ACT UP NY demonstrate at Clinton fundraiser, demanding Wall Street tax and a single-payer healthcare
ACT UP NY demonstrate at Clinton fundraiser, demanding Wall Street tax and a single-payer healthcare system
Progress Queens
Louis Flores
Members of the HIV/AIDS advocacy group, ACT UP NY, demonstrated on Tuesday afternoon outside a fundraiser to benefit the Democratic Party presidential campaign committee of former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Activists demanded passage of a Robin Hood tax of 0.5 per cent. on Wall Street transactions that would raise hundreds of billions of dollars in tax revenue and effectively end the era of austerity forced by neoliberal Democratic Party and conservative Republican Party budget cuts by funding a single-payer healthcare system and by restoring funding to important healthcare and social programs. Activists also demanded public policies that would lead to more affordable prescription drug prices, including a demand that former First Lady Clinton expressly assert that she would oppose passage of the controversial Trans Pacific Partnership, a trade pact that critics argue would lead to higher prescription drug prices -- and profits -- for large, multi-national pharmaceutical corporations. Global healthcare advocacy groups, such as Médecins Sans Frontières, have predicted that the TPP would maintain high prices for prescription drugs by blocking the manufacture of generic drugs, according to a call to action on the group's Web site.