Meet Sylvia Moore, our newest unsung hero of healthcare reform! This project of HEAL California, highlights the hard work and dedication of individuals who are working – often in the background – to win Medicare-for-All in California and the nation.
Sylvia Moore’s awareness of the single-payer movement began when an insurance company rejected her because of pre-existing conditions.
Before that, Moore had worked six years in the Central Valley as a journalist. Though she enjoyed her job, she missed Los Angeles. She quit and moved back home. With her work experience and a glittering academic background that included a law degree from UCLA and a journalism master’s from USC, she was optimistic that she could find a job quickly. Unfortunately, it was the beginning of the Great Recession.
“It became a nightmarish odyssey of unemployment and underemployment, and of course, I didn’t have any healthcare,” she said. “I thought at the time I would be able to get a private plan. How naive I was.”
Now a board member of California OneCare, a Medicare for All advocacy group, Moore said her experience trying to get healthcare launched her activism.
In 2005, after returning home and finding that a full-time job was going to take longer than she anticipated, she applied to a health insurance company to buy an individual policy. She completed the paperwork and included previous ailments. She assumed the process would be quick and relieve the stress of having no coverage. She was wrong.
“I found out I was rejected and didn’t understand what was going on. I was told I had too many pre-existing conditions. I had no idea what this was about. It was a shock.”
Fortunate to have had insurance as a child in a middle-class family and later through employment, her knowledge of the problems with health care was limited both by her own circumstances and the journalism profession’s aversion to taking sides on issues.
Later, Moore was able find a nonprofit clinic South Los Angeles that helped uninsured and underinsured clients. But the unforeseen stretch of unemployment and pre-existing condition rejection drove her to research and then join the single-payer movement.
“I Google searched and found California OneCare, because I wanted to get active,” said the now-47-year-old, who works at a nonprofit and has insurance. “I learned more about what countries like Canada and in Europe were doing. My understanding and my support for this issue deepened even further.”
In a California OneCare blog post, Moore wrote about the historical implications for the belief that people should have a job to gain access to healthcare or to work for benefits.
“Having to “earn” health care – rather than it being a right conferred to people by virtue of being born and/or living in America – is a principle embedded in racist culture. I believe it is the principle by which the U.S. stubbornly clings to the inefficient and unfair system of employer-provided private health coverage. One must “work” to have access to high quality health coverage, preferably at a good-paying, middle class job. If you are unfortunate enough to only land low-wage work, because of lack of education or a bad economy, and your employer doesn’t provide health coverage, you were left with nothing at all before the Affordable Care Act passed, or with lower-tier Medicaid after the law passed.”
As for the future, Moore is frustrated but hopeful.
“I have mixed feelings with [Affordable Care Act]. It helped me. It also slowed the single payer movement among Democrats. But I also think it helped the single payer movement. I think now people are starting to realize healthcare should be a right, while as before the ACA, it wasn’t the case.
People are becoming aware that they should have access to healthcare despite their economic situation, she said. In order to continue that, advocates need to stay involved on the ground level.
“We need to move forward with more education, one-on-one, and getting people to see that single payer isn’t scary. It would be better in the long run, more affordable, and save money. I’m an activist and change takes a long time, sometimes years, even decades. You have to have hope.”
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HEAL California is an independent news and information hub focused on the California Medicare for All movement. We feature non-partisan news, views, podcasts and videos that highlight the continuing failures of our broken healthcare system and elevate the voices of advocates and organizations fighting for change.
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