Leaders and staff from TakeAction were proud to join members of the Minnesota Nurses Association at the fair yesterday evening to tell Minnesota’s Congressional Delegation to “Tax Wall Street to Heal America.”
Nurses, backed by a chorus of “This Land is Your Land,” told stories of what they see each day in their work. One told the story of a sister who was recently diagnosed with diabetes and can’t afford health insurance. Another told of a patient going deeply in debt because she fell in the Medicare donut hole and couldn’t afford her medication. Other nurses talked about the effects of the economy on their patients – people who are out of work, facing foreclosure, and living in poverty. One of TakeAction’s members told the crowd that she and her husband can only afford a health insurance plan that carries no prescription coverage and a $15,000 deductible. All the storytellers asked their Senators and Congress people to support a financial transaction tax on Wall Street trading, a tax that would generate billions of dollars for our economy and discourage reckless trading, create jobs, and protect and expand essential services like Medicaid and Medicare.
Although a corporate fat cat (actually an MNA ally in disguise) booed and hissed at this idea, the nurses and crowd watching the action shouted down his protests. “Nurses can’t be bought,” they chanted he attempted to stuff hush money into their pockets.
The highlight of the event came when fair-goers were invited to be part of an animal sounds contest. Their charge: make the animal sound that best represents Wall Street’s greedy speculators. The most popular choice were pigs, of course, but a lone duck also entered the competition. After all, as we all know, corporate insurance companies sure are delivering a lot of quack medicine these days…
For pictures, head to MNA’s Facebook page.
Elizabeth Lienesch
Elizabeth Lienesch is a Health Care Organizer at TakeAction Minnesota
