Michael Moore to Join Nurses at Wall Street Press Conference to Call for Divestment From Health Insurance Companies

Michael Moore to Join Nurses at Wall Street Press Conference to Call for Divestment From Health Insurance Companies

NEW YORK, June 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A day before his acclaimed new film "SiCKO" opens across the nation, director Michael Moore will head to Wall Street Thursday afternoon, where he will call on individuals, pension funds, the government and other investors to divest from publicly traded health insurance companies.

Moore will stand with nurses from the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA), and New York Professional Nurses Union (NYPNU) in calling for this major action.

The press conference -- on Thursday, June 28, 2007, at 3:15 pm -- will take place in front of Federal Hall (26 Wall Street) in downtown Manhattan.

Who: Michael Moore, nurses from CNA/ NNOC, MNA, NYPNU
What: Press Conference to Call on Working Americans to Divest from
Health Insurance Companies.
Where: In front of Federal Hall -- 26 Wall Street, NYC
When: Thursday, June 28, 2007 -- 3:15 pm

This is the latest in a period of intense organizing by an unprecedented national coalition of activist nurse groups working together on the "Scrubs for SiCKO" campaign. This campaign aims to recruit at least one nurse in signature red "SiCKO" scrubs to every opening night showing of the movie across the country, with the goal of enlisting moviegoers into the campaign to win for guaranteed healthcare for all.

Publicly traded health insurance companies have a particular conflict between providing care and paying policyholders' claims, and their fiduciary responsibility for generating higher revenues and profits for their shareholders, which they accomplish by limiting payments and denying needed medical care.

Private, and non-for-profit insurers routinely engage in these practices as well. Investors, however, can send a strong message to the entire healthcare industry by re-examining their investment options now to promote an overhaul of our healthcare system.

CNA/NNOC supports a fundamental change in this structure as an integral element in constructing a publicly financed and administered, more humane health care system as would be established by HR 676 now before Congress.

Every day, registered nurses experience the consequences for patients who must endure systemic restrictions on medical treatment, diagnostic tests, referrals, and other appropriate care. The pain and suffering of patients and their families should never be treated as a commodity.

The site of the press conference is also symbolic. Federal Hall is where George Washington took the oath of office as the first President of the United States. It was also home to the first Congress and U.S. Supreme Court. Moore and the nurses believe that health care is a right of every American.

For more background, see the new report by CNA/NNOC's research arm, the Institute for Health & Socio-Economic Policy, "Market Based Health Care: Big Money, Politics, and the Unraveling of U.S. Civil Democracy," at http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/.

First Call Analyst:
FCMN Contact:

Source: California Nurses Association

CONTACT: Shum Preston of California Nurses Association, +1-510-273-2276;
or Jesse Derris of Sunshine, Sachs & Associates, +1-212-691-2800, for
California Nurses Association

Web site:

http://www.calnurses.org/
http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/

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