By Jennifer Katzenberg
After listening to Dr. Rob Stone’s talk at the satellite “Rally to Restore Sanity/Keep Fear Alive” in Chicago’s Grant Park this past Saturday, I was impressed by his ability to succinctly explain the problems with the current state of health care and health reform in this country.
Stone began by saying, “I went to medical school so I could take care of people.” He talked about his years of experience as an emergency room doctor in rural Indiana where he sees everyone who comes in – insured, poorly insured or uninsured.
Appealing to the “fear” aspect of the rally, Stone shared the shameful statistic that “50 million, or 1 in 6 Americans, are uninsured” and said that “no other civilized country leaves 50 million people without coverage.”
He then asked how many people either know someone who is uninsured or are uninsured themselves. Shouts of “Yes!” erupted and hands flew up across the large crowd.
He then referred to President Obama’s interview on Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” last week, highlighting Stewart’s remark that some people think the new health law is too “timid.” It is clear that Stone, along with many others, feels the health bill was indeed timid because “Congress is afraid of big corporations.”
“We try to get health insurance in this country mostly from for-profit, Wall Street-driven companies,” he said. “Wall Street has taken over health insurance,” and it’s a big problem that the new law “keeps private insurance as a major centerpiece.”
“We have to speak up for what the people need and not what the corporations need,” Stone said. The audience cheered in response.
Speaking of the private insurers, Stone said, “We’ve got to find a way to move them aside and just make one big pool of all of us where we’re all covered. … That’s what we call single payer, that’s what we call an expanded and improved Medicare.”
Stone said single-payer health reform is what is “sane,” and the crowd clearly agreed. Who could argue with that? How could anyone honestly believe in keeping people uninsured or poorly uninsured?
As Stone walked off stage, he had the crowd chanting, “Everybody in, Nobody out!”
More Americans need to hear people like Stone talk about health care so that Medicare-for-All has a chance.
Jennifer Katzenberg is an intern at Physicians for a National Health Program (www.pnhp.org).