Who: Grannies and their supporters
What: Flash-mob dance to The Supremes' lost classic, "Stop! In the Name of Health (Don't Cut My Medicare)"
When: Friday, July 30, 2010, Medicare's 45th birthday
Where: Midtown West, Manhattan (secret location to be revealed soon)
Why: President Obama's Deficit Commission is pushing to cut Medicare and Social Security. Grannies and other supporters of a Medicare-for-All system say, "Hands off!"
Angering many voters who supported him, President Obama created a Deficit Commission that is threatening cuts in Medicare and Social Security, despite Social Security's $2.54 trillion surplus and solvency through 2037.[1]
"Rehearsing for this choreographed dance is harder than getting arrested during the Freedom Rides of 1961," says one of the dancing grannies, Joan Pleune, 71, a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement. "But my health is threatened and I need the Deficit Commission to pay attention-expand, not cut, Medicare!"
Supporters of universal health care say that Medicare should be improved and expanded to everyone, creating an efficient and equitable system for all by cutting the waste of the private health insurance industry.
Members of the following organizations are participating in the dance mob:
Healthcare-NOW! NYC * The Granny Peace Brigade * Green Party of New York State * Hunger Action Network of New York State * Private Health Insurance Must Go! Coalition * Physicians for a National Health Program * Single Payer New York * Code Pink * Mobilization for Health Care for All * The Church Ladies *ACT UP
[1] http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/table4a3.html