The Struggle for Healthcare Starts Locally

10/28/2019

[FULL DISCLOSURE: The author is a member of DSA BloNo]

For the past year, an intrepid group of diverse activists have worked tirelessly in Central Illinois for one goal: to guarantee healthcare as a right to all people. Through a series of organizing jujitsu, a strong coalition was constituted including the Bloomington-Normal Democratic Socialists of America (DSA BloNo), Illinois People’s Action (IPA), and ONE People’s Campaign (among others). Despite the odds against them, this coalition has planted the seeds for a greater working-class awareness of the healthcare problems facing the people.

It started with a shock and diagnoses of the problem. “America is the most dangerous place to be sick,” said Timothy Faust, a DSA member from Boston, at a Medicare for All Town Hall organized by our local DSA last October. Faust followed this with a call to action. “Medicare for all is the first step to health justice; single-payer is moral, single-payer is necessary and single-payer is achievable,” Faust said, pounding on a lectern.¹

For most in America, for-profit health insurance has been detrimental to their health. “I found out I had a heart condition several years ago,” IPA activist Susan Lotta told me. “I used to work for a company that (to save money) frequently changed health care providers. When the switch occurred I was deemed to have a pre-existing condition. My understanding was that if I went to a electrocardiologist to see if I could get surgery my insurance would be dropped from the group insurance or I’d be placed in a high risk pool. So, I went years without seeing a heart specialist fearing I may lose my insurance.”

Things didn’t necessarily get better with the Affordable Care Act (ACA). “With ACA,” Lotta continues, “they wanted me to predict my income but at the time I was on call a lot so I couldn’t accurately predict my income. I did get a plan and it cost about $300 a month. But because I didn’t always know my hours, I ended up making more than I had originally said. So, I was forced to pay $8,000 after the fact.”

For older women especially, these costs put them at a disadvantage compared to men. “Older women have suffered pay inequality throughout their whole lives this is the basis on which people get Social Security. So, as a woman I don’t get as much SS as men. I’m at a financial disadvantage.” Susan says.

Since that first fiery Town Hall, IPA and their allies have canvassed neighborhoods and events. They initiated a relentless letter-writing campaign to uplift the voices suffering the most in our community from health injustice. In July of 2019, they held a teach-in with Dr. David Gill, a Family Practice Physician, Pamella Gronemeyer of Illinois Single Payer Coalition, and Sheilah Garland of National Nurses United.

Perhaps one of the most frustrating things that occurs when advocating for M4A is the blatant lies told by politicians, even supposedly liberal ones. Lauren Pruter of BloNo DSA expressed similar frustrations. “What’s frustrating is Democrats lying to us saying people like their private insurance companies. People like their doctors, their nurses; people do not like their private insurance companies. So the way politicians talk about this is very misleading.”

Lauren stresses the private insurers are the real problem when it comes to America’s health care system. “I want to eliminate the private insurance company, because its the doctors and the nurses that do the real work while the insurance companies just steal.”

Susan expressed similar frustrations, “It can be difficult talking to people who don’t seem to understand how much of their money they pay in private insurance goes to CEOs, stockholders, and gate keeper companies.”

But confusion still remains about what Medicare for All means. “My premium for Medicare Part B is $1,626 per year,” said L. Hankins, Normal in a letter to the Pantagraph. “On top of that, Medicare only pays a limited amount, so I have a supplemental plan that costs $3,276. Also prescription drugs are a separate plan that costs another $322. That is a total of over $5,000, which my wife also pays.”² However, these are the types of misconceptions our stalwart heros at IPA & DSA are trying to squash. When activists advocate for Medicare for All, they are advocating for an improvement and expansion of our current Medicare program. Medicare for All means no co-pays, no premiums, no fees, no deductibles, etc. at the point of sale. It includes full coverage of physical, mental, dental, vision, old-age, and any other physiological orifice or condition one might find themselves in.

“I believe health care is a human right,” said ONE People’s Campaign organizer Sonny Garcia. “My experience with employer based insurance is that cost keep going up and access keeps getting cut.”

“Health care is a human right,” said Lauren Pruter. “This should be one of our highest priorities. Healthcare shouldn’t be tied to our employers, we all need to see doctors and all need healthcare.”

It hasn’t been easy though. Both of Illinois Democratic Senators, Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin, oppose Medicare for All and accept big campaign donations from the health insurance lobby. Locally, Congressmen Rodney Davis and Darin Lahood (both Republicans) balk at the idea of health care being a human right, preferring profit over people.

Lauren recalled a negative in the campaign. “We asked Rodney Davis if he would talk to us. He wouldn’t respond. It’s frustrating that people support Medicare 4 All, and Rodney Davis won’t speak to us.”

