Dear John,

My neighborhood is the site of a groundbreaking project in community medicine: the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic. Founded by Dr. David Smith in 1967, it has provided medical care to tens of thousands of people without charge, spawning an entire sector of free clinics around the country.

Can you join us to champion universal healthcare across our country? The dynasty politician we’re working to remove from Congress is the leading impediment in Congress to Medicare for All.

I met Dr. Smith at a meeting of the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council that we each addressed several years ago. He was there to share the history of his clinics and their latest expansions, and I was promoting a proposed ban on biometric surveillance ultimately adopted by the Board of Supervisors in 2019.

Dr. Smith told me after the meeting that my presentation about government surveillance and the history of COINTELPRO got him thinking about a visit he received from the FBI many years ago.

It’s no surprise to me that the government would take an interest in a provider of free medical care. After all, it was only two years after Dr. Smith founded the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic that the FBI and local authorities in Chicago assassinated 21 year-old Fred Hampton while he slept for the crime of feeding children free breakfast.

Do you want a representative in Congress who understands intersectionality? Having worked over a decade ago to integrate that principle in model local legislation that jurisdictions across the country adopted in part, I’m eager to continue that innovation in Congress—but we need your support to get there.

One thing I admire the most about Dr. Smith is how he saw a need, then took action to fill it. His combination of insight, empathy, and initiative sets an inspiring example for all of us.

Our campaign to end the dynasty of an oligarch aims to emulate Dr. Smith’s initiative, both in form and substance.

We recognize that San Francisco’s voice in the House plays a critical role in enforcing corporate rule in Washington. Like him, we’ve taken the bold—even brazen—step of challenging the party leader for her seat in Congress.

Beyond emulating the boldness of his vision, we're also promoting critical policies to extend his vision of free healthcare, like the Medicare for All proposal favored by bipartisan majorities across the United States. When we establish a single-payer system in Congress, we'll have finally realized the vision that inspired Dr. Smith so many years ago.

Nancy Pelosi mouths support for a policy already in place across the rest of the world, while working in broad daylight to block it from proceeding. We’ve been publicly advocating for it for years—and we won't stop until America joins the rest of the world in recognizing healthcare as a human right.

Many issues demonstrate the corruption of Congress by Wall Street, from militarism and foreign policy to fossil fuel subsidies and permissive rules allowing insider trading.

But few issues demonstrate the corporate corruption of Congress more than the bipartisan insistence on for-profit “healthcare” in the midst of a global pandemic.

Public Citizen has documented that a third of the 1,000,000 Americans who have died from COVID-19 could have survived had the U.S. implemented a universal care model at the outset of the pandemic.

It’s not hard to see why: when medicine, or even diagnosis, costs money out-of-pocket, many people—especially when economically struggling—might feel compelled to abandon the care they need. Failing to ensure that everyone can get care and medicine inevitably threatens public health. But never has our interdependence been more clear than during a global pandemic that continues to claim the lives of Americans—and drive millions more into debt.

There's no reason to accept this madness any longer. It's long past time for America to join the industrialized world by recognizing healthcare as a human right.

Thanks for standing with us—and the future!

Shahid

PS -- Your support makes a particular difference now, as we close in on the end of April. The month of May will be our last complete monthly budget cycle before the primary looming on June 7. Your support before the end of April will enable us to print more campaign literature, expand our advertising program, and reach more voters in these crucial remaining weeks.