Health care coverage is a humanitarian right- Medicare4All

Medicare for All: "Everyone deserves healthcare—pandemic or not—and Medicare for All can get us there... We need Congress to put people before profits and support Medicare for All."

Report echo published in Common Dreams

'Everyone In, Nobody Out': Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) and Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Michigan) introduce Medicare for All Act, with112 Co-Sponsors.

"A system that prioritizes profits over patients and ties coverage to employment was no match for a global pandemic and will never meet the needs of our people."

Medicare4All would have prevented hundreds of of COVID deaths:

"We need to be prepared for the next pandemic, and we can't be under the current for-profit system."

Affirming that healthcare is a basic human right and that people must come before profits, Reps. Pramila Jayapal and Debbie Dingell introduced the Medicare for All Act of 2021, on Wednesday, exactly one year after the first coronavirus cases were confirmed in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Dingell (D-Mich.) unveiled the landmark legislation at a virtual town hall Wednesday afternoon, where they highlighted the devastating effects of a virus that has killed more than 537,000 people in the United States while leaving millions more uninsured due to pandemic-related job loss and underemployment.

The bill (pdf)—backed by a record 112 House co-sponsors—guarantees healthcare to every U.S. resident as a human right. It provides comprehensive benefits including primary care, vision, dental, prescription drugs, mental health, long-term services and supports, reproductive healthcare, and other services. It eliminates copays and private insurance premiums.

In a statement introducing the bill, Jayapal noted that the country is currently experiencing the highest increase in uninsured people ever recorded.

"While this devastating pandemic is shining a bright light on our broken, for-profit healthcare system, we were already leaving nearly half of all adults under the age of 65 uninsured or underinsured before Covid-19 hit," said Jayapal. "And we were cruelly doing so while paying more per capita for healthcare than any other country in the world."

On Tuesday, the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen published a report showing that around 40% of U.S. Covid-19 infections and 33% of virus deaths are attributable to a lack of adequate health insurance coverage. At the onset of the pandemic, around 87 million Americans were uninsured or underinsured.

"There is a solution to this health crisis—a popular one that guarantees healthcare to every person as a human right and finally puts people over profits and care over corporations," said Jayapal. "That solution is Medicare for All—everyone in, nobody out—and I am proud to introduce it today alongside a powerful movement across America."

In a statement introducing the bill, Jayapal noted that the country is currently experiencing the highest increase in uninsured people ever recorded.

Dingell said in a statement that "a system that prioritizes profits over patients and ties coverage to employment was no match for a global pandemic and will never meet the needs of our people."

"In the wealthiest nation on Earth, patients should not be launching GoFundMe pages to afford lifesaving healthcare for themselves or their loved ones," she asserted. "Medicare For All will build an inclusive healthcare system that won't just open the door to care for millions of our neighbors, but do it more efficiently and effectively than the one we have today."

"Now is not the time to shy away from these generational fights," stressed Dingell, "it is the time for action."

Representatives of the more than 300 local, state, and national organizations endorsing the bill agreed.

"While this devastating pandemic is shining a bright light on our broken, for-profit healthcare system, we were already leaving nearly half of all adults under the age of 65 uninsured or underinsured before Covid-19 hit," said Jayapal. "And we were cruelly doing so while paying more per capita for healthcare than any other country in the world."

On Tuesday, the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen published a report showing that around 40% of U.S. Covid-19 infections and 33% of virus deaths are attributable to a lack of adequate health insurance coverage. At the onset of the pandemic, around 87 million Americans were uninsured or underinsured.

"There is a solution to this health crisis—a popular one that guarantees healthcare to every person as a human right and finally puts people over profits and care over corporations," said Jayapal. "That solution is Medicare for All—everyone in, nobody out—and I am proud to introduce it today alongside a powerful movement across America."

"Physicians cannot give patients the care they need in a fractured and profit-driven system," said Dr. Susan Rogers, a Chicago-based internal medicine physician and president of Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP), in a statement. "For too long, doctors have watched helplessly as our patients delayed or skipped needed care—even walked out of our hospital doors—because they could not afford to pay."

"We can't let Congress sit on their hands while our patients suffer and die needlessly," added Rogers. "It's time to invest in a system that is designed to improve health outcomes, not profit margins. It's time for single-payer Medicare for All."