People Over Profit NYC (POPNYC), in collaboration with fellow grassroots organizations, activists, and concerned citizens, is raising funds to keep our mobile billboard trucks on the road — bringing the issues that corporate media ignores directly to the streets of New York City.

Each year, an estimated 68,000 Americans die due to lack of access to healthcare. 66.5% of all American bankruptcies are caused by medical bills. Americans owe at least $220 billion in medical debt (KFF). Meanwhile corporations like UnitedHealth Group–currently facing a lawsuit over using an AI algorithm with a 90% error rate—rake in record-breaking profits.

These corporations use a variety of tactics to boost their bottom lines: prior authorization, step therapy, narrow networks or ghost networks, dropping coverage, and delays and denials of claims–all at the cost of patient care. Americans are paying higher premiums while seniors are pressured into signing DNRs, nursing homes are discouraged from hospitalizing residents, and cancer patients face bureaucratic delays as their treatment windows close. Families are being forced to choose between medical care and financial survival.

We repeatedly see headlines about preventable deaths and prolonged suffering tied to insurance denials and loss of coverage: asthma patients unable to afford inhalers, diabetics losing access to insulin, cancer patients denied treatment until it is too late. These deaths and disabilities are not inevitable, not AI “errors,” but a known, expected, and deliberate outcome. And they are not limited to the poor working class. In America, even the middle class must go to battle against their own health insurance companies for the right to live. When profit becomes policy, everyone suffers.

Instead of exposing these exploitative practices, mainstream media has frequently protected corporate interests.

Our goal is to counter this corporate-driven narrative with billboard trucks and other visual media to bring public attention back to those who should really be on trial: the for-profit health insurance industry that denies Americans life-saving care.

All funds raised will go directly to paying for mobile advertising and other visual media in the NYC area. Our current focus is to continue the national conversation about healthcare access sparked by the Luigi Mangione trial. We aim to encourage broader discussion and education around these issues while remaining respectful of the courts, and his rights. Messaging will focus on the following key issues:

HEALTHCARE

1. Use of AI and high rates of denials in the insurance industry
2. Deaths of patients, bankruptcies, and medical debt
3. Individuals’ stories about how insurance has impacted them
4. Prioritization of profits over people 

JUSTICE

1. Corporate influence tipping the scales of the legal system
2. A two-tiered system of justice for the poor and the wealthy
3. New and existing proposed legislation
4. Holding corporations accountable 

Questions? Reach us at info@popnyc.org

Have graphics or content for our trucks? Contact info@popnyc.org