Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s (D-WA) released the Medicare for All bill today with full fanfare. It will be a big fight that Americans must win if we are to stop the pilfer from the healthcare industrial complex.
Common Dreams reported the achievement as follows.
In a historic step toward replacing America’s uniquely expensive and deadly for-profit healthcare system with a humane program that would leave no one behind, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) on Wednesday will officially introduce Medicare for All legislation that policy experts and advocates have praised as comprehensive, strong, and “battle-ready.”
“The state of our healthcare system is absolutely atrocious,” Jayapal told reporters on the eve of the bill’s release. “How is it possible that the United States, the richest country in the world, is the only major country that does not guarantee healthcare to our residents?”
“Accept no substitutes—only single-payer, Medicare for All can fix the grave dysfunctions and injustices of the American health care system.”
—Dr. Adam Gaffney, PNHPPeople all over the U.S., she added, “are literally dying because they can’t afford insulin or the cancer treatment they need.”What’s needed, she said, is a “complete transformation of our health care system and we mean a system where there are no private insurance companies” providing essential healthcare services that would be guaranteed to all under her proposal. And what universal care means, she explained, was simple: “Everybody in, nobody out.”
Under Jayapal’s plan, the U.S. would transition to Medicare for All over a two-year period and every American would receive comprehensive coverage, including dental, vision, reproductive health services, mental health, long-term care, and more—all of which would be free at the point of use
to the congresswoman’s office, “The Medicare for All Act of 2019 improves and expands the overwhelmingly successful and popular Medicare so that every person living in the United States has guaranteed access to healthcare with comprehensive benefits.”
You can read the two-page summary of the bill here. The ten-page section-by-section overview is here.
To get a full explanation of the bill, the article “Medicare-for-all: Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s new bill, explained” by Sarah Kliff at Vox.