Springfield doctor arrested at D.C. protest
By Kathleen O’Dell
Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader
May 13, 2009
A Springfield physician was among five health care advocates arrested Tuesday at the U.S. Capitol for disrupting a Senate Finance Committee hearing on health care reform, run by Chairman Max Baucus, D-Montana.
Dr. Judy Dasovich, volunteer medical director at The Kitchen Clinic in Springfield, told the News-Leader she engaged in “an act of civil disobedience” with other members of Physicians for a National Health Program. She’s been a member since 2004.
Dasovich said she and the others protested because the committee convened a panel of 15 health care experts but excluded anyone supporting a single-payer/ Medicare-for-all national health plan. She was the only Missouri participant, she said.
“We’ve asked, we’ve faxed, e-mailed, called, wrote letters, and the only response has been ‘Everyone is at the table,’ ” Dasovich said. “But single-payer won’t be, so this is the only way we can be heard — civil disobedience.”
Last week, about eight members of the California Nurses Association were arrested for a silent protest that disrupted a similar Baucus hearing.
Both protests were organized by Physicians for a National Health Program as well as Healthcare Now and Single Payer Action. All of them support a single-payer, government-run health care system. A group from the California Nurses Association also participated in Tuesday’s protest and were arrested, she said.
During the hearing, the physician said she stood up and said, “I’m Dr. Judy Dasovich. We request a single-payer advocate be allowed at the table because health care should be for patients, not for profit.”
As happened each time a protester spoke, she said she was led away by the “respectful” Capitol Hill police, arrested and handcuffed. She and the others were put in a police vehicle and taken to the prisoner processing area on the grounds.
She was searched, fingerprinted and spent about four hours in a handcuff chained to the wall before being released.
After a single-payer rally today in Washington, Dasovich plans to return to Springfield and The Kitchen Clinic. She has volunteered there 10 years.
The medical/dental clinic provides free care and medicines for the indigent and working poor.
”(Baucus) talks about how all the players are at the table,” Dasovich said, “except for months and weeks, single-payer people. We have been asking for one single-payer person to be at the table and he has refused.”
The physicians group has proposed two nominees who are experts in medicine and health care policy.
Baucus would not explain Tuesday why he has not invited single-payer advocates to join discussions with advocates of other health-care sectors, she said.
The insurance and pharmaceutical industries are among major contributors to Baucus, according to news reports.
Among other things, a single-payer program would reduce those industries’ profits, Dasovich said.
Asked why it was so important that single-payer advocates be at the table during early health care reform talks, Dasovich replied, “…People understand single-payer/improved Medicare for all is more efficient, provides freedom of choice of hospital and doctor and most of all …it will save $350 billion on money that goes for profits, the health insurance industry, for advertising, for shareholders,” she said. “That’s $350 billion that could immediately be put into the system that could be used for care.”