DSA Medicare for All Policy and Organizing Workshop

Join us on Sunday, July 19, 4:30 PM PT, for a Medicare for All Policy and Organizing Workshop.

Now is the time to act: Democratic Socialists for Medicare for All is organizing a nationwide campaign to call on our representatives to support the Health Care Emergency Guarantee Act, and to advance the only real solution: Medicare for All. As part of this campaign, we are hosting a policy and organizing workshop to walk through what’s at stake in the current crises, and why socialists should organize around healthcare reform. We will provide training on how to phone bank and organize in this unique moment. This training is designed to provide useful skills that you can take with you into your organizing projects.

The current moment demonstrates why it is so vital to fight for universal healthcare. COVID-19 has left millions unemployed, uninsured, and struggling to afford basic necessities like rent. This crisis has been particularly hard-hitting due to our for-profit healthcare system, which withholds healthcare from those who cannot afford it. Only a publicly financed and administered system can prioritize public health, early intervention and prevention, and provide free vaccines. We must fight against for-profit insurers and ensure that healthcare providers and facilities reach historically marginalized, neglected, and poor communities.

Only if we break the link between employment and health insurance, and eliminate all costs at the point of service, provide comprehensive benefits to all residents regardless of income or immigration status, can we equitably provide healthcare to all. Now more than ever, we need a healthcare system that prioritizes the health of working-class Americans over the profits of insurance companies and their billionaire executives. We need a single, universal system with comprehensive coverage that is free at the point of service.

Two Medicare for All bills, H.R. 1384 and S. 1129, were introduced last year with an impressive number of cosponsors. While we continue to build on this success, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Pramila Jayapal have introduced the Healthcare Emergency Guarantee Act (HCEGA), to cover all healthcare costs for the uninsured and all out-of-pocket expenses for those with insurance for the duration of the coronavirus crisis. The HCEGA is the kind of bold response that is needed—and can lead to the more permanent solution: Medicare for All.

The workshop will be held on Sunday, July 19 at 4:30pm PDT