For universal healthcare to become a reality, "it's
going to take a movement of movements, and it's going to take the American
people making it toxic for our elected officials not to get on board."
"Message to Democrats: Get on Board With Medicare For
All or Go Home,"
"We're not going to wait around for our members of
Congress to say, 'Now it's politically feasible.'"
—Dr. Carol Paris, Physicians for a National Health Program
Amid surging support for Medicare for All at the
grassroots—which can be seen both in recent polls and at anti-Trumpcare
protests, where demonstrators have brandished signs declaring "healthcare
is a human right"—activists, physicians, and policy
experts are imploring
Democratic lawmakers to either get on board with the growing majority of
their constituents, or go home.
This coming Monday, July 24, activists across the country
are set to target Democratic lawmakers who have yet to sign off on Rep John
Conyers' Medicare
for All legislation. The nationwide events, coordinated by the group Millions March for
Medicare 4 All, are part of a growing call
"for America to do for its citizens what literally every other developed
nation in the world has had for decades."
"The size of one's bank account should never be the
determining factor in whether one gets medical care," said Beverly
Cowling, the organization's co-founder. "This is the 21st century, not the
Dark Ages, and we will not stop until every American has access."
Responding to politicians and commentators who argue that
incremental improvements to Obamacare and the implementation of a public option
are the most practical steps toward universal coverage, Dr. Carol Paris,
president of Physicians for a National Health Program, said in an interview
on Democracy Now! that such steps amount to "creating another opportunity
for the insurance companies...to put all the sickest people in the public
option and keep all the healthiest young people in their plans."
"We really need to go forward now to a national,
improved Medicare for All," Paris concluded. "And really, the bill in
Congress, H.R.
676, Congressman Conyers's bill, is the way we need to go."
Writing for Common Dreams on Thursday, National Nurses
United president RoseAnn DeMoro expressed
a similar sentiment, arguing that the public option is "fool's
gold."
Far from being a step on the path to universal healthcare,
the public option "could undermine the movement for single-payer,
discrediting a fully publicly financed system that is not a feeble adjunct to
the private insurance market," DeMoro wrote.
She went on:
The Congressional Budget Office in 2013 concluded that adding
a public option would not even slice the number of uninsured, and could even
encourage employers to dump workers they now cover into the ACA exchanges. With
millions still either uninsured or paying exorbitant costs for care, imagine
promoting a publicly financed Medicare for all to a public that sees a public
option that is just as unethical as the notorious private insurers, or a
financial wreck that just went belly up.
Analysts tracking public opinion on healthcare have been startled
by the speed with which the debate over Trumpcare has shifted popular
attitudes to the left, in the direction of Medicare for All.
As Common Dreams reported
on Thursday, 62 percent of Americans—and 80 percent of Democratic voters—now
believe it is "the federal government's responsibility to make sure that
all Americans have healthcare coverage."
Indeed, as Max Fine, one of the architects of Medicare, told
The Intercept's Zaid Jilani recently, the original intent of the program's
creators was to expand it to everyone. Medicare for all, Fine concluded,
"is only real answer" to our current
healthcare woes.
The job of single-payer proponents now, Dr. Paris
emphasized, is to make it politically damaging for Democrats who refuse to
listen to their constituents and instead remain committed to a failed
for-profit system, under which millions remain uninsured.
"We're not going to wait around for our members of
Congress to say, 'Now it's politically feasible.' If we wait for that, we're
going to be waiting for the rest of my life, your life, and many more
lives," Paris said.
To translate popular attitudes into public policy, Paris
said, "it's going to take a movement of movements, and it's going to take
the American people making it toxic for our elected officials not to get on
board with this."
[…]
Beyond calling forcefully for Medicare for All during
demonstrations against Trumpcare, activists are urging the creation a broader,
national movement that will rally support for Medicare for All and pressure
lawmakers to act.
On Tuesday, a coalition of dozens of progressive
organizations announced
the launch of a new initiative called "The Summer of Progress" with
the goal of pressuring House Democrats to support, among other legislation,
Conyers' H.R. 676.
