Today is the 55th anniversary of Medicare being signed into law. Today the program provides health care to 97% of American adults age 65 and older.
While Medicare is lauded and almost universally used by Americans 65 and older today, it took years of grassroots organizing and activism to win this reform. Medicare was fought for in tandem with the civil rights movement by groups like the NAACP, as part of the fight to desegregate hospitals in the South. The fight for comprehensive health care reform must be about justice for all.
The challenges of this year have made the case for Medicare for All stronger than ever before. We must take this opportunity to have conversations with our friends and family about how we can change, improve, and fight together for a health care system that guarantees health care to everyone free at the point of service.
On this anniversary, we want to introduce a new tool to help grow our Medicare for All movement. Check out our new Medicare for All Chat Bot, an interactive tool you can use to practice having conversations about Medicare for All in the era of COVID-19.
Medicare was always intended as a starting point — and we are continuing the fight. Our movement for Medicare for All is demanding the basic right to health care no matter a person's race, gender, ethnicity, income, prior health condition, employment status, or immigration status. It’s about finally putting people and their health above profit.
During this pandemic, an estimated 27 million people have lost their employer-sponsored health insurance and joined the 29 million who were already uninsured. In the same moment, COVID-19’s disproportionate impact on people of color has re-ignited conversations about racial disparities in our current profit-driven health care system, while Black and Latinx people die of COVID-19 at exponentially higher rates.
We can’t wait for change. We must have the conversations necessary to mobilize the vast public support for Medicare for All into a movement too big and powerful for our leaders to ignore.
That starts with every one of us having those conversations with our friends and family.
As we celebrate this monumental anniversary of Medicare, check out our new conversation tool so we can continue to grow this movement and fight for Medicare for ALL.
See you this week,
Jasmine Ruddy
Organizer
Nurses’ Campaign for Medicare for All
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