Occupy Ithaca Health Care Teach In Report Back

I am part of the Occupy Education Working Group and we have been trying to organize monthly  teach ins. We held a successful two day health care event in conjunction with our Occupy Ithaca group. We had a rally on Saturday Dec. 10th on our public Commons area with speakers tying the need of Health Care to the Declaration of Human Rights as part of Human Rights Day.  This was followed by a march to the park where our group has been Occupying since early November.  We then had a heal in with some local healers providing messages and other healing exercises in 20 o weather.   On Sunday we had a local doctor speak about how Medicare for All would benefit doctors and their patients.  A long time resident of Toronto talked about the Canadian system and the myths which try to give their health care system  a bad name when in fact all of her experiences there have been very positive.  A third speaker who works at our free clinic spoke of the problems of the uninsured.  This was followed by a lively question period and a discussion of ways to get health care for all New Yorkers by promoting Assemblyman Gottfried’s bill.  We collected signatures on our petition to Governor Cuomo at all of the events and hope to get some of the participants more involved.    Rebecca Elgie