SF Bay Area Independent Media Center - San Francisco Sit-In Shuts Down Blue Shield

system health care advocates, who festooned the building with crime tape and chanted loudly. The demonstrators charged Blue Shield with crimes including murder, breach of contract, and subversion of democracy.

Participants in the protest represented a range of local organizations including Health Care for All-California, Vote Health, Code Pink, AFSCME Council 57, Single Payer Now, Pride at Work, LAGAI-Queer Insurrection, Labor for Single Payer, Wellstone Democratic Club, Direct Action to Stop the War, California Physicians Alliance, Gray Panthers, and more.

Protesters charged the health insurance industry with crimes including:
Murder: A new Harvard study found that 45,000 Americans a year die because they don’t have health insurance. For the insured, denial of care and delays in approving care cause an uncounted number of deaths (see “Patient stories” sheet in this packet).
Causing sickness and suffering for millions of people with treatable health conditions who can’t get the care they need because claims are denied, policies canceled, or deductibles and co-payments set so high that patients can’t afford to seek treatment.
Breach of contract: Insurance companies routinely cancel the policies of many thousands of people after they became sick. A report released in June by House Committee on Energy and Commerce showed that Blue Cross ‘ evaluations included reports of how many policyholders they dropped and how many millions worth of medical care they saved the company. “The committee investigation uncovered several rescission practices that one lawmaker called egregious, including targeting every policyholder diagnosed with leukemia, breast cancer and 1,400 other serious illnesses,” wrote Lisa Girion in the June 17 edition of the L.A. Times.show less...