By MICHAEL MILLER
Press of Atlantic City
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
OCEAN CITY – A local doctor was arrested Tuesday along with four other people who disrupted a U.S. Senate hearing on health care reform in Washington, D.C.
Steven Fenichel, a retired dermatologist, urged the Senate Finance Committee to consider a single-payer government-run health system before he and four other speakers were escorted from the room by Capitol Police.
Fenichel was charged with disorderly conduct and released about six hours later with a court summons.
Reached by phone after his release, Fenichel said he felt compelled to act after the Senate Finance Committee opted not to include proponents of a single-payer system in the latest debate over health care reform.
“I felt such a strong sense of outrage. These are U.S. senators who don’t have to worry about their health care. It’s all paid by you and me,” Fenichel said.
The exchange was captured and posted to video-sharing Web site Youtube.com after being broadcast live on C-SPAN.
As the hearing opened, more than 20 nurses stood with their backs to the committee. Signs taped to their red T-shirts read, “Nurses say patients first. Stop AHIP. Pass Single Payer.” AHIP is America’s Health Insurance Plans, a lobbying group that represents 1,300 companies.
Three women and one other man stood and addressed the committee before being escorted from the room by police.
One invoked the memory of Florence Nightingale. Another shouted, “Health care is a human right!”
Committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., pounded his gavel and asked police to be more expeditious in arresting the impromptu speakers.
Fenichel, who worked as a teacher in West Africa while serving in the Peace Corps, stood last and identified himself.
“A sense of outrage has brought me to the Senate today,” he said. “You have been entrusted by the American people to serve the interests of the American people. And you have chosen to serve the interests of the drug companies, insurance companies and hospitals for profit. Shame on you!”
By that time, an officer reached him in the audience and escorted him to the exit. He was placed in plastic cuffs and led to a waiting police wagon, he said. Outside, a crowd had gathered and cheered him and the other protesters, he said.
Fenichel said he decided to go to Washington after seeing how the committee treated eight other proponents of a single-payer health system who were arrested during a similar meeting last week.
“I had no choice but to be arrested. Stand up and say, ‘No, not on my watch,'” he said.
He will be arraigned May 28. Fenichel said he plans to plead not guilty.
“We spoke out of turn,” he conceded. “But every one of us agreed. Had they allowed one of our representatives of national health insurance to sit at the table, I wouldn’t have taken part in a protest.”
This is not Fenichel’s first brush with national protests over his beliefs. He protested at the Democratic National Convention in 1968. Most residents in Ocean City know him from his regular appearances at the microphone at City Council meetings.
Fenichel said it was absurd to lock up doctors and nurses for wanting to be part of a national debate.
“In America it’s not who you are but how much money you can contribute to lawmakers” that matters, he said.
As the protesters were being removed, Baucus assured the remaining members of the audience that he would listen to them.
E-mail Michael Miller, MMiller@pressofac.com