A protest was held in Washington D.C. this week by Health Care for America Now,  a group that categorizes itself as “fed up with skyrocketing premiums, denials of care and claims, and insurance companies spending tens of millions of dollars to kill or manipulate reform”.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets in front of The Ritz Carlton where America’s Health Insurance Plans’ group of lobbyists was holding its annual policy conference, chanting “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Insurance companies have to go”. A mass “citizens arrest” of the insurance executives that participated in the conference was staged as well.

One of the protesters interviewed, Dr. Terence Gerace who is a physician and cancer survivor stated “Its a for-profit system.  A significant amount of cost goes to executives and not the providers and it needs to be rectified. Its an immoral system as it currently stands.”

Howard Dean, the former Democratic National Committee chairman, addressed the protest group stating “We deserve a vote!  Are you for the insurance companies or are you for the American people?”

The surprise is not that people are now protesting an unfair archaic system.  The real surprise is that it took us, the American people, so long to wake up!