Photos courtesy of Aden Tedla

Hannah Jones was arrested, along with seven other Swarthmore students, at a Blue Cross sit-in.

BY AMELIA POSSANZA

In print | Published November 5, 2009 — Updated November 13, 2009 10:33

Eight Swarthmore students and one alumna were arrested Friday after holding a sit-in at the entrance to the Independence Blue Cross headquarters in Philadelphia. Their non-violent direct action was aimed at pressuring the non-profit health insurer to support a single-payer healthcare system.

“Before now there haven’t been direct actions for universal single-payer health care,” said Markus Schlotterbeck ’10, one of the students who spent 17 hours in jail. “There’s been a lot of lobbying, which is necessary, but lobbying without direct action, without real popular pressure, isn’t as effective.”

The other students who were arrested are Dan Symonds ’11, Dermot Delude-Dix ’10, Nat Sufrin ’11, Anna Grant ’10, Elowyn Corby ’13, Dani Noble ’12 and Hannah Jones ’12. Alum Shandra Bernath-Plaisted ‘09 joined them.

These students are members of the Student Health Action Network, a local organization formed last spring with only two chapters, one in Philadelphia and one at Swarthmore College. They were joined by members of two other national campaigns: Mobilization for Healthcare for All Philadelphia and Healthcare-NOW!

These groups are all advocating for single-payer healthcare, a single government or government-related organization that collects all insurance fees and then pays for all medical services. Medicare provides insurance coverage to the elderly in this manner.

Those risking arrest originally planned to go inside the headquarters, ask to meet CEO Joseph Frick or whomever would talk to them, read their demands, and refuse to leave until they were met. Other protesters planned on holding a rally behind them.

But the action was not a secret. Blue Cross expected the protesters and shut down the offices to non-employees for the day. Those risking arrest marched towards the headquarters and found the door.

The head of security said he was there on behalf of the CEO and wouldn’t let the group meet with any high-level members of the company. The group risking arrest sat down facing outward, planning to stay until someone came to meet with them. They were told they would have three warnings.

Schlotterbeck read the protesters’ three demands through a megaphone.

First, they wanted Independence Blue Cross to approve all doctor-ordered care and procedures. Second, they demanded that Blue Cross stop funding advocacy against reform through their insurance premium income. For example, they currently fund gethealthreformright.org, a group that claims to push for reform but is against a public option and a single-payer system. Finally, they want Blue Cross to come out in support of a single-payer health plan.

“We weren’t sitting down to sit down; we were sitting down for our demands,” Schlotterbeck said.

Schlotterbeck read online about Mobilization for Healthcare for All calling for sit-ins and signed his group up for participating. Schlotterbeck met Jeffery Muckenstrum, one of the staff members at Healthcare-NOW! at a meeting in Philadelphia and the two decided their groups should join forces for this demonstration.

Muckenstrum explained that Healthcare-NOW! is involved in various direct action projects to promote single-payer healthcare. Every year they celebrate Medicare’s birthday by bringing birthday cakes to the office of their congressperson. In addition, they hold rallies in D.C., general single-payer education events, rallies at private health insurance offices and an annual vigil for people who died because they didn’t have insurance.

“Healthcare-NOW! does a lot of lobbying but we haven’t gotten anywhere because we don’t have the kind of money that insurance companies have,” Muckenstrum said. “It’s impossible for us to compete in the lobbying sphere because we just don’t have the money.”

And that lobbying sphere is making Healthcare-NOW!’s situation all the more difficult.

“The insurance companies are lobbying against real healthcare reform,” said Bernath-Plaisted, who is still working with the organization post-graduation. “They have a lot more money. I really think that direct action is the only way that we can beat them.”

Members of SHAN also recognized the value of direct action as a way of effecting change.

“My general philosophy is that politicians will not move or make change unless there is public outcry for such change,” Jones said. “People who are lobbying are the ones with the money. They’re not going to want much change.”

For Jones, healthcare is an issue at the forefront of all other debates.

“Something that a lot of activist groups at Swarthmore try to focus on is recognizing the intersectionality of these issues,” she said. “Human health is a root essential right that we need to have in order to move on and address these other issues. If human health isn’t there, then what good is fighting for these other issues? It just gets down to the human rights aspect.”

Mukenstrum was happy that so many people, especially the Swarthmore students, were able to come together for this movement.

“It was really good to see college students caring about healthcare. In our group there aren’t many young people. I’m usually the youngest and I’m 31,” Muckenstrum said. “It’s pretty brave.”

Mukenstrum added that being in jail with young people was a new experience for him.

“It wasn’t my first time [in jail], but the group of people, especially being with all the students, was a lot more positive than some of the other times I’ve done it,” he said.

It was the students’ first time in jail. The activists were held in the roundhouse on 9th and Race with everyone else that was arrested that day.

“It was a sobering place to be,” Schlotterbeck said. “We needed to be respectful of being in jail because most people weren’t there by choice.”

“I was very aware of how my position was different from the position of a lot of people in there,” Jones said. “I had all of these lifelines.”

The group was charged with one count of obstructing a highway, which includes sidewalks. The charge was dropped in court on Monday on the condition that none of the activists are arrested again within the next two months.

Activists chose to target Blue Cross because of its status as a non-profit.

“They’re an interesting case because they’re non-profit,” Scholetterbeck said. “When we talk about healthcare a lot of times we talk about for-profit healthcare, but a lot of those same practices exist for Blue Cross. They’re non-profit but they still need to use the same strategies profit-companies use to break even. A non-profit organization is theoretically in it for healthcare, not for their own ends.”

Blue Cross was the target of one of the group’s previous actions. On August 19 SHAN set up its own health insurance company in front of Blue Cross called Efficicare. In what the group called a “sarcastic action,” the company offered 100% efficient service and free rejections for everyone.

In the future the group plans to continue with direct action.

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