But our heroes haven’t let this stop them. “So we came to him.” On Monday March 4, 2019 the DSA mobilized activists to confront Congressman Rodney Davis (R) IL-13 at a GOP fundraiser in Normal IL. Our heroes put the word out to the community the day before the direct action and less than 24 hours later, two dozen people showed up on a bitterly cold Illinois day. IPA & DSA members marched to the location of the fundraiser and attempted to enter the $100 a plate event. Security immediately came to block access to the people of the 13th district and told them that we would not be allowed access to their congressman unless we each paid $100. “During the action, venue staff were ordered by the venue’s owner to escort us out. We asked them if they themselves had access to employer-provided health insurance. They said no. DSA leaders responded ‘We are doing this for you, we’re doing this for all working people who don’t have access to health care.’ After realizing what our action was about, the workers became much less insistent, which allowed us to finish.”³ They made their voices heard, peacefully disrupting the event and marching through the streets of downtown Normal.

Solidarity amongst the working class has also been strained at times. Every year the Bloomington and Normal Trades and Labor Assembly hold a Christmas party for the unemployed families of Mclean County.⁴ They co-host the event with the Mclean County Chamber of Commerce. DSA had a previous agreement with the Trades & Labor groups to host a table and educate the unemployed and underemployed about health injustice. One would think these are precisely the people that could benefit the most from Medicare 4 All. But, when our intrepid heroes arrived to set up their table, “the local Chamber of Commerce director–let’s call him ‘Mr. Commerce’–instructed the event’s lead labor organizer of the event to tell us to leave, citing the DSA’s presence was ‘inappropriate’ for a children’s’ charity event.”⁵

“Mr. Commerce also made sure to tell us that leaving was ‘non-negotiable.’ Interesting choice of words, particularly in front of the local labor leaders, at a Labor event; we have to wonder if this is how Mr. Commerce sees all his partnerships and relationships with labor. In fact, our not being there to support the working poor was so non-negotiable that he threatened to pull the support of the business community in subsequent years. This activated additional labor leaders in the room to then enforce his request to have us leave the high school cafeteria. Never mind that half of our members were union rank and file and the other half were students. We didn’t even get to tell Santa that we all wanted free healthcare for the Holidays. Exactly who’s event was this?”⁶

It is not a surprise that capital is so fearful of our brave activists. “Democratic socialism represents precisely what the capitalist class fears: refusal to allow profit from our bodies.”⁶ But, what is particularly disheartening is labor leaders catering not to their working-class brethren, but to capitalist oversears who are only holding such a charity event as a tax write-off. These were not rank-and-file union members bending the knee and bootlicking the overseers; no, these were the managerial class of union leaders that for decades have sucked at the teat of neoliberalism while selling their union rank-and-file down the river. “The same local leaders that relied heavily on Fair Share Dues and the Democratic Party, and who’ve employed union charity work as a substitute for internal and external organizing.”⁶

Our heroes did not let such ugly tactics tear them down. “Our six DSA organizers packed up their game, and headed out to the front of the school to canvass individual families as they entered the Christmas Party with their children. We had more conversations in those two hours than many of us expected we might have had inside. These conversations lead to stories of medical hardship, medical emergencies and injustices, and chronic illness as a result of not getting needed healthcare… This local challenge to our ability to do empowerment and outreach felt like a setback, but our organizers who believe so deeply in healthcare as a human right will seek out any which way to do the outreach they know is needed to build power in our community.”⁶ The Medicare 4 All campaign cannot be defeated so easily.

The Medicare 4 All coalition has local ambitions as well. Through a concerted effort, IPA & DSA was able to get two Democratic-Socialists on Bloomington City Council, Jenn Carillo and Jeff Crabill. The coalition hopes to encourage City Council to pass a resolution in support of a Medicare for All plan. The goal is more than symbolic, as the coalition wants to shed light on current health care costs paid by local governments. Bloomington alone pays upwards of $16 million to provide city employees with healthcare. That $16 million that could go to infrastructure, education, jobs, you name it. Include Normal, Mclean County, the park district, school districts, etc. and that’s a pretty penny that could get reinvested in the community, instead of being invested in CEO pockets.

IPA continues to do bi-monthly canvassing in the community on the 2^nd & 4^th Sundays of every month. “It’s the easiest canvas you can do,” Lauren Pruter said. “It’s great having conversations with people. The media portrays that the public is against Medicare 4 All; overwhelmingly people support Medicare 4 All.” If you’d like to get involved in Medicare 4 All, contact IPA, ONE People’s Campaign, or Dsa BloNo for details.

By eliminating huge health insurance and pharmaceutical profits, this system can save money. Medicare has a current overhead of 2-3 percent, compared to the 20 percent overhead of private insurance companies. Without private insurance companies standing between patients and healthcare, patients will be able to choose their doctors, and providers will rest assured that they will be compensated.

Will this be challenging? Yes, but Medicare was controversial when it was created in 1965. Our current healthcare model isn’t working. Every other industrialized country has a single payer model in place. Providing healthcare to all Americans is the patriotic choice.

Susan Gofstein

The insurance free market is broken by design. It amounts to little more than collective begging from insurance companies and Big Pharma. Passing Medicare for All will bring more power to the workforce and less bitterness between bosses and employees. When compensation is transparently on the table, the American workforce can do its job with integrity.

