National sit-ins at health insurance companies

Fifty-four activists and health care workers were arrested Oct. 15 during sit-ins at health insurance company offices in New York, Washington, Phoenix, Palm Beach, Boston, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Reno and Portland, Ore. The protesters, chanting “Patients not Profits,” occupied the offices to demand “Medicare for All”—a public single-payer health plan that improves Medicare and expands it to cover everyone.

The sit-ins were organized by the Patients Not Profit campaign of the Mobilization for Health Care for All. More than 1,000 people have signed up to engage in civil disobedience at insurance company offices around the country through the mobilizeforhealthcare.org Web site. The crisis in health care has left an estimated 47 million people in the United States uninsured and another 25 million underinsured.

Another wave of actions is planned at insurance company offices on Oct. 28.