A coalition of 10 national organizations sent a letter to Congress Wednesday imploring federal lawmakers to support the Medicare for All Act of 2019 and arguing that universal healthcare is “a racial justice necessity because communities of color, in particular, suffer from a lack of access to affordable health insurance.”
“Medicare for All, the only truly single-payer, universal healthcare system, guarantees that healthcare is a right and enables every person living in the United States to receive the healthcare they need to survive and thrive.”
—letter to Congress
The legislation—introduced earlier this year by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—would establish a national health insurance program administered by the Department of Health and Human Services that would cover the medically necessary services of all U.S. residents.
As the letter (pdf) to lawmakers put it, “Medicare for All, the only truly single-payer, universal healthcare system, guarantees that healthcare is a right and enables every person living in the United States to receive the healthcare they need to survive and thrive.”
The groups behind the letter—A. Philip Randolph Institute, Action Center on Race and the Economy, Black Women’s Health Imperative, the Center for Popular Democracy, Color of Change, League of United Latin American Citizens, the NAACP, People’s Action, Policy Link, and United We Dream—collectively describe themselves as “organizations that represent people of color.”
Noting, as one example, that the country’s rising maternal mortality rate is even higher for black and Indigenous women, the letter charges that “racial bias mars the entirety of American healthcare.”
The letter details some of the ways the country’s current for-profit healthcare system impacts the communities that the groups represent:
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