[ [link removed] ]Democratic Socialists for Medicare for All

Dear John,

Enjoy this month’s issue of All In, the DSA Medicare for All newsletter.
Read on for more on how Medicare for All helps increase union power, why
the watered-down “public option plan” isn’t enough, and DSA local action!

In solidarity,

Dustin Guastella
DSA Medicare for All Campaign Committee

 

[1]BANNER: All In: The DSA M4A Newsletter

 

September saw one of the largest auto-worker strikes in decades! Tens of
thousands of workers took the picket lines with a range of demands,
including one that is especially near and dear to our hearts: better
healthcare.

Nearly 50,000 members of the United Auto Workers walked out of General
Motors plants across the country on Sept. 15 with demands that included
fair wages, job security and an increased share of the profits. [ [link removed] ]In a
press release that announced the strike, though, healthcare was front and
center: “Among GM failures, affordable healthcare for thousands remains
unsettled for no good reason.”

GM retaliated by cutting off healthcare coverage for the striking workers
two days after the union announced the strike, and that’s when one of the
world’s top automakers made an amazing case for why we all need to join
the fight for single-payer healthcare. “It took less than a full day for
GM to cut off healthcare and begin using it as leverage to try to force
the UAW to agree to a contract that still doesn’t give back to workers for
the sacrifices they made when the auto industry was going ass up. It’s not
ass up anymore; GM pulled in $12 billion in pre-tax profits last year,”
[ [link removed] ]wrote Paul Blest for Splinter. “Under a single-payer system, in which
your healthcare is dependent on the fact that you exist in the United
States rather than who you work for... there would be no employer
healthcare for GM — or any other company — to cut off.”

Medicare for All coalition members and DSA chapters across the nation —
from [ [link removed] ]San Francisco to [ [link removed] ]Portland to [ [link removed] ]Philly — held solidarity
strikes for their brothers and sisters on the picket line. The backlash
from DSA, other M4A coalition organizations, other unions and even the
general public was fiery and significant, and GM said it would resume
paying for health insurance for striking hourly workers less than two
weeks after the strike began. This is the power of collective action!

It also emphasizes why we’re fighting this fight: your well-being should
not be dependent on the whims of your employer, and healthcare should
never become a weapon for employers to wield to control workers. Medicare
for All means no premiums, no deductibles, no co-pays, no out-of-pocket
max, and it also means more power for working people, who would no longer
worry about pleasing their boss in exchange for the ability to live a
healthy, dignified life.

The company had not come to an agreement with the union at the time of
writing, and the strike is now the longest nationwide strike by GM's
workers in nearly 50 years. By some estimates, GM could stand to lose
[ [link removed] ]as much as $100 million a day during the strike.

One more piece of news: this newsletter is celebrating its first birthday!
This newsletter is written each month by the DSA M4A campaign’s dedicated
group of volunteers, and we thank you for reading! We do our best to
capture the month’s latest M4A news and showcase the incredible work of
our comrades across the country, but please always feel free to send us
news, tips and pitches at [email protected].

If you have friends, family members or colleagues who are interested in
keeping up with the campaign, [ [link removed] ]tell them to sign up here to receive All
In straight to their inbox. Thanks for reading!

From the campaign

News from the M4A blog and the broader campaign

The GM strike attracted many 2020 presidential nominee hopefuls, [ [link removed] ]but
only Sen. Bernie Sanders made a compelling, uncompromising case for why we
need nothing short of Medicare for All. “Here you have the situation where
the UAW is now on strike, 49,000 workers. I’m sure that in that 49,000,
there are family members who are seriously ill,” said Sanders. “Under
Medicare for All, whether you're working, whether you’re not working,
whether you go from one job to another job, it's right there with you.”
Meanwhile, other candidates, such as former Vice President Joe Biden,
stuck to the Democratic Party line, saying his public option plan would
allow workers to “keep your health insurance you’ve bargained for if you
like it.” We know the “public option” is inferior to a true Medicare for
All plan, and would only serve to exacerbate inequalities in our
healthcare system. Bernie Sanders is the only candidate we can trust to
enact Medicare for All.

News

Related news articles, essays, articles from outlets beyond the campaign

No one is immune to health scares, not even Bernie Sanders himself.
[ [link removed] ]Sanders took a short break from campaigning to have a relatively
common heart procedure in which two stents are inserted into an artery.
Campaign officials say he will be back on the campaign trail shortly and
plans to attend the next Democratic debate. Just hours after the procedure
Wednesday, Sanders tweeted, “None of us know when a medical emergency
might affect us. And no one should fear going bankrupt if it occurs.
Medicare for All!” Get well soon, Bernie! We’ll keep fighting for you.

Bonus: Virgil Texas of Chapo Trap House spoke with Bernie about Medicare
for All, class warfare, and how the Sanders campaign is building a
cross-class mass movement. [ [link removed] ]Watch the interview on YouTube.

Dental care is a crucial part of Medicare for All, [ [link removed] ]writes Dorothy
Higgonbotham for Jacobin. Higginbotham has been a practicing dental
hygienist in Alaska for more than 30 years, and says she regularly sees
patients who come to the dentist in severe pain and only as a last resort.
An estimated 74 million people in the United States have no dental
benefits, and these people are “more likely to have extractions instead of
restorative care or treatment for gum disease. They are also 67 percent
more likely to have heart disease, 50 percent more likely to have
osteoporosis, and 29 percent more likely to have diabetes.” Good oral
health is an important part of a person’s overall health, and only Bernie
Sanders is fighting to make sure Medicare for All means dental care for
all, too.

The current Medicare program works because it’s a public program, and
that’s why we must push back against the Trump Administration’s broader
misinformation campaign about Medicare for All. [ [link removed] ]Trump issued an
executive order last week championing Medicare Advantage, which is
provided by private insurers and currently covers 22 million people. The
plan was (hilariously) called “Protecting Medicare From Socialist
Destruction” but later renamed to “Protecting and Improving Medicare for
Our Nation’s Seniors.” Not surprisingly, Trump relied on scare tactics and
xenophobia in his speech announcing the order, which was sparse on policy
specifics. As Medicare for All advocates, we know Medicare isn’t under
threat; private insurers are.

Chapter spotlight

A look at what locals are doing around the country

Portland DSA isn’t backing down in their fight to flip Sen. Ron Wyden on
Medicare for All. Wyden spoke in September at an event for the private
insurance industry, and [ [link removed] ]Portland chapter members made their thoughts
on his decision to do so loud and clear.

Louisville DSA knows that [ [link removed] ]Bernie is the only true Medicare for All
candidate!

East Bay DSA says [ [link removed] ]#BeBoldEndHyde.

Social media

The best stuff from our feeds

👀 [ [link removed] ]Not our tweet but... The Onion, we see you

✔️ [ [link removed] ]So simple

💖 [ [link removed] ]Leslie, we love you

‎1️⃣ [ [link removed] ]There is only one right answer

🎂 [ [link removed] ]Did we mention it’s our birthday? Happy birthday to us!


 
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