[1]NNU - Medicare for All!

There’s a lot going on right now in our country, so we wanted to step back and provide a
10,000-foot view of where our current health care system stands in light
of recent news.

The state of U.S. health care has only gotten worse since the Covid-19
pandemic, with tens of millions of people getting kicked off Medicaid,
costs continuing to rise, hospitals and health care practices being
further consolidated, the uninsured rate increasing, and harmful Supreme
Court decisions being handed down. Let’s take a closer look:

While the current uninsured rate is 7.7 percent or 26 million people, that
is expected to rise to 8.9 percent over the next decade, largely due to
Medicaid disenrollment and the expiration of Affordable Care Act
subsidies.^1

During the height of the pandemic, states were prohibited from
disenrolling Medicaid recipients from their rolls, but that came to an end
last year when the national public emergency around Covid was lifted.
Since then, nearly 23.8 million people have been disenrolled from
Medicaid, and a 69 percent majority of those were due to procedural
reasons (as opposed to becoming ineligible), according to KFF.^2

In the worst cases, being disenrolled from Medicaid means some people
become uninsured. But even for those who get coverage elsewhere,
disenrollment from Medicaid may mean losing access to specific providers
and having to navigate a new plan.

Hospitals continue to consolidate, which also drives costs up —
researchers with the National Bureau of Economic Research found that “two
years after a merger, healthcare prices go up by 1.2 percent.”^3 Too
often, mergers are an opportunity to maximize profits rather than deliver
the highest quality of care to communities and deliver the safest working
standards for nurses and other staff.

To make matters worse, the right-wing, pro-corporate U.S. Supreme Court
handed down a dangerous ruling this week that reverses 40 years of legal
precedent and weakens federal agencies’ ability to issue and enforce
regulations.^4

The conservative-majority Court is putting industry profits before the
health and safety of our communities by overturning their 1984 landmark
Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council decision. This ruling strips
broad regulatory power from critical agencies like the Food and Drug
Administration and Environmental Protection Agency, opening the door for
new lawsuits from Big Pharma to go after Medicare negotiating drug prices
— which we helped win.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that together, we are making
progress in our movement for health care justice across the country. From
achieving nearly 200 Patients Over Profits pledge signers who reject
political donations from the for-profit health industry, to advancing the
fight for single-payer health care through our CalCare bill in California,
and securing a record percentage of Medicare for All support at the
federal level, we are keeping up the fight.

Congressional action is needed to reverse the impacts of the Supreme
Court’s disastrous Chevron decision and pass Medicare for All in order to
fix our deeply broken health care system — that’s where you come in.

[ [link removed] ]Add your name today to build the nationwide, public pressure on our
Congressional leaders to reverse Chevron and support Medicare for All NOW
→

[ [link removed] ]ADD YOUR NAME »

We may have challenges ahead of us, but together, we must come together
and keep up our momentum for health care justice for all. Thank you for
doing this critical work alongside us.

In solidarity,

Nurses’ Campaign to Win Medicare for All

 

Sources:

1.“Health Insurance Coverage Projections For The US Population And Sources
Of Coverage, By Age, 2024–34,” Health Affairs, June 18, 2024.
[ [link removed] ][link removed]

2. “Medicaid Enrollment and Unwinding Tracker,” KFF, June 14, 2024.
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3. “Who pays for rising healthcare prices? Evidence from hospital
mergers,” National Bureau of Economic Research, April 12, 2024.
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4. “NNU condemns Supreme Court’s decision eviscerating role of regulatory
agencies,” National Nurses United, June 28, 2024.
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