Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Occupy Wall Street Protesting WellCare
Occupy Wall Street Health Insurance St Vincents Protest Press Release
New York, NY – Oct 26 – Activists from and allies of Occupy Wall Street will be marching to St. Vincent’s Hospital today to highlight the greed and corruption that lead to the hospital’s devastating closure in 2010. St. Vincent’s was a Catholic-run hospital, which had a charity mission to serve the under-insured and uninsured. St. Vincent’s lacked the corporate clout to negotiate fair reimbursement rates from profit-driven insurance companies, leading to financial instability. Moreover, the short-term focus of the highly-paid executives and consultants pushed St. Vincent’s into bankruptcy – leading to a public health emergency: there is now no hospital on the Westside below 57th Street. Two months ago, The New York Post reported that the Manhattan District Attorney was investigating whether hospital executives intentionally let St. Vincent’s fail, so that the Rudin Management Company could buy the hospital’s real estate as part of a controversial luxury condominium development project. (1) Rudin paid pennies on the dollar to buy the hospital’s real estate, and Rudin now stands to sell luxury condominiums and townhouses, once constructed, that are expected to have a combined fair-market value of over $1 billion.
“People can’t get the healthcare they need when they need it, precisely because of the corporate desire for making profits by denying healthcare coverage and access to sick patients,” states Dr. Elizabeth Rosenthal of Physicians for a National Health Program. “I have a health insurance plan with a $15,000 deductible. My family rations care all the time because we can’t afford the out-of-pockets costs,” explains Katie Robbins, supporter of Occupy Wall Street and member of Healthcare-NOW! NYC. “We have to get Wall Street out of our healthcare system.” Anger towards the Wall Street-controlled healthcare system inspired today’s march, which is set to also target Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield and WellCare. The march was initiated by a working group of Occupy Wall Street called Healthcare for the 99%, which is composed of healthcare workers and people who seek to end inequality in our healthcare system and our society. ### (1) http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/da_eyes_st_vinny_go_for_broke_plan_fvDtudcbAWyxqqiQnhbzaI WHEN: Wednesday, October 26, 3pm - 7pm WHERE: Starting at Liberty Square (Zuccotti Park), Broadway and Cedar MARCH DETAILS: http://owshealthcare.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/march-route-map.pdf Assemble 3pm at Liberty Square (corner of Bway and Cedar), Speak-out at 4pm 4:15pm – Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield / One Liberty Plaza ARRIVE 5:30pm - WellCare / 110 5th Ave 6pm – St Vincent’s Community Hospital / 12th St & 7th Ave
Monday, October 24, 2011
Azi Paybarah "Occupy Mike Bloomberg" Third Term Anniversary Protest
#OccupyWallStreet Marches to St. Vincent's Hospital
The activist group called Hands Off St. Vincent's endorses the #OccupyWallStreet march to St. Vincent's Hospital.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Saturday, October 22, 2011
OWS NYPD Police Brutality Protest at Union Square
Term Limits Extension Protest
Protest to mark the Third Anniversary of the Term Limits Extension
2011-10-23 Term Limits Protest - Third Anniversary
Bloomberg and Quinn sold the lie that they would save the economy. Have they helped you with the economy ?
Taxpayers and voters are gathering at City Hall Park on Sunday, Oct. 23, at 2 p.m., to commemorate the three-year anniversary of “The Day That Democracy Died” : when Speaker Christine Quinn strong-armed the City Council to extend term limits, allowing herself, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and others to run for a third term in office.
“Since they changed term limits, more people are living in poverty in New York City. Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg’s wealth has grown over three-fold while has been in office,” said Louis Flores. “With Christine Quinn’s help, Mayor Bloomberg has been laying off police, firefighters, and teachers ; closing senior citizen centers ; cutting childcare ; and closing hospitals – just basically shredding the social safety net. Also, how is Mayor Bloomberg allowed to make money from inside information through his new company called Bloomberg Government ?”
Protesters will hold a rally, make speeches, and distribute voter registration applications, so that Speaker Christine Quinn and other City Council Members, who passed the term limits extension, can be voted out of office in 2013.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
St. Vincent's Trauma Exercise
A Mass Civilian Trauma Exercise was held outside St. Vincent’s Hospital.
One of the participants at last night's "mass civilian trauma exercise" at St. Vincent' Hospital asked, "Where is Christine Quinn ?"
As part of the "mass civilian trauma exercise," many participants wore surgical masks and paper signs around their neck. The signs indicated what accidents, diseases, or emergencies they "have." Then, the "sick" participants "waited" for emergency medical treatment on the sidewalks outside St. Vincent's. No emergency help ever came, precisely because there is no longer a hospital in the Lower West Side. Some participants did not "make it." After the "mass civilian trauma exercise" came to an end, team of "survivors" marched to Grace Church, 86 Fourth Avenue, Tuttle Hall, to ask for help from Jason Mansfield, the chair of CB2's Environmental, Public Safety & Public Health Committee.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Jason Mansfield #OccupyCB2
You are invited to participate in the enactment of a mass civilian trauma exercise on the sidewalk outside St. Vincent's Hospital.
Watch this YouTube documentary for background information about the controversial Rudin condo conversion plan for St. Vincent's Hospital :
Join community members as they plan to organise a field hospital on the sidewalks, form into make-shift blood donation lines, visualise what it would look like to set up alternative decontamination showers, help each other to tie on surgical masks to protect each other from air-bourne particles, and finally to think through what steps would need to be taken to request provisional mass casualty tents.
Some of the participants will ''not make it,'' because there is no Level 1 Trauma Center below 14th Street. And it probably takes ambulances over 30 minutes to respond to the Lower West Side of Manhattan, and then it would probably take another 30 minutes for ambulances to drive through busy cross-town traffic to any of the hospitals on the East Side. The ''survivors'' will have to figure out what to do with the “injured” participants.
Then, a team of survivors will walk over to Grace Church, 86 Fourth Ave., Tuttle Hall, to ask for help from Jason Mansfield, the chair of Manhattan Community Board 2's Environment, Public Safety & Public Health Committee. Community Board 2 is about to approve the rezoning of St. Vincent's to allow the billionaire Rudin Family to convert the hospital into luxury condos. Community residents hope that this civilian trauma exercise will educate and mobilise the public to stop CB2 from approving the dangerous Rudin condo conversion plan for St. Vincent's Hospital.
The community's goal is to keep the real estate zoning intact, to attract new hospital investors to restore a full-service hospital at the former site of St. Vincent's.
2011 10 17 RE ACT OccupyCB2 Flyer2011-10-17 Stop the Rezoning of St. Vincent's Hospital Flyer #OccupyCB2
Monday, October 3, 2011
Bloomberg Tech Deal Waste Continues
The New York Times exposes another failed tech deal under the Bloomberg administration's mismanagement of large taxpayer-financed tech deals.
The New York Times reporter David Halbfinger spoke with Brian Lehrer from WNYC about Mr. Halbfinger's recent article about the New York City Automated Personnel System (NYCAPS) and the problems with the Bloomberg administration's wildly over-budget personnel tracking system. Nine years after work began, the Bloomberg administration has spent $363 million on the NYCAPS tech deal — and the work is far from done.
