Successful campaigns will feature faces of the vulnerable with whom we can identify, bold and passionate action, and a movement-building strategy of nonviolent direct action campaigning.
What the Parkland teens can teach Medicare for All campaigners
A man passes out in church. An ambulance is immediately summoned, and he’s taken to the nearest emergency room where he is treated and discharged. But the real stinger in this story is the $1,633 bill he receives for the seven-mile ride to the hospital.
All this really happened.
The TriHampton Rescue Squad said the man owed the money because that ambulance company was not part of his insurance network.
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The only trouble is, most of us, when unconscious, don’t look over our health insurance contracts to find out which ambulance service to call.
This is only one way that Americans are terribly vulnerable under an arbitrary and capricious health care delivery system.
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The system that’s supposed to protect us leaves us vulnerable, but few people get mad at systems.
Making our vulnerability real
Vulnerability is also our condition in relation to gun violence.
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What the teenage survivors of the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas School shooting in Parkland, Florida, did was to become the faces and voices of the vulnerable. Their direct action (die-ins, marches, school walk-outs) inspired urban teenagers to take a public stand against the gun violence they face in their neighborhoods.
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The vulnerable are everywhere in our health care system
As bad as gun violence is in the United States, the chance of your life being seriously impaired by the U.S. health care “delivery” system is even greater than you getting gunned down.
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The system leaves us highly vulnerable, but — to say it again — few people get mad at systems. As the Florida and inner city teenagers know, what arouses people’s energy is faces, voices, passion. What channels that energy effectively is nonviolent direct action campaigns.
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