Local group to call out Isakson on public option opposition [UPDATE]
A local council of MoveOn.org is staging an event tomorrow, weather permitting, designed to call attention to the hundreds of thousands of dollars from the health insurance and HMO lobbies that have gone to Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA).
MoveOnGwinnett.org will release the exact figures and stage a live mini-drama depicting Isakson as a life-size puppet at noon tomorrow at Indian Trail Park and Ride at I-85.
“The amount of money Johnny Isakson has received over the years from health insurance companies is appalling,” Glenda Poindexter, one of the event organizers, said in a press release. “At our rally we want to dramatize Senator Isakson’s real reason for opposing health care reform by showing him as a puppet of the insurance companies. We want to know whose side our senator is really on: the insurance industry or his constituents?”
A June 19 CBS News/New York Times poll revealed 72 percent of Americans support a public option. Yet Isakson, the fifth ranking Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, opposes the public option.
“Every day 14,000 people lose their health care and every thirty seconds someone in America must file for bankruptcy due to health care costs,” Poindexter said. “Only a competitive public option for the 50 million Americans who currently don’t have health care insurance will address this problem.”
Tomorrow’s event in Gwinnett is one of over 100 planned in 48 states as part of a national day of action.
Rain is expected tomorrow morning and event organizers will notify the public on whether or not they will postpone the event right here.
UPDATE 9:03 a.m. Wednesday –
Because of rain, organizers have moved the event to Tuesday October 20 at 11:00 a.m.