On Wednesday afternoon, a diverse group of protestors gathered in Liberty Square under Mark di Suvero’s 70-foot steel-beam sculpture Joie de Vivre to demonstrate against what one protestor, Judy Beck, called “the fiasco of our healthcare system.”
Liberty Square, which abuts the park where Occupy Wall Street demonstrators have camped for the past month, was the staging ground for the Occupy Healthcare march to protest against private health insurance companies. These providers, protestors say, are strangling hospitals and bleeding patients dry with insurance premiums.
Though the march took place in Manhattan, the protestors’ concern is citywide and, indeed, nationwide. As of 2010, 14.4 percent of New Yorkers had no health insurance according to the United Health Foundation, a not-for-profit devoted to improving health in the American populace.
In Brooklyn, at least five hospitals are reportedly in danger of being closed down or consolidated, and marchers lay the blame squarely on the squeeze put on hospitals by for-profit insurance companies. A favorite villain of some of the protestors was WellCare, which in August 2010 paid $137.5 million to the federal government to end an investigation into the company’s alleged Medicaid fraud.
The Interfaith Medical Center and Brooklyn Hospital Center are among the hospitals feared to be on the chopping block, according to a report in The New York Times. Closures would require other hospitals in the borough to absorb hundreds of thousands of patient visits per year. Information was not immediately available at the march about whether there were a sufficient number of available beds in the remaining hospitals to absorb the new patients.
But the number of hospitals is by itself important because commute time often determines how quickly a patient can receive care in an emergency. Even now, Brooklyn has only about one hospital per 160,000 residents, based on 2010 U.S. Census data, whereas cities elsewhere in New York State—such as Buffalo, Syracuse and Albany—enjoy a rate of approximately one hospital per 40,000 or 50,000 residents.
Asked what they would like to see changed in the healthcare industry, protestors seemed largely to be of one mind.
“I would like to see something like Medicare for all,” Beck, a retired schoolteacher, said.
This is not a sentiment shared by the majority of Americans, who in polls seem more concerned by the tax costs of government health insurance. But for marcher Katie Robbins of Healthcare-NOW! NYC, Americans are already paying the costs in other ways. She currently has a health insurance plan with a $15,000 deductible, which means she has to “ration healthcare,” she said.
“The key thing is to get everyone insured and stop giving handouts to health insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies,” said Ben Campbell, a tall, well-built young man holding a sign that read, “Health Care is a Human Right.”
Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez of Bushwick, when reached for comment, echoed these sentiments. Lopez is deeply involved in healthcare issues in Brooklyn and spoke at the July 28 hearing in which hospital administrators, doctors and others lobbied state officials not to close down or merge any Brooklyn hospitals.
“My ultimate goal would be quality care. My second goal would be very affordable care. And I would love for it to be totally free. So I support a system that doesn’t have profit as its motivation,” he said.
The march itself set off at about 4:30 p.m. The marchers organized into a line roughly three abreast that began to snake its way along Cedar Street. A martial drumbeat began and a chant went up: “Healthcare for—the 99 percent!” Their ultimate destination was St. Vincent’s Hospital at 12th Street and 7th Avenue, shuttered earlier this year after filing for bankruptcy.
Robbins blames profit-driven health insurance companies for the closing of St. Vincent’s. Its closing has left Manhattan’s West Side without a hospital below 57th Street. There is no place for profit in health insurance, she said.
Campbell is more accommodating. He’d like to see “a public system for everybody,” but added that “as long as everybody is getting insured by somebody,” he isn’t dogmatic about it.
“The growth factor and the profit margin that [health insurance companies] have has to be really evaluated,” Assemblyman Lopez said. “I’m for greater oversight of the providers of health insurance and the healthcare industry, although I realize that everyone should make a decent salary. But no one should be exploited.”
Robbins opposes half measures. “Our health insurance companies are so good at making money off of sick people that I think even heavy regulation isn’t enough,” she said.
“We don’t want health insurance,” said Victoria Hudson, a registered nurse from Terrytown. “We want healthcare.”
Despite the troops mustered for Wednesday’s march, Beck feels there are a lot of people who have yet to be convinced—usually, she says, because they haven’t yet suffered personally at the hands of the healthcare industry.
“Unfortunately, not enough Americans recognize that our healthcare system is a disgrace,” she said. “And we’re supposed to be the beacon of the world.”
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