Today, I can walk without a limp. My cancer has not yet come back. So, I hope you all can walk with me for Medicare for All, for a world where healthcare is not about making money but about making people well. It took mass movements to win women’s suffrage and civil rights in the last century. Our generation needs to to answer the call for a mass movement to win Medicare for All now.
By Daniel Hilsinger, lead organizer for the March for Our Health. For more information, visit www.marchforourhealth.org
In July of 2016, my life dramatically changed when I was diagnosed with a potentially fatal, rare cancer – a large tumor in my left tibia. This terrifying experience brought me face-to-face with our broken healthcare system.
As a patient, I witnessed people struggling to survive with their diagnosis and treatment who also had to divert significant energy into battling with their health insurance company to pay for the care they needed to survive. A number of the people I met have died. Those who were able to make it through often have a very difficult time moving forward.
Our healthcare industry is designed so that health insurance and pharmaceutical companies make billions in profits at the expense of our health and we see the effects in horrifying math. The US leads the world in health care spending, but its residents are sicker and more likely to die of preventable conditions than those in other wealthy countries. 30 million people in the US are uninsured, and 1 out of every 3 people, over 110 million people, are underinsured, meaning they have insurance, but can’t afford their co-pays or deductibles (which means that they don’t actually receive healthcare).
I have always supported free, universal healthcare. But as a healthy 20 something working person, I did not fight for it. I am now recovering and I owe my life to the fact that I got the healthcare I needed. And I owe my time to those that did not make it.
That’s why I will be on the streets on May 12th for the March for Our Health beginning at Oscar Grant Plaza (also known as Frank Ogawa Plaza) in Oakland at 1pm. We will march to the corporate headquarters of Kaiser Permanente, which opposes California Senate Bill 562, a bill that would establish a statewide single payer health plan covering all California residents.
My father was a doctor at Kaiser for over 40 years, and I strongly support the doctors and nurses and all of the workers at Kaiser who give tremendous care for those in need. But the corporate entity of Kaiser is opposed to SB 562 because they don’t want to lose money.
Kaiser is the single biggest health insurer in California and is the single biggest opponent of SB 562. Kaiser’s state lobbyist, Teresa Stark, testified before the Senate Health Committee in April 2017 and compared the potential loss of income for the $60 billion dollar company if it didn’t sell insurance to “cutting off one of our limbs and saying it’s still Kaiser Permanente”.
My cancer brought me close to an actual amputation. My surgery scar from removing the osteosarcoma from my tibia goes from my thigh to my ankle, and if the surgery wasn’t successful, amputation could have been the next option. I don’t believe anyone who has endured amputation would consider it comparable to Kaiser or any other company not being able to sell insurance anymore.
Today, I can walk without a limp. My cancer has not yet come back. So, I hope you all can walk with me for Medicare for All, for a world where healthcare is not about making money but about making people well. It took mass movements to win women’s suffrage and civil rights in the last century. Our generation needs to to answer the call for a mass movement to win Medicare for All now. I hope you will join me on May 12th and take another step forward for health justice.
March for Our Health has been endorsed by over 60 groups across the Bay Area and California such as Women’s March Bay Area, Healthy California, Health Care for All – California, National Union of Healthcare Workers, UNITE HERE, UPTE-CWA Local 9119, UAW Local 5810, Socialist Alternative, East Bay Democratic Socialists of America, San Francisco Democratic Socialists of America, Physicians for a National Health Plan, Bay Resistance, 350 Bay Area, Courage Campaign, Food and Water Watch, California Alliance for Retired Americans, and over 40 other groups.
