Ideas for Your Event

Ideas for RHCD Events
On January 22, 2000, Karen Shore, Ron Bronow (Presidents of the co-sponsoring organizations of RHCD) and many of our current RHCD participants shared their ideas with each other during a conference call. These ideas were culled from that call.
Please feel free to use them for your event.
Click here to go to some other ideas that were previously submitted but were not a part of the aforementioned conference call. And click here for even more ideas.

For best results, most citizen and media attention, easiest to organize: Outdoor rallies lasting about 1 1/2 hours seem best. Rallies in a well-known and accessible park and/or a march down a well-known avenue are great. In front of State Capital buildings are great. In front of the offices of a major insurer are great. Carry signs and placards. Blow your whistles. Wear green ribbons. Develop slogans: "Blow the Whistle on Managed Care," "No More HMOs," "Shut Down HMOs," "End Corporate Health Care," etc. Outdoor rallies and marches will attract the most participation and media attention. In front of a hospital or medical center, at a shopping center, etc. are also good locations to hold a rally or start or end a march. Indoor rallies are the next best choice. For outdoor rallies, you will need to get equipment for microphones, a stage or platform, and outdoor speakers, maybe some place for trash...and maybe a tent or roof in case it rains. We will all do a "Don't Rain Dance," famous in my family for over 35 years for never having failed. If we all do it, it won't rain anywhere in America on April 1st.
For an outdoor rally or march, get a permit. Permits in most locales can be had from the Police Department or Police Commissioner or Police Chief in the area.
Workers are needed to create a big attention-getting event. There is still time. Get a commitment from 10 people. Ask each of them to get a commitment from 5 people. Then have several organizing meetings until April 1st. The commitment will only be for two months. Use shame and guilt if you need to.
While we still want other organizations to sign on to RHCD and send in a Response Form so we can list them, in about two weeks the strategy will shift to inviting all consumer, professional groups in all areas of health care to attend and let their members know when and where the rally will be on April 1st, asking them to inform all their members. If they officially "sign on," so much the better, but the emphasis will be on inviting them and their members to attend.
As soon as the location and time is selected, design a flier to disseminate. We will be posting a sample flier soon. Remember When, Where, What, Who, Why. Encourage family participation. RHCD is a family event. Managed care is hurting babies, children, parents, grandparents, etc. This is about all people and all families. RHCD rallies are for everyone. Babies and toddlers in strollers make good protesters. We are working to save their lives and health, too.
Starting in February, start mailing fliers to local doctors' and other clinicians' offices, so that they receive them by mid-February. Ask them to copy the flier and send to each of their patients, to others they know who would want to know about it. Also ask them to leave a stack in their waiting rooms. Ask them to do this throughout February and March.
Media attention: Throughout February and March, call reporters and assignment editors as well as the editorial boards of local newspapers, TV, radio. Tell them that RHCD is happening all across America, and you want to talk to them about the local event and why it is necessary. Ask for appointments if possible to explain what you are doing for RHCD and why it is so crucially important. Ask the editorial board to do an editorial in support of RHCD (idea from Kathy Myzak, Ohio). With reporters, do not be pushy. Do not tell them they ought to write an article on this to inform the citizenry. You want to inform reporters of what you are doing and its significance, not push them to write on it. Create a brief Press Kit - your flier announcing the event, articles that have mentioned RHCD, brief explanation of why this is so important. Elias Castillo, our PR director, will help you with media work (Eliasac@aol.com). Suggest to any reporter you contact that he/she contact our Public Relations Director, Elias Castillo at Office (650) 368-4489, Fax (650) 368-7633, Eliasac@aol.com. They will be impressed that we have a Public Relations Director!!
Joel Segal (JSegal6469@aol.com), who is organizing an outdoor rally in Washington, DC, said they are planning to include a march in downtown DC to the building housing the managed care industry's association ("we're going to the heart of the beast"; I think he may mean the Natl Committee on Quality Assurance, but he has to check). There will be puppets, effigies, speeches by people who were damaged by managed care. After each horror and each speech, they will blow their whistles ("Blow the Whistle on Managed Care"). Segal's organizations also have a "Wall of Shame". If I have this correct, they took some or all of the 200+ horror stories collected by Robert Raible (you can get them from www.his.com/pico/nhicn.htm) and printed them on a Wall of Shame that they can carry with them and have used in other anti-HMO rallies. They will also hold a Memorial Service for those who have died due to managed care, which fits in with the Minute of Silence idea. They will also have a "Die-In" dramatically focusing on the fact that people are dying because of managed care. They will carry 15 or 20 mock tombstones with them and at the designated site, they will have people lie down at the tombstones to say that "this is what we are talking about - people are dying!"
Kathy Myzak reported that in Cincinnati, there will also be an outdoor rally with whistle blowing. They will start with appropriate music, speakers, and consumer stories. Rep. Ted Strickland (D-OH) will be a speaker at the Columbus indoor rally, and they hope to then bring him over to Cincinnati for that rally. They are also hoping to get a representative from the Surgeon General's office.
Contact your favorite legislator...or the legislators you know are most outspoken about health care and invite him/her/them to the rally.
Info on Los Angeles was sent out previously. Ron Bronow provided new information: At the indoor part in the Paramount Studios Theatre, they are planning to have consumers who have been harmed stand at the rally and have an actor read a 1-minute synopsis of how they were hurt by managed care. In the outdoor march down Melrose Avenue, they will carry a coffin and will include disabled people in wheelchairs in the march. They will have people with aprons selling green ribbons and whistles for $2 apiece.
The American Federation of Teachers has signed on, as has the United Teachers of Los Angeles, the National Gray Panthers, American Psychiatric, American Psychological, Natl Assoc of Social Workers, Medical Society of Maryland. Contact your local branch of the AFT - your local Teacher's Union...as well as local branches of any union, consumer and professional group. Invite them to attend, ask them to inform their members of the local event. Get their participation. Get consumers and consumer activists from organizations for the disabled and from all illness organizations, the local branch of the Gray Panthers and AARP, the local Labor Council (all local unions have reps on the Council), district branches of all unions. Other ideas are: disseminate fliers all over college campuses. Students will protest. Get them into the public schools for kids to take home. GET GOING!!!!
In San Jose, Peggy Mahony is working to organize a march from a local Senior Citizen Center to a shopping center 1/2 mile away.
At some of the outdoor rallies and marches, participants will hand out petitions for reform of health care and/or against corporate managed care that will be collected and sent to a legislator known to be against corporate health care.
Check with www.rescuehealthcareday.com for messages giving information on rallies in Los Angeles, Georgia, San Diego, Seattle and future messages about other locations.

Pre-conference call ideas

Media will be more interested if there is some attention-getting event, like a burning of HMO contracts and guidelines, blowing whistles after each consumer or clinician tells an HMO horror story, a March in front of a State Capitol building or in front of an HMO office, etc.
Theme: Blow the Whistle Managed Care. Have the audience rally and blow their whistles after each consumer or each professional tells an HMO horror story. Order RHCD whistles through Dr. Bronow at BronowRHCD@aol.com.
Have each of your organizations' members mail a post-card to their state and federal legislators on April 1st telling them they do not want corporate managed care and want a national dialogue on possible alternatives
Professionals can burn or tear up their HMO contracts at a RHCD event.

Click here for even more ideas