Medicare for All or War-the Choice is Clear

WASHINGTON (07-22) – Members and supporters of the PAC “Medicare for All” founded in 2017 by Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) spent the day attending a Congressional Progressive Caucus “Shadow Hearing” aptly titled, “Universal Healthcare: Now is the Time for Medicare for All.” This was followed by lobbying congressional members on Capitol Hill in seeking co-sponsors for the bill.

A shadow hearing mirrors a formal congressional hearing and is used to highlight partisan issues the majority party declines to address. While it cannot produce binding policy, it serves to bring urgent and significant concerns to public attention.

As polls continue to show, a large majority of Americans support Medicare for All to expand access for an estimated 85 million Americans who are currently uninsured or underinsured. This, while one in four cannot afford prescription drugs, and “over half a million people go bankrupt due to medically related debt, and more than 60,000 die because they cannot afford to go to a doctor.”

This national crisis lays bare the United States’ distinction as the richest industrialized country in the world without universal healthcare access for all. As the PAC notes, “For decades, Washington has forgotten who it works for and failed to truly address people’s needs. While billionaires got richer, working families got squeezed. Politicians promised change-but delivered for their donors instead.”

The lack of compassionate priorities of our government by funding war-related misery and death while neglecting healthcare for its citizens is astounding for its lack of empathy and moral clarity.

Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) during her opening remarks called healthcare for all “a human right” and the issue of affordability, as many sacrifice their health to be able to eat, an “unconscionable situation,” adding that “We have been fighting for this right since the 1940s. This system has been broken long before Trump’s Big Ugly Bill was passed. We can and we must fix this system. …The time is now.”

Four witnesses gave testimony regarding their personal and professional experiences with the present for-profit healthcare system in the US.

First to testify was Chela Garcia, a volunteer at the People’s Lobby education Institute who related how her health challenges are causing her to slowly go blind due to lack of availability or unaffordability for the medications she needs to control her various health conditions. This is due in large part to having been shuttled to seven different doctors in the past twenty years all of whom have approached her medical conditions differently.

This has resulted in missing paperwork, insurance denials and appeals for medications her doctor has prescribed and switched by her insurance company for less expensive and less effective medication that have degraded her medical condition. She accused her insurance carrier as only “seeing her needs as a cost and line item.”

Dr. Diljeet Singh, MD, DrPH—a gynecologic oncologist and president of Physicians for a National Health Program—emphasized the urgent need for a universal national health program, noting that its absence is currently harming the health of Americans nationwide.

She attributed this to the corporate takeover of the healthcare industry where thirty-fives cents of every dollar are spent on administration and corporate profit, thereby creating a system in which financial interests take precedence over the sacred oath physicians take, and preventing the compassionate, patient-centered care that patients need.

She further stated that medical care for all allows access to everyone without financial barriers, where patients can receive medical care recommendations based on their conditions and “not on corporate bottom lines but on what they actually need.”

Speaking on the present for-profit healthcare system,
Jamie Brown of National Nurses United said “…hostile executives prioritize profit at the expense of our patients’ well-being. Our employers are incentivized to understaff our units to cut labor costs,” which in turn impacts the well-being of both the nurses and patients. “The Republican plan for healthcare is expected to strip coverage from more than 16 million people.” One likely consequence would be in the worst cases “patients would die unnecessarily.”

Healthcare policy advocate for Public Citizen's Congress Watch Eagan Kemp testified on corporate profit in revealing that “The US has a $5.7 trillion healthcare system that does a better job creating millionaires and billionaires than it does keeping people healthy.” That figure is far exceeded by projected annual costs, which are expected to reach 9 trillion $ by 2034. As a result “Americans are sicker and have worse health outcomes for almost any disease that is tracked.”

“Healthcare companies line their pockets everyday” and as an example he cited that the combined top three providers CEO’s annual salaries came to $100 million.

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) opened her comments by addressing the affordability of Medicare. She spoke of a constituent who was forced to change his healthcare plan where he had successfully controlled his diabetes to Blue Cross Blue Shield where his medication was switched for a new prescription which costs $1,500 for a 90-day supply that as a result has alarmingly increased his a1c. He expressed his frustration telling her that “I do not understand why an insurance company decides what I require for my health. Or why they override the decision of my doctor.”

Regarding affording Medicare for All, Tlaib said “The Pentagon wants to buy 2,400 F35s costing $1.7 trillion,” noting that “They are flawed and fricking can’t get into the air... And don’t tell me we can’t afford it. If we want to pay for healthcare, go to the Pentagon budget and we will find the money.”

This as we find ourselves mired in a costly, unwinnable war with no end in sight that has already cost taxpayers $37.5 billion, while Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth appears before Congress requesting an additional $70 billion, monies that would go a long way in implementing, improving, and expanding Medicare “a system that’s been popular and helpful to millions over the last 50 years.”

At the same time, the administration announced its latest assault on healthcare by freezing $1 billion in Medicaid funding for California and Minnesota.

As the PAC notes, “If we want people to defend democracy at the scale this moment demands, we must make democracy worth defending,” further stating that “healthcare must be affordable and accessible to all residents of the United States. The time for improved Medicare For All is now!”

Report and photos by Phil Pasquini

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