Press
Contact
Members of the media should direct inquiries to:
Trevor Fitzgibbon
Phone: 202-406-0646
Email: trevor@fitzgibbonmedia.com
Releases
In Lab Coats and Ghost Makeup, Med Students to hold
“Trick-or-Treat” Demonstrations Outside Senators’ Offices
Obama Generation’s Doctors-to-Be Will Show Compelling Support for
Affordable Meds or All in Health Care Reform Bill
***GREAT VISUAL, CAMERAS ENCOURAGED***
TOMORROW, FRIDAY OCTOBER 30, Medical students will hold trick-or-treat demonstrations outside of Senators’ offices in Washington, DC, Baltimore, Maryland, Raleigh, North Carolina and Palo Alto, California to protest against a deal in current legislation that would keep life-saving medicines, called Biologics, artificially high.
The students, sponsored by the American Medical Student Association, Universities Allied for Essential Medicines and PublicOptionPlease.com, will be dressed in white coats and ghosts costumes to ask the Senate staff whether a proposal on biologic medicines in current health bills, will be a “Trick or Treat” for patients.
Biologics cost on average 22 times more than other medicines. Current legislation in the Senate HELP and House Energy and Commerce healthcare reform bills grants the pharmaceutical industry (phRMA) twelve years of market exclusivity on these life-saving medicines (with the chance of it being even longer), meaning these treatments, such as drugs like Herceptin, which often make the difference between life and death, would cost around $37,000 a year and will never become generics.
DATE: FRIDAY, OCT. 30
DC : Russell Senate Office Bldg, Constitution & Delaware at 3:00 pm., http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=164590799254&index=1
Baltimore, MD: 1629 Thames St. at 2:30 pm, http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=162663329927&index=1
Raleigh, NC: 310 New Bern Ave @ 1:30 pm, http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=193507032348&index=1
Palo Alto, CA: 698 Emerson St, Palo Alto at 2:00 pm, http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=201051975984
Arianna Huffington, Jesse Dylan, Marshall Ganz, Aaron Rose, Arlene Holt Baker Help Launch Visual Arts Contest for Public Option
Winner to Receive $1,000 Prize – Art Featured on Posters, T-Shirts and Stickers
Contest Themes Include: Public Option, Healthcare for All, Heal Ourselves and Heal the World, Healthcare and Social Justice, Transforming the Future of Healthcare, Healthcare as a Human Right.
October 14th, 2009 – Arianna Huffington, Jesse Dylan, Marshall Ganz, Arlene Holt Baker, and Aaron Rose have signed on as judges as POP – Public Option Please, today launched the first ever visual arts contest to promote the Public Option. Inspired by artists behind the successful “Manifest Hope” project, the effort is designed to cut through the DC “insider” clutter and provide a vehicle for artists to make the moral case for health care reform and take part in the debate currently raging in Congress.
Artists will be able to submit entries starting at 12 noon EST on October 13, 2009 and ends at 11:59 a.m. EDT on October 31st. All of the winners will have his/her work featured on t-shirts, stickers and posters.
“Artists have a unique ability – by speaking to us in an honest, engaging, emotional language – to remind us of the human side of the healthcare issue,” said artist and film director, Jesse Dylan.
The First Prize Winner: The First Prize winner will receive $1,000.
Second Prize Winner: The Second Prize winner will receive $750.00.
Third Prize Winner: The Third Prize winner will receive $500.00.
Public Choice Award: The Public Choice Award winner will receive $750.00.
As insurance companies officially broke off all negotiations with the White House in providing an overhaul for meaningful healthcare reform, advocates of the Public Option made their case. “This is a chance for artists around the country to help express the human side of the equation,” said Apple Via, Director of the POP Contest. “Now, instead of only hearing from the big insurance companies about protecting their profits, these artists will be making the moral case for health care as a human right. They can help shape a vision of a future where health care is available for all and nobody has to die to protect a corporate bottom line.”
POP Launches to Rock the Public Option
**New website Launched www.publicoptionplease.com**
Will Mobilize Obama Generation to Reframe the Debate and
Demand Universal Healthcare as a Human Right
October 9th, 2009 – Advocates from around the country launched POP – Public Option Please, today to inspire and mobilize individuals and reframe the healthcare debate as a human right. “With all this talk about “bending the cost curve,” it has become as dull, stale and boring as watching paint dry,” says Executive Director Eve Gittelson.
Inspired by the work of Marshall Ganz, who organized the field training for the Obama campaign, POP seeks to inspire people to accept the challenge of shaping a future where health care is available to everyone by advocating for the public option right now. The POP website will act as ground zero for individuals to come together and upload art, videos, participate in contests, learn, contribute, exchange ideas and act in unison to help those who have been left behind by the current health care system.
“These are the people who came out for Obama – and the energy that inspired the campaign lives on” says project director Apple Via. “They want to be part of something meaningful and enduring that is rooted in values and has a moral core. Healing the sick means more to them than protecting insurance company profits.”
POP will work with musicians, actors, artists and social justice advocates to engage the public in a way that makes the public option part of a larger, longer civil rights battle for universal health care.
“It’s time the policy wonks stop framing the healthcare debate, this is a civil rights battle” says POP board member Jane Hamsher. “Let’s talk about what’s really at stake here. And let’s have some fun.”
The initiative will engage in the following activity:
Advocacy: POP will advocate for those who have been left behind by the current health care system. Gittelson, who was critical in the effort to get the insurer CIGNA to reverse its initial denial in the case of the liver transplant for 17 year-old Nataline Sarkisyan, will continue her work as a patients’ rights activist using POP as a platform to defend those whose health care needs get sacrificed to a corporate bottom line.
Legislation: Long after a health care bill has been passed, POP will continue to fight for universal, affordable health care. When the industry lobbyists take to Capitol Hill and try to take back whatever gains have been made by a public option, POP will stay involved in the legislative process and keep them from doing so before the public even knows what’s happening.
Policy: POP will continue to work to expand access to the public health care option. They will keep abreast of the health care policy debate and look at what works, and what doesn’t, around the world. They will make sure that insurance industry staffers aren’t the only ones available to write policy papers for members of Congress, and provide resources for state and city health care initiatives across the country.
Mobilizing Grassroots Support: POP will work with students, community leaders, health care professionals, organizations and activists to mobilize the voices of ordinary Americans into a call for change.
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