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people's action
'We the People—Not the Wealthy Few': Voters Target Greed of Landlords, Insurers, and Gas Giants
"We deserve a government that uses our money to fund our care, not one that uses our money to line the pockets of corporations," said one protester.
Feb 26, 2025
After meeting with their members of Congress, working-class voters on Wednesday marched to the Washington, D.C. offices of three companies behind the nation's housing, health, and climate crises that are set to cash in on federal Republicans' planned tax giveaways.
Organized by People's Action Institute, the protest targeted Blackstone, an investment company that has become the world's largest corporate landlord; UnitedHealth, the country's biggest health insurance company; and American Gas Association, which represents more than 200 energy companies that provide services to 189 million Americans.
The participants—who hailed from 60 congressional districts across 27 states—emphasized issues including unaffordable rent rates, housing insecurity, homelessness, denied medical treatment, unpayable healthcare costs, high utility bills, health harms from fossil fuels, and corporate lobbying for tax cuts that benefit companies and billionaires rather than working people.
"We're here today because we want to make the rich pay their fair share!" declared JJ Ramirez of People's Action Institute member organization VOCAL-Texas. "Blackstone is a private equity company that has over 300,000 rental properties across the country. They gobble up these homes, raise our rents, price gouge us, and then evict us when we can't afford to live in their places. We're here today because Blackstone has conspired with other corporate bad actors so they can gobble up everything that we have."
While the protesters gathered outside Blackstone, they stressed that corporate landlords in general are an issue. Ann Kiesling of Progressive Maryland, which supported tenants at the Enclave Silver Spring apartment complex, said that "I will never forget a woman with a disability telling me about the time she had to hop up, with the help of a neighbor, 15 flights of stairs to get to her apartment because the landlords refused to fix the elevators. I will never forget the parents of a four-year-old telling me how they had to heat up water on their stove to give their kid baths because their landlord refused to fix their hot water for over a month."
"An out-of-state private equity landlord, Hampshire Properties, is raking in massive profits by charging luxury rent prices while letting the building fall apart and leaving tenants with the consequences," Kiesling continued. "And while we are here fighting for basic living conditions against mold, broken elevators, pest infestations, corporate landlords like Hampshire Properties, like Greystar, like Blackstone, are pouring our rent money into lobbyists and elected officials' campaigns instead of fixing their buildings."
Hannah Peterson, a disabled veteran, seminary student, and member of the People's Lobby in Chicago, pointed out Wednesday that "just last night, House Republicans passed their budget resolution to cut millions from Medicaid."
That resolution
sets the stage for cutting not only $880 billion from the healthcare program that serves low-income Americans, but also $230 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly called food stamps. Elected Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress and the White House, want to gut safety net programs to fund an expansion of tax giveaways to the rich that GOP lawmakers passed and President Donald Trump signed in 2017.
"Republicans are already funneling our tax dollars out of programs our communities need and into pockets of private corporations and billionaires," Peterson said. "We deserve a government that uses our money to fund our care, not one that uses our money to line the pockets of corporations."
As Medicare for All advocates often highlight, although the United States has Medicaid and Medicare, which serves seniors, it is the only developed country in the world without universal healthcare. Instead, the U.S. has a for-profit system that often leaves patients unable to access or afford necessary care, including because of denials from insurance companies.
"To the folks at UnitedHealthcare... if you really care about people's health, why don't you publicly come out and oppose the cuts to Medicaid?" asked Citizen Action of New York's Amelia Bittel—who has dysautonomia, a disorder that led to a heart surgery at age 35 and requires weekly blood draws.
"In my city of Syracuse, New York, 48% of the population relies on government-funded programs to get their insurance," said Bittel. "You don't need the $1.3 billion that you stand to profit from these cuts. Your company routinely reports the highest profits. Why not give back to the patients?"
At the American Gas Association, Gloria de Graves from Citizen Action of Wisconsin explained that in the Midwestern state, "if you're not familiar, we hit negative 30°F sometimes, and that means that people can freeze to death in their homes if they do not have a way to heat their homes."
"So all I'm saying is We Energies and Xcel Energy, who I have paid plenty of money to over the years, need to stop charging us so much money so that we can afford to feed ourselves, we can afford to stay housed, and when we are fleeing domestic violence, that there is a safe, electrified, and heated home to go into so that we are warm and safe in the winter," de Graves said.
Celebrating the multisite protest on Wednesday, progressive Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said that "I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart, because there are people in my community that can't afford to come up here."
