Charleston DSA’s Healthcare Working Group is primarily focused on advocating the passage of the national Medicare for All plan proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, because we firmly believe that healthcare is a human right, and a universal single-payer system is essential to ensuring that everyone gets the healthcare they need without it negatively impacting their personal finances.
It is an outrage that the United States, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, is the only major country where people go bankrupt because of medical bills. Medicare for All is the best immediate solution that would eliminate this travesty, while also reducing overall costs and improving quality, access to care and material public health outcomes.
Charleston DSA works together with allies on a variety of efforts to promote Medicare for All, including tabling at local events and flea markets, collecting voter pledge signatures, engaging with local media, hosting community education forums, and more.
Our chapter’s community education forums have included film screenings, discussion panels, and presentations and Q&A sessions with national experts including Michael Lighty and Tim Faust.
Charleston DSA members are frequently out tabling for Medicare for All on Saturday and Sunday mornings at the Coastal Carolina Flea Market on the Ladson Fair Grounds. We’ve been energized by the overwhelmingly positive response we’ve gotten from thousands of folks with many different backgrounds and perspectives. Everyone seems to recognize that the healthcare system we have today is broken, and Medicare for All is bringing out a lot of nontraditional allies who are desperate for change.
We strongly encourage our members to consider helping with our Medicare for All efforts. Public opinion polling and our local experiences suggest that Medicare for All advocacy work is one of the most effective pathways for bringing more people into our broader movement, and it is needed now more than ever, as millions of Americans are currently uninsured or under-insured in the midst of a devastating global pandemic as a result of our employer-based for-profit health insurance system.
Dr. King once said, “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman because it often results in physical death.”
It is far past time that the United States join the rest of the developed world in guaranteeing healthcare as a human right rather than an exclusive privilege. We will win this fight. Please help us get there before too many lives are lost.
Interested in getting involved? Email healthcare@charlestondsa.org
