’t hear the voices of real Vermonters.”
She asked members of the crowd to hold legislators responsible. “Each victory is a success and a call to action,” Franzen said as she described a society “wracked with inequity.” Government isn’t committed to the people, in her view. Instead, she said, it’s concerned about the “concentration of wealth and power in the hands (of those) who already have too much.”
Vermont can do better, Franzen said. “We cannot stop until we achieve the goal of health care as a public good,” Franzen said. “You and I are going to show the nation what democracy looks like.”