Adam Heenan

When our founding fathers declared life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as inalienable rights, they weren’t just talking about the freedom to make choices. They were also talking about a system of government that protects citizens from forces that threaten individual freedom.

Freedom is knowing that you won’t go bankrupt if you or a family member has a horrific accident that requires months of hospitalization and therapy. Freedom is not being forced to stay in a job you hate just to keep health insurance benefits for your child who was born with an expensive “pre-existing condition.”

Elizabeth Kosuth

We can do better. We should extend the existing Medicare program for seniors to everyone else. Extending Medicare to all U.S. residents would not be more expensive than our current system. We or our employers currently pay thousands of dollars per year for medical care and health insurance. In fact, Medicare for All would be cheaper because it eliminates bureaucratic costs and removes the profit motive from healthcare.

Rachel Shively

As a child, I watched family pass away because they could not afford to get the medical treatment they needed. They realized their own lives were not worth the expense. My cousins lost their fathers, and our family will never be the same.

Jennifer Crones

The concept itself, a state-run medical system that covers everyone, is not a radical one by any means either. The entirety of Europe has such a system as well as China, Japan, Canada, Israel, Vietnam, Cuba, Brazil, and many other countries. So, what makes the United States so stubborn to adopt such a system? A Medicare for All system would reduce costs per family, take the burden of healthcare off of businesses large and small, and create further equality across all social classes.

Zach Carlson

America’s employer-based healthcare system is failing us. A single medical emergency can quickly put a person into thousands of dollars of debt. Women are at a higher risk of being uninsured or underinsured because they are more likely to be covered as dependents through working spouse’s employer-sponsored plans. The CDC recommends improving systems of economic support to prevent intimate partner violence. When a wealthy country like the USA denies healthcare to their citizens, they are complicit in domestic and financial abuse.

A single payer system like Medicare for All would free healthcare from employment and expand coverage to all United States residents. Free at the point of service means that healthcare costs will be financed through tax contributions: no copays, no fees, no deductibles, no premiums, and no choice between one’s health or happiness. Expanding Medicare would mean that women would be able to leave abusive relationships and not live in fear of sudden medical debt. Medicare for All is the moral thing to do.

Lauren Pruter

We need to change our healthcare system so that no one suffers from not being able to afford necessary care. A great solution would be to expand Medicare to all U.S. residents and, in doing so, cover their medical, dental, vision and prescription needs. The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act (HR 676) in the House of Representatives would do just that. Medicare for all would eliminate financial barriers to paying for healthcare. It would replace our current inefficient and profit-oriented insurance system with a more cost-effective, equitable and streamlined single-payer model. Medicare for all would be funded through taxes, based on the ability to pay, and would save money for 95% of households (pnhp.org).

Rachel Shively

Do you know anyone who has rotten teeth or poor vision or can’t hear a normal conversation, but cannot afford the needed medical treatment? There are many reasons why I support Medicare for All, but I will focus on just one. I have Medicare and am able to pay for vision and dental care, and my hearing is fine, but I pay for these things on my own. Many people cannot afford such services and are forced to go without or face bankruptcy.

Marilea White

Americans already have the highest healthcare spending in the world. Consider that over half of all the money spent on healthcare in the world is spent in the United States but only a fraction of our spending goes directly to medical care compared with other industrialized countries. Since we pay for healthcare through a patchwork of private insurance companies, about one-third (31 percent) of our health spending goes to administrative overhead.

Potential savings from recovering the money currently squandered on billing, marketing, underwriting and other activities that sustain insurers’ profits have been estimated at $400 billion/year. Combined with what we’re already spending; this is more than enough to provide comprehensive coverage for everyone. It turns out that it is much more expensive to keep patients away from healthcare in our current fragmented, market-based system than to provide care to all under an administratively simple universal healthcare system.

Medicare for All would replace high, unpredictable premiums with lower, stable taxes. Unless you are among the top 5 percent of income earners, the bill is expected to reduce your total healthcare costs. In 2016, the average working family paid $6,273 per year in premiums and deductibles to private insurance companies. Under Medicare for All, a family of four earning $50,000 per year would pay just $466 per year in taxes for single-payer healthcare, amounting to savings of over $5,800 per year.

Sonny Garcia

1. Swiech, Paul. “Socialist Firebrand Argues for ‘Medicare for All’ in Bloomington Talk.” Pantagraph.com, 25 Oct. 2018.
2. Hankins, L. “Medicare for All Questionable.” Pantagraph.com, 28 June 2019.
3. Lauren, Pruter. “BLOOMINGTON-NORMAL DSA PUTS THE PRESSURE ON REP. RODNEY DAVIS.” Bloomington-Normal DSA, 20 Mar. 2019.
4. Watznauer, Kelsey. “Local Labor Unions Show They Care at Annual Children’s Christmas Party in Bloomington.” Pantagraph.com, The Pantagraph, 16 Dec. 2018.
5. Pruter, Lauren. “OPERATION: MEDICARE FOR ALL.” Bloomington-Normal DSA, 20 Mar. 2019.
6. Ibid.