Two-hundred and fifty people gathered on the steps of the Colorado Capitol Saturday, May 30 as part of a "National Day of Action" to advocate for a single-payer model of health care reform. People came from Colorado Springs, Buena Vista and Ft. Collins as well as metro Denver to share stories and data about the utter failure of U.S. health care, which has become a profit-center for multi-payer insurances and hospitals at the expense of health care access for the people of Colorado.

Roya, a rally organizer from Health Care for All Colorado, related the story of a friend, repeatedly denied health care due to a "pre-existing" condition of cancer, until she died. Mike, a leader of ArapaHope Community Team, another rally organizer, told of continuous denial of health care coverage since he had a mild heart attack 14 years ago.

Fort Collins physician, Dr. Cory Carroll expressed the frustration of primary care providers whose care for patients is often complicated or obstructed by for-profit private insurances that assume the right to deny or delay claims.

Sen. Morgan Carroll observed that insurance companies make their profit by over-charging premiums, which rose 98% from 2000-2007, and by denying necessary health care. In Colorado, unlicensed and unqualified insurance industry folks deny necessary medical treatment. Asking "Where are our priorities?" Sen. Carroll noted that we have spent billions more on wall street bailouts than it would cost to provide health care to every single American for decades. Read more of Sen. Carroll's remarks.

Single-Payer has been declared "off the table" by Sen. Baucus and others in Washington. When Gov. Howard Dean visited Denver last week to promote a parallel public health care option, he drew gasps from his progressive audience when he suggested that Medicare Part D was "good" reform --perhaps a mark of the insularity of Washington culture, and a disconnect  on the part of some of our leaders.