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Every once in a while, a special event affords millions
of Americans the opportunity to simultaneously register both their
concerns and their demands for change. The Civil Rights marches of
the 1950s and 1960s, the Teach-Ins during the Vietnam War, Hands Across
America, and Earth Day brought awareness and change.
All across the United States,
citizens are finding the managed health care system cumbersome,
restrictive, often harmful, and occasionally deadly. Many
well-trained, ethical, caring clinicians are demoralized under a system
that too often prevents them from doing quality work or from referring
patients to specialists. Many now believe that because of managed
care's basic principles and structure, regulation will not be enough to
make it a pro-quality, pro-consumer system and we need to explore
alternatives to managed care. Americans never voted to allow
corporations interested in protecting executive income and corporate
profit to choose clinicians and treatments for them and their families.
On Rescue Health Care Day, as in other special national
events, Americans can join hands to proclaim their vote of "No
Confidence" in corporate health care and to participate in a
national dialogue on alternative systems of health insurance so that we
will soon be able to replace managed care with something better.
Participation is wanted by consumer organizations, medicine, surgery,
nursing, mental health, chiropractic, dentistry, physical therapy,
alternative medicine, pharmacy, law, educational institutions, think
tanks, economists, federal and state legislators, policy makers, and
other caring Americans.
All
Americans are invited to attend, organize, and/or participate in:
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Day
of Teach-Ins: April 1, 2000
Teach-Ins during the 1960's and 1970's
effectively informed the public about Civil Rights and the Vietnam
War. Any group can organize a Teach-In and use it to promote
their own ideas for a better health care system or to provide a
forum for a variety of ideas. There will be no centralized
control over the Teach-Ins. At Noon, all those in attendance
at each Teach-In will observe the Minute of Silence (see below).
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Hour
of Protest
Any person
or organization can arrange for a designated location in their
community for an Hour of Protest between 11:30 am and
12:30 pm on Rescue Health Care Day. At
the designated location, attendees can peacefully express their
desire to see managed care replaced by a pro-patient, pro-quality
system. At Noon, all those gathered at designated Hour of
Protest locations will also observe the Minute of Silence.
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Minute
of Silence
People all
across America, whether at a Teach-in, a designated Hour of Protest
location, or wherever they are (at work, in school, shopping, home,
etc.), will stop what they are doing for one minute, beginning at 12
Noon on Rescue Health Care Day, and observe a Minute of Silence to
mark the death of quality care and the deaths of and harm done to
patients at the hands of managed care. They can stand in
silence wherever they are, or they may wish to go outside or to a
central lobby where they will be seen. The idea for this comes
from the Hands Across America event for awareness of World Hunger
that took place several years ago.
Why we
are contacting individuals and groups with different points of view?
There are
many ways we could configure our health care insurance system, and most
Americans, including many of us who have been fighting against the
managed care industry, are familiar with only a few of the available
ideas. We need to make crucial decisions about designing new systems
such as deciding on core values, how to contain costs while allowing
consumers the "three fundamental freedoms" of choice, privacy,
and control over health care decisions, etc. It behooves us all to
be well-informed of the many ideas and mechanisms that have been devised
and proposed or implemented around the nation and the world before we
actually begin to build a new system.
Be a
Supporter and/or a Participant
Any individual or organization can be a supporter of and/or participant
in Rescue Health Care Day. Being a "Supporter" simply
means that the person or organization supports the vote of "No
Confidence" in managed care and wishes to see a national dialogue
on alternatives to managed care. Being a "Participant"
means that the person or organization wishes to organize or participate
in some aspect of Rescue Health Care Day. Being a Supporter or
Participant does not imply support for or affiliation with the National
Coalition of Mental Health Professionals and Consumers or any other
supporting or participating individual or organization.
How you
can help
Help can bring a better, more pro-patient, pro-quality health insurance
system. volunteers and financial contributions are needed to help
make Rescue Health Care Day a success. Volunteers are needed to
contact legislators, individuals, and organizations to inform them about
Rescue Health Care Day and encourage them to support and /or participate
in this event and for a variety of other
tasks, including making phone
calls, disseminating information, etc.
We Can Replace Managed
Care!
Contact us at:
information@rescuehealthcareday.com
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