Why Don’t We Treat Health Care as a Human Right?

Why Don’t We Treat Health Care as a Human Right?

Why Don’t We Treat Health Care as a Human Right?

Isn’t it time we started providing quality care to all Americans?

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Why don’t we treat health care as a human right? In 1965 we created Medicare and Medicaid to ensure health care for the elderly and the poor. Today, the government provides health care for over 100 million Americans—that’s 38 percent of the country!

But these programs aren’t good for health insurance and drug companies’ profits. So they’ve fought against expanding public health care tooth and nail, leaving 41 million underinsured, and 27 million Americans without any insurance at all.

It gets worse: People without health insurance are 40 percent more likely to die than those who are covered, and health-care costs remain the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States.

But now, we have a plan.

Medicare for All would expand public health care to all Americans. By taking the price-setting out of the hands of insurance companies, we can drastically reduce administrative overhead, and cut down on the cost of prescription drugs and hospital stays.

For you that means no more co-pays, no more deductibles, no more out-of-network fees.

Whatever these savings don’t cover we could pay for by taxing capital gains fairly and closing other loopholes used by the ultra-rich.

Isn’t it time we start providing quality care to all Americans? Together we can make health care a human right.

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We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

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Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

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