Local view: Health care is a right for all.
When elderly people have to choose between food and their medications, we do not honor their longevity.
When children cannot get yearly checkups, or they have chronic health problems, we do not consider the impact it has on their hopes and dreams.
When the care for mentally ill people is the 33rd Street jail, we should be ashamed.
Millions of people in this “great” country suffer in silence, while we listen to the chaos from Washington, D.C., and Tallahassee, and nothing changes.
In 1993, after a two-year study on health care in America, the League of Women Voters of the United States reached consensus and announced its position on health care. As a nonpartisan, issuebased, political organization, we lobbied our legislators on the national, state and local levels to promote equitable health-care policies.
The League of Women Voters believes that a basic level of quality health care at an affordable cost should be available to all U.S. residents. The policy goals of health care should include the equitable distribution of services, efficient and economical delivery of care, advancement of research and technology, and a reasonable total national expenditure level for health care.
Twenty-four years after this position was adopted, quality, affordable health care is not a reality for all U.S. residents. There was a glimmer of hope for health-care reform when the Affordable Care Act was voted into law in 2010, but now instead of improving the law, some legislators want to dismantle it.
The Congressional Budget Office recently released its analysis of the Senate health-care bill. The CBO analysis estimates that 22 million people would lose insurance over the next decade. As many as 15 million more people would not have health insurance next year. Federal money for Medicaid and financial assistance for the working poor would be dramatically reduced. Medicaid expansion, which Florida declined, would also be dramatically cut.
The League’s position requires that we speak with one voice, and our voice will speak loudly and clearly against this bill. The League’s position requires us to advocate for quality health insurance for all. This is an issue that requires action. History will judge the United States as a great country only if we strive for equality for all as written in the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Health care is not an “entitlement”; it is a “right.”
History will judge the United States as a great country only if we strive for equality for all.