Before the pandemic, 33 million Americans were uninsured. Since the pandemic, over a quarter of US households have experienced unemployment, causing millions more to lose their insurance during the worst health crisis in modern history. COVID-19 has proven our healthcare system is unsustainable and perpetuates chronic healthcare disparities. Minority communities have been hardest hit and have experienced the highest COVID-19 death rate and unemployment. Healthcare in America is intractably linked to employment, which the pandemic has demonstrated as insufficient. In this session of Socialist Night School, co-hosted by the M4A working group, we will discuss the inadequacies of our health care system, how the pandemic has exacerbated it, and how to organize to fight for a single-payer system. We are proud to host a distinguished speaker panel of healthcare policy experts and organizers in the DMV area.
Speakers:
Amirah Sequeira is the Lead Legislative Advocate for National Nurses United, the largest union of Registered Nurses in the United States. She leads federal legislative advocacy work for the union on Capitol Hill, working to win Medicare for All, workplace protections for registered nurses, and other health, environmental and economic policy priorities that would benefit nurses, patients and working people.
Melinda St. Louis is the Director of Public Citizen’s Medicare for All Campaign. For the past 20 years, Melinda has led multiple campaigns that challenge corporate power and promote economic justice and human rights, including fighting Big Pharma greed in global trade agreements.
Mark Dudzic is the National Coordinator of the Labor Campaign for Single Payer based in Washington, DC and has been a labor activist for over 40 years. In 1979 he joined Rahway, NJ Local 149 of the Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers (now part of the United Steelworkers) after helping to organize his precious metals refinery.
The Labor Campaign for Single Payer was founded in 2009 just prior to the inauguration of President Obama. Its mission is to ensure that the voice of the grassroots labor movement is heard in the debates over the future of healthcare and to advocate for a single-payer, Medicare-for-All healthcare system. The Labor Campaign played a crucial role in the unanimous passage of a resolution endorsing a single-payer 'social insurance model' long term solution to the healthcare crisis at the AFL-CIO's 2009 Convention and works to promote national single-payer legislation and labor-supported state universal healthcare initiatives. Their affiliates include 15 national unions and hundreds of local and regional labor organizations in the fight to make healthcare a right for everyone in America.
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You MUST RSVP at the link below to get Zoom info:
https://actionnetwork.org/events/the-healthcare-fallout-socialist-night-school/
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This event is open to both DSA Members and non-members.
Not a Member? Please consider becoming a Member. Fees are on a sliding scale according to what you feel you can afford: http://dsausa.org/join?source=Metro%20DC
