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Kicking Down The Walls And Fences

By Claudia Lennhoff

Speech delivered at VVAW
Memorial Day Event in
Chicago May 31, 1999

My name is Claudia Lennhoff, and I am a member of the VVAW chapter in Champaign. I am also the director and lead organizer for the Champaign County Health Care Consumers.

CCHCC is a 22 year old non-profit grassroots citizen action organization. We are founded on the belief that health care is a basic human right, and that everyone should have access to quality affordable health care. We support the struggle for universal health care.

We also believe that meaningful change in the health care system will only come through the active involvement of consumers. In order to fight injustice in the health care system, we organize on the local level in Champaign County.

Let me start by saying that our nation's health care system pisses me off.

Health care is a major social problem in this country. But when we talk about health care, and people's lack of access to health care, we have to remember that we are talking about a so-called social problem for which the infrastructure already exists!

With rare exceptions, we have plenty of hospitals and clinics and professionals to provide health care to our nation's population. The barriers to access are not structural, they are not cement and steel - they are political and economic.

We have artificially created categories of people who do not have access to health care, or have limited access. We have the underinsured and the uninsured. (I might also add that now we have the veterans.)

Why do we even need insurance? We need insurance because we don't have a universal health system like all other industrialized nations in the world! And we have powerful corporate interests who have commodified a basic human right - health and healing.

We have a corporate and privatized health care system, and a government that not only allows it, but encourages it, and elected officials who profit from it.

While our government turns its back on the people and claims no responsibility for the ravages of this system, elected officials enjoy, for a lifetime, the best health care anyone can get in this country.

Let me give you an example of a struggle we are fighting in Champaign County right now. We've called upon the government to help us, and the response has been deafening.

We have a 14 year old community program which was created by the Champaign County Health Care Consumers in cooperation with a local hospital, to waive out of pocket hospital expenses for low-income Medicare patients.

Recently, a huge corporation called Provena Health System, bought out our local hospital which was involved in this program. In November last year, Provena canceled the program without warning, and dumped the 1100 low-income seniors and disabled members from the program.

These poor people no longer have access to affordable health care. Many of our members are veterans who have limited access to VA's in other towns, the closest of which is 45 minutes away.

When Provena dumped the seniors from this program, their excuse was that the program was illegal and they feared federal government prosecution. We know that the program is perfectly legal and complies with federal regulations. We have asked the federal government to come to our community to show support for the program, and to not allow Provena to use the government as an excuse for canceling this very important program.

Senator Durbin's office and the Health Care Finance Administration have been reluctant to take a stand and have refused to come to our community. They don't want to appear to "be taking sides."

Heaven forbid that we ask the government to be on the side of the low-income, sick, elderly and disabled! I have been told by Senator Durbin's office that there are two constituencies in this case, the corporation, and the people!

Well, the people are organizing to save this program, and we are targeting the Provena corporation and the government that has abandoned our community. And I'm telling you, we will win this struggle! This struggle about our local program is really a struggle about corporate accountability and government responsibility in health care.

Because we have a corporate and privatized health care system, people are dying in the streets outside hospitals that are denying them access, denying them entrance because they don't have enough money or proof of insurance. You all know these sad and disgusting stories.

Our nation's health care system has been inadequate for a long time, and the government knows it. That is part of the reason that the federal government created the Veterans Administration Hospitals to take care of veterans' health care needs.

But the same government that has allowed our nation's health care system to disintegrate into a gated community of providers allowing only the most fortunate and privileged, is also the master engineer who is now ravishing and dismantling the VA system and health benefits for veterans.

I am not an expert on health care for veterans, or on the Veterans Administration hospital system, but it is plain to see that the government is looking for a way out of providing decent health care for veterans. Once again, the government is abdicating responsibility for its people's health, and once again, the government is sacrificing veterans.

Right now, the federal government is downsizing veterans' health care. They are working to close VA hospitals. They say the hospitals are too costly to maintain. The government has ended in-patient substance abuse programs at the VA. They have restricted services to nearly all veterans with disability ratings of 50% or less. Meanwhile, we also have personnel in the VA system who are rewarded for denying certain diagnoses, such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. These same personnel often under-rate the veterans' disability level, and thereby close them out of receiving services. And many veterans, because of income, homelessness, and other factors, cannot get access to the non-VA health care system.

It's depressing and disgusting. How do we kick down the walls and fences of this gated community called the health care system? How do we hope to do this?

I believe that hope can be realized through organizing and struggling together for change, for social justice. I believe that younger generations learn from older generations of activists and organizers, and from their struggles against injustice, and that younger and older generations join in struggle together.

I am an organizer because older generations of social justice activists took stands on issues of justice and showed me the importance of collective struggle, and showed me a truth that my public education tried to conceal from me: activism is a lifetime habit, not a phase you outgrow, and organizing works.

From these activists, I also unlearned the myth that people act only in their self-interest. In its place, I learned the truth that a commitment to justice unites people across boundaries of nationality, age, race, class, sex, and disability status.

From these activists and organizers, I have also learned that organizing is fun. It is fun to kick ass and to right the wrongs of this world! It is fun to be on the side of justice! And struggling in solidarity is always a reason for a good party.

These activists and organizers from whom I learned were VVAW members. Now, I am proud to be a VVAW member.

VVAW says that we should honor the dead and fight like hell for the living. And I say that we honor the dead by fighting like hell for the living. No one should have to be a casualty of a callous, cruel, immoral, and unjust health care system and the government that allows and encourages it.

I want to say thanks to all of you who have spoken out and organized throughout the decades on different issues. Sometimes, I know, you don't know if you are making a difference or not. But I'm here to tell you, you have made a difference, and there are new generations of social justice activists and organizers who have made the commitment to join the struggle against injustice, and to struggle in solidarity with veterans and their families.

I am a Texan, and therefore, I'd like to close by quoting one of my favorite Texans, a great woman named Molly Ivins. She says,

"So keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was."

Thank you.

Claudia Lennhoff is executive director of CCHCC and a member of the C-U VVAW Chapter.