Health Care Is A Human Right
AOC: How can you possibly see what is happening right now, and come to the conclusion that we shouldn’t guarantee health care as a human right in the United States of America? It is absolutely insane. This is why we need Medicare For All right now.
Ayanna Pressley: We’re seeing, and experiencing, and feeling unprecedented hurt. It is overwhelming, the scale and the scope, how broad and how deep that hurt is being felt.
Pramila Jayapal: I know that every day is a challenge right now, but this is also a moment when we get to reclaim the best of who we are as human beings, and to radically rethink how our society should work, and to transform our system.
Alexandra Rojas: This crisis has revealed an ugly truth about how cruel and unjust the American health care system really is. Private health insurance corporations tell Americans: IF YOU’RE TOO POOR, TOO BAD. NO HEALTH CARE FOR YOU.
AOC: One of the biggest problems that coronavirus has exposed is the fallacy of employer-sponsored health insurance. Because more often than not, And especially in a crisis like this, it’s not up to you whether you remain employed or not.
Alexandra Rojas: Right now businesses are shutting down, or considering layoffs. Most Americans whose families depend on their employers for coverage, are just a layoff away from being uninsured.
AOC: You have folks going in, trying to do right by their community, and getting a coronavirus test when it’s indicated, and then they’re ending up, along with treatment, getting bills for $30, $40 thousand dollars.
Pramila Jayapal: We’re seeing the problems with a “me first” instead of a “we first” society.
Ayanna Pressley: Well, unprecedented hurt calls for unprecedented solutions.
Alexandra Rojas: The Great Depression created a great outcry for Social Security, and the right to form a labor union. World War II brought the British the National Health Service.
Pramila Jayapal: If we had universal health care in place right now, nobody would have to worry about affording the cost of treatment, or necessary drugs, or vaccines. Because we’d be able to negotiate those and get them to everyone. We wouldn’t have a population with the kinds of underlying health conditions that we have now, when we have 70 million people who are uninsured or under insured, and delaying the care they desperately need as their illnesses worsen.
AOC: It should be free or low charge at the point of service. And we should be able to make sure that everyone is getting the health care that they need, which will then allow us to get the preventative health care that we need, which will then keep more of us from getting sick.
Ayanna Pressley: You shouldn’t have to be wealthy in order to be healthy. Your health care shouldn’t be tied to your employer. Yeah, that’s a wish, but it’s something that we can make a reality with the political will, and the courage, and the commitment.
AOC: If you believe that someone who is sick enough---that has coronavirus---should get treated and get tested, and that treatment should be free, and that testing should be free, then why don’t we fight for the same thing for folks with diabetes, with cancer, with degenerative diseases, with mental illness?
Pramila Jayapal: Poll after poll shows us that that’s what the majority of American voters want because they see every day the cost and impact of a broken health care system.
AOC: If a politician says that they believe healthcare is a human right, that means that they should support Medicare for All. NO IFS, NO ANDS, NO BUTS.
Ayanna Pressley: Now is the time. Your family is depending on this moment. Your neighbor is depending on this moment. Our country is depending on this moment.
AOC: And if we really want to say that the United States of America is a modern, and moral, and socially advanced nation, then that means we need to guarantee health care with a Medicare for All system. And until we do that, we have not earned the right to say that we are an advanced country, and have an advanced, humane, and compassionate health care system.