Sicko in NC: 70 RSVP, 270 Show Up

This was the sight about ten minutes before the 4:30pm showing of Sicko this Sunday. I had decided to "host" an event, "A Night on the Town with Sicko". I put "host" in quotes because I kind of thought there would be 20 or so of and we'd watch the movie and have a nice slice of pizza and chat afterwards. I am the Vice President of Health Care for All NC, so I put a call out to our list members to join the show. I'm also one local captain of the John Edwards One Corps, so I put out the call to that list to join us.

Then, the RSVPs started rolling in, and then....

The theater holds 250 people and I was standing outside as the ticket-taker had to turn folks away because it was sold out. Some of those people came per chance, but they turned up at part II of the event. Others had already seen the movie but wanted to come for the discussion afterwards.

The event started out with a brief introduction by myself to the event to our speaker for the night - state Representative Verla Insko (D-Orange), the face of Health Care for All in North Carolina. Rep. Insko spoke for about ten minutes on the state of health care legislation in North Carolina. On the mental health parity bill that was just passed, on the influence that BCBS of NC is having on the system, and about what we could do to help.

After that, it was straight on to show.

It was a good thing I gave up the seat where I snapped that photo from, because I ended up having to run around town trying to figure out where I was going to stuff all the extra people that showed up. (Long story short, all over the place, with a special dingbat/raspberry/jeer to Pepper's Pizza for decreasing the space they held for me from 70 seats to 30).

We ended up scattered all over Franklin Street in downtown Chapel Hill, and I'm sure we lost some folks because of the disorganization at this point. Lesson learned. Yet in all, I came away with many positives from the night.

1. When asked "What could we do better next time?" by a participant my response was "Don't underestimate the anger over our health care system?"
2. Health Care for All NC is going to be strengthened by event, with at least ten people I spoke to pledging to join through the website and to get ACTIVE!
3. ACTION. We distributed an Action Item at the event (over 150 of them), asking people to get in touch with Rep. Joe Hackney, an Orange County Democrat who is Speaker of the House in NC. We asked them to push Rep. Hackney to bring HB901 out of committee and to allow the citizens of North Carolina to have an Up or Down Vote on whether Health Care is a right or a privilege.
4. Contrary to popular opinion, people were interested in debating the fine points of the Edwards Health Care Plan. Whew, this just about wiped me out, but I had some hand outs that helped explain the plan as well.

What is HB901?

AN ACT TO AMEND THE NORTH CAROLINA CONSTITUTION TO RECOGNIZE THE RIGHT TO HEALTH CARE.
...
SECTION 2. The amendment set out in Section 1 of this act shall be submitted to the qualified voters of the State at the general election in November 2008, which election shall be conducted under the laws then governing elections in the State. Ballots, voting systems, or both may be used in accordance with Chapter 163 of the General Statutes. The question to be used in the voting systems and ballots shall be:

"[ ] FOR [ ] AGAINST
Constitutional amendment providing that health care is a fundamental right."

Now, it is probably too late to get this bill onto the ballot in November 2008. But, now is the perfect time to push this bill out of committee, out onto the floor for debate. We have a short session of the legislature next year and we would like to see this bill debated at that time.

Let the people of North Carolina have an Up or Down vote on the Right to Health Care. When you expect 20 or 30, get responses from 70 and end up with a crowd of 270 - the time is nigh. Action. Change. Universal Health Care.