Issue link: https://nnumagazine.uberflip.com/i/563498
care providers. Both, of course, are fiercely opposed by the insur- ance industry. "There is no human right I know that is more important than to say loudly and clearly, 'Healthcare is a right of all people, not a privilege!'" said Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, to the cheers of the crowd in Washington, D.C. "The time has come to say that we need to expand Medicare to cover every single man, woman, and child as a single-payer national healthcare program." Though Medicare has been such a success, it is constantly under attack from far-right politicians, such as Sen. Paul Ryan. Ryan proposes to turn Medicare into a voucher program where elderly Americans get a "credit" they use to go shop for private insurance. Medicare-for-all supporters at the event in Oakland, Calif. showed what they thought of his plan: They "pied" a Paul Ryan stand-in with a cream pie during a skit they performed. "Do not confuse our multiple private health insurance compa- nies with healthcare," said Martha Kuhl, an RN who cares for chil- dren with cancer and is a leader in the California movement to win single-payer healthcare. "A Medicare-for-all program could provide genuine comprehensive and uniform benefits made possi- ble by pooling all private and public funding into one publicly run insurance plan." She pointed out that this form of funding would be no different than essential services run by the government such as fire and police protection, libraries, and even public roads. Speaker after speaker gave testimonials about how our cur- rent system of private insurance fails patients. Deborah Burger, RN and also a copresident of NNU, spoke in Los Angeles about a recent patient who was denied a $10,000 infusion he desperately needed because he had recently lost his job and thus, his insur- ance. "If you talk to any nurse, they will tell you about what it means to not have access to medical care," said Burger. She emphasized that it was not just the uninsured who suffered, but also "people who have insurance who get raked over the coals." J U LY | A U G U S T 2 0 1 5 W W W . N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G N A T I O N A L N U R S E 27 compared to what non-Medicare patients face. Larry feels awful for me every time I have to fight my health insurer to have care or a treatment approved. "It makes me angry, and it makes me feel a little guilty," he said. But I am so grateful and relieved that he is on Medicare. At least one of us can get care without so much worry, and that's better than it was just a few years ago when I had to cover my whole family through my employer-based health coverage. We actually cried a bit together when his Medicare went into effect. We were so relieved. The current healthcare system is brutal. It does not allow us to show the care for one another that many of us believe is consistent with our broader values as Americans. Protecting, improving, and expanding Medicare would go a long way toward advancing equality in our society. Our society is paying more attention to inequality of late, whether it's racial, economic, or healthcare inequality. They are ulti- mately interrelated. I believe economic inequality is what drives the despair that crosses all racial and cultural divides and also keeps people shuttered in their homes until the most appalling events turn quiet desperation into active rage. Yet in our society, we've become mostly silent participants in our own oppression. We've so ingrained the notion of personal financial responsibility in our market-based system that patients and their families and friends often struggle alone to remedy a medical debt crisis. We see it as the individual's fault if he or she has not worked his or her way out of difficult economic conditions. The thinking goes: Black, brown, or white, if you haven't worked hard enough to lift your- self out, you deserve to struggle for life's basic necessities of healthcare, housing, food, water, transportation, education, and safety. My colleagues and I trying to win Medicare for all think the opposite. We believe healthcare is a human right and that no one should go without care when it necessary, or suffer financial ruin afterwards. For now, I hope we can find more and more ways to band together with likeminded Americans and grow our support to the point where Congress has no choice but to listen to our demand of Medicare for all. If we are to make our society less brutal for future generations, we must be willing to call out brutal conditions on the streets of our cities and in the ER treatment rooms of Denver and wherever else we find it. Now, I've got a $6,250 bill lurking in my mail. I don't have an extra $6,250 just sitting around; most patients don't. My daughter started an online fundraiser to help with some of my recent bills, and I am ever, ever so grateful for the donations, but it isn't enough. And it shouldn't work this way. I cannot even remember a time when I wasn't worried about our medical expenses and coverage. The entire course of our lives has been altered because we had to try to make wise choices about keep- ing ourselves covered. Even with that effort, we still ended up in bankruptcy many years ago due to medical crisis and debt. Being responsible, working people did not save us from the greed of our current healthcare system, but Medicare would have. It's well past time when we should live up to the words of our original Declaration of Independence that celebrate the value of every life as equal. Medicare offers us all that chance to pursue our lives, enjoy our lib- erty, and pursue our vision of happiness equally. Let's plan to make that happen for all. Medicare for all, for life. Donna Smith is executive director of Health Care for All Colorado. (Continued from page 23) WHEN I'M 65 Three things we bet you didn't know about Medicare 1 Medicare instantly desegregated most U.S. hospitals. Under the Civil Rights Act that had been passed earlier, no hospital that wished to receive federal funding could discrimi- nate against African Americans. This meant that hospitals that wanted to collect Medicare reimbursements had to immediately integrate. More than 1,000 hospitals opened their doors to black patients and extended physician privileges to black doctors. 2 Medicare was originally envisioned by President Harry Truman to cover all Americans, regardless of age. This plan was sabotaged by the American Medical Association and politicians opposed to universal coverage, such as Rep. Wilbur Mills. It was actually Mills' idea to add Medicaid to the pack- age, figuring that if the legislation covered the elderly and the most poor, advocates for national health insurance wouldn't be able to organize much sympathy for everybody remaining. That strategy worked for decades, until now. 3 In 1965, President Truman, who was no longer in office, was the first person to receive a Medicare card!