Healthcare

Implementing a high-quality, single-payer healthcare system that works for and includes everyone is a moral necessity. Currently, we pay more than any other high-income country for healthcare (40% more than the OECD average). Health insurance companies have tried to extract revenue from all aspects of patients’ care. We pay in premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and lost wages. What we get are some of the poorest health outcomes of all the high-income nations. While even the wealthiest Americans experience poorer health, the consequences of an expensive, inaccessible healthcare system hit the poor, people of color, and sexual minorities most directly. No person should have to choose whether they should pay their rent or for their life-saving prescription.

The healthcare system has been allowed to grow out of proportion to our healthcare needs.

We are now treating in hospitals and operating rooms what should be treated with housing, education, food security, safe neighborhoods, and freedom from jails and deportation. The bedrock of our healthcare system must be comprehensive primary care that includes mental health services, reproductive health services, dental and vision. Our platform also recognizes the importance of government policy in improving the social determinants of health overall.

Healthcare is a Human Right:

• Endorse H.R. 1384, the Medicare for All Act, which:

  • includes hospital visits, primary care, medical devices, lab services, reproductive & maternity care (including abortion), prescription drugs, vision and dental, long-term care services

  • eliminates co-pays, deductibles, and premiums

• Mandate Medicare negotiate with prescription drug companies for better prices