"It is so important to understand corporate greed and how it is embedded in environmental injustices, embedded in environmental racism," she said. "They want the federal government to continue to literally fund poisoning us, while we get sick here in our country. So they're making us sick, and we're subsidizing the fact that we don't have access to healthcare that supports our families."
In a dispatch earlier this week, People's Action executive director Sulma Arias wrote that her group "refuses to give up. We believe ordinary people have the power to rise and meet this and every moment, if we act together. We believe in the fundamental dignity of every person, without exception, and we believe government exists to serve all people—We the People—not the wealthy few."
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How Trump Could Line the Pockets of Medicare Advantage Giant
"UnitedHealth would be empowered by Trump's Project 2025 to harm more Americans than virtually any other private corporation, other than fossil fuel companies, that benefits from his plan."
Oct 16, 2024
Responding to UnitedHealth Group's third quarter results this week, People's Action highlighted how the insurance giant would benefit from Project 2025, the right-wing policy agenda that critics fear will be implemented if former Republican President Donald Trump returns to the White House.
"The underlying businesses, which generated more than $100 billion in revenue in the quarter, helped overcome $475 million in total cyberattack impacts in the quarter," Forbesnoted Tuesday, citing the company earnings report. "Net income was $6.06 billion."
In a series of social media posts about those figures, People's Action said: "What they didn't mention? Much of that is public money. Funds meant to care for seniors and people with disabilities are lining the pockets of their executives and Wall Street investors. Money that instead UnitedHealth Group executives use to build mansions or send to Wall Street."
"UnitedHealth would be one of the largest financial beneficiaries of Project 2025."
People's Action also linked to its new report laying out how the company and its subsidiary UnitedHealthcare would likely benefit from the Heritage Foundation-led Project 2025, an initiative that Trump has tried to disavow even though its policy agenda's authors include at least 140 people who served in his first administration.
Specifically, the Tuesday report focuses on Medicare Advantage, an alternative to the government-run healthcare program that is administered by private companies. As Common Dreams has detailed, Project 2025 proposes making the privatized plans the default option for enrollees.
"UnitedHealth would be one of the largest financial beneficiaries of Project 2025, since it is the largest private health insurance corporation in America, the fourth-largest company in the country, and the largest writer of privatized Medicare Advantage plans, with 7.8 million people insured through a UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage plan," People's Action said.
The group pointed out that "UnitedHealthcare's revenue from Medicare Advantage, an estimated $137 billion, could be expected to double to $274 billion annually as a result of Project 2025."
"Because of UnitedHealth's massive scale, the harm it causes through its denials of care is unprecedented—whether through prior authorization denials, claim denials, and inadequate networks that prevent beneficiaries from receiving care or increase the financial strain of receiving care," the report warns. "UnitedHealth would be empowered by Trump's Project 2025 to harm more Americans than virtually any other private corporation, other than fossil fuel companies, that benefits from his plan."
As People's Action explained:
UnitedHealthcare would be expected to cover 15.6 million people via its Medicare Advantage plans as the eventual result of Project 2025's passage with a Trump victory. The Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services found that Medicare Advantage organizations (of which UnitedHealthcare is the largest) improperly denied care (prior-authorization denial) 13% of the time and denied payment for care improperly 18% of the time. Because this is a denial rate per procedure, not per person, an estimated 33% of people covered by Medicare Advantage experience a denial by their privatized insurer annually. With Project 2025's implementation that would mean 5.2 million people would be denied care by UnitedHealthcare alone. This figure is well above traditional Medicare denial rates due to inappropriate denials and denials outside the scope of traditional Medicare rules.
On social media, People's Action shared stories of actual patients, emphasizing that denials impact "people like Jenn Coffey, who constantly battles UnitedHealthcare for prior authorizations for the infusions that keep her alive after multiple fights with breast cancer."
"Robin Ginkel, a teacher who needs back surgery to be able to work again, faces the same fight for care," the organization said.
"We can stop this. Fight back against the full privatization of Medicare by corporations like UnitedHealthcare and UnitedHealth Group," People's Action urged. "Join us to deep canvass and protect care for ALL."
Underscoring Medicare defenders' warnings about Trump—who is facing Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the November 5 election, for which early voting is already underway—Mother Jonesreported Wednesday that a pro-Trump super political action committee sent out an alarming mailer to older voters in Arizona saying that Medicare had been canceled.
According to David Corn, the magazine's Washington, D.C. bureau chief:
It had a big red stamp that proclaimed, "Medicare Cancellation Notice." Also emblazoned on its front was this: "Warning: Rates are going up and plans are being canceled. Details enclosed." Its return address was the "Department of Medicare Cancellation, Kamala Harris Administration."
That return address should have been a tip-off that this was not an official notification—along with a scrawled add-on in cursive: "I hope you can afford to lose your insurance! —Kamala Harris XOXO."
It's hard to know whether any recipient saw this and received a shock, fearing their Medicare was being cut off. But the group that sent out this official-looking piece of campaign literature, Make America Great Again, Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC, was spreading false and misleading information about Medicare and about Harris.
Sharing the reporting on social media, Corn said that it was "rather odious for oligarchs to be scaring folks."
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Top Progressive Groups Launch Massive Grassroots Mobilization for Harris
"Our coalition was critical to defeating Trump in 2020," said one organizer. "We're ready to do it again in 2024."
Jul 25, 2024
Announcing their endorsement of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, three of the country's largest progressive organizations announced Thursday their plan to mobilize their hundreds of thousands of members to reach out to millions of swing state voters about Harris' fight for abortion rights, the climate, and democracy.
The Center for Popular Democracy Action (CPD), the Working Families Party (WFP), and People's Action pledged to knock on more than five million doors in states including Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Arizona, where they will tell voters about the key role Harris played in passing far-reaching climate action and jobs legislation in the Inflation Reduction Act, her strong support for abortion rights, and her commitment to delivering on President Joe Biden's housing agenda.
"Our coalition was critical to defeating [Republican presidential nominee Donald] Trump in 2020. We're ready to do it again in 2024," said Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party. "This election is bigger than any one person. It’s about the kind of country we want to be and whether we will let the rights and freedoms our ancestors spent generations fighting for—the right to participate equally in our democracy, to organize our workplaces, and to control our own bodies—be taken away from us. Over the next four months, we'll be mobilizing voters in key states to elect Kamala Harris and build our ranks of WFP champions up and down the ballot."
The three groups' joint announcement of their endorsement of Harris comes four days after the vice president launched her campaign following Biden's decision to step aside under pressure from Democrats, due to concerns about his age, health, and sinking popularity among voters.
Since Sunday, the gun violence prevention group March for Our Lives has also announced its first-ever presidential endorsement of Harris, and the vice president has secured support from at least four national climate action groups.
"The Biden/Harris administration created real momentum toward an economy that puts working people before billionaires and a democracy that protects hard-won freedoms for everyone. We need to build on that momentum."
"We see an unprecedented surge of enthusiasm on the doors and from our members about Vice President Kamala Harris," said Marta Popadiak, movement governing director of People's Action. "The Biden/Harris administration created real momentum toward an economy that puts working people before billionaires and a democracy that protects hard-won freedoms for everyone. We need to build on that momentum."
People's Action has utilized "deep canvassing," an organizing tactic that eschews the brief, scripted conversations typical in traditional phone-banking and door-knocking operations in favor of longer discussions and open-ended questions aimed at developing an understanding of voters' beliefs, priorities, and values.
"We are mobilizing tens of thousands of volunteers to have deep conversations about why voting for Harris is a vote for a future in which our families and communities will thrive," said Popadiak.
People's Action expressed hope that a Harris presidency could initiate a shift in the Biden administration's "disastrous support" for Israel.
DaMareo Cooper and Analilia Mejia, co-executive directors of CPD, called on progressives to "rally behind Vice President Harris to build upon" the achievements of the Biden administration, including strengthening the U.S. economy following the coronavirus pandemic and canceling student debt for nearly one million Americans.
"Vice President Kamala Harris is a strong candidate who will beat Donald Trump, preserve our democracy, and drive our country forward," said Cooper and Meija.
The WFP noted that 95% of its members and delegates voted this week to endorse Harris as the Democratic nominee, and said the organization plans to knock on two million doors in key states including North Carolina and Georgia.
The organizing push is kicking off as Sen. JD Vance (D-Ohio), the Republican vice presidential nominee, faces blistering criticism for comments he made in 2021 in which he described Harris and other Democratic leaders as "childless cat ladies," and for his support for a nationwide abortion ban and call to track people who cross state lines to obtain abortion care. On Wednesday, the Harris campaign warned voters about Trump's promise to oil tycoons that he would ensure they can continue drilling for planet-heating fossil fuels if they gave him $1 billion in campaign donations.
Nic O'Rourke, a member of the Philadelphia City Council who represents the WFP, said that a Harris victory in November would ensure "the best conditions possible for activists as they join with and empower their communities" to fight for economic, racial, climate, and reproductive justice.
Unlike Harris', said O'Rourke, "the GOP's vision for America doesn't hold space for the righteous demands of the constituents I serve and the people I come from."
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