When I waitressed, I had to pay hundreds of dollars per month for the privilege of paying thousands in deductibles each year for insurance that didn’t really cover prescriptions.
It was cheaper and the best option financially to just go uninsured and pray nothing happened.
I remember vividly one day, I decided to walk around and ask everyone I worked with – waiters, bussers, cooks – what insurance they had. Everyone had the same answer: none. It made more sense for us to save up the money we’d otherwise pay on premiums and spend it on actual medicine and care.
That’s one reason why I support Medicare for All.
To this day, I work so my campaign staff is better insured than I am. But as an employer, I hate that their healthcare is tied to employment. When people get debilitating diagnoses, why does our system force us to stress about care ending with employment rather than getting better?
If we had a universal system, the huge sums employers pay for insurance could go into employees’ pockets in other forms (like raises). The answer can’t continue to be subsidizing the Affordable Care Act more and more as premiums go up and up.
The answer is single payer healthcare: Medicare for All.
Having to choose between bankruptcy or your life is a choice that people shouldn't have to face. It's possible to treat everybody more affordably with higher-quality care than they ever could get under our current privatized for-profit system.
Thanks for reading and together let’s transform our healthcare system for working families.
Alexandria
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