Sensing Momentum, Ralliers Eye Single-Payer

Over 100 health care activists rallied in New Haven Wednesday evening — because, they said, protest is working.

From 5:30 to 7 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, women and men from across Connecticut gathered outside Yale’s Sterling Hall of Medicine at 333 Cedar St. to speak out against what they described as a congressional attack on women’s health in favor of tax cuts for the rich.

The rally occurred one day after U.S. Senate Republicans announced that they will delay a vote on their proposed health care bill, following an outpouring of political organizing and protests across the country, including in New Haven. In addition to slashing support for women’s health care, the bill would cause tens of millions of low-income people to lose insurance, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

A dozen progressive advocacy organizations put together Wednesday’s rally, including Women’s March Connecticut, NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut, Planned Parenthood Votