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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5 / AP / BCN) ― Protesters outside a health insurance industry convention in San Francisco are demanding the creation of a single-payer health care system in the U.S.

More than 1,000 demonstrators rallied Thursday outside the three-day event organized by America's Health Insurance Plans, an industry group.

Protesters lined Fourth Street and wrapped around Howard Street,
swarming Moscone Center, where insurance companies and stakeholders were gathering for an annual convention.

America's Health Insurance Plans, an association representing some 1,300 companies that provide health insurance, hosted Thursday's conference called Institute 2008.

Outside the conference, advocates held signs with slogans such as "Patients Not Profits" and chanted expressions such as "Californians should beware, insurance companies just don't care."

Speakers included state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Los Angeles, San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano and Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo.

"All of us know the California health care system should be a model for the country," Delgadillo said.

He said the nation's health care system is "broken" and some insurance companies maximize profits at the expense of patients and illegally rescind coverage when a person needs it the most.

Protesters focused on advocating two pieces of legislation. Kuehl's SB 840 would create a single-payer system for California and HR 676, introduced by U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., strives to create a national single-payer health insurance program that would be publicly financed and privately delivered.

Donna Cook, a 60-year-old retired teacher, came in from Chico to attend Thursday's event in support of single-payer health insurance.

She said that she has health insurance but that her daughter and 5-year-old grandson do not.

"When something happens to someone you love, you're at the mercy of a system that can be indifferent," Cook said.

One man pushed a wheelchair with a skeleton inside around the Moscone Center.

Attached to the wheelchair was a sign reading, "Got Health Care? Me Neither."

Fred Karutz, a conference attendee who walked by scores of protesters as he exited the Moscone Center, said health care is about choice, access and accountability. He is the senior vice president of business development for Norvax, a Chicago-based company that makes software for insurance companies and helps consumers find insurance.

He said his company isn't taking a position on single-payer health insurance, but said the "the answer is using the best of the present system." Health care is a "very personalized decision," he said, adding that single-payer health care may restrict the choices of consumers.

Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plan, said "They (the protesters) have every right to express their views."

The convention, which began Wednesday and runs through Friday, focuses on access and quality of health care, Zerkelbach said.

He said that universal health care is something the industry has supported for a long time, but said consumers have shown through surveys that they support a public-private approach over a government takeover.

But Meg Bowerman, a 58-year-old Oakland resident who has worked at Children's Hospital Oakland and University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, said she attended Thursday's event because it is the one thing she could do as a nurse to help patients.

"The worst is when you think you have insurance but you don't," Bowerman said. "And then you go into bankruptcy."

The protest was organized by the California Nurses Association, a union which represents more than 80,000 nurses in several states. Members of the Nurses Association and the California School Employees Association were among those workers at the protest.

Tim Paulson, executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council, said, "We are going to continue the fight. The labor movement is going to continue the fight."

The protest in San Francisco was one of several held throughout the country.

Earlier on Thursday, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom signed a resolution that endorses HR 676 and urges the U.S. House of Representatives to begin hearings on the bill.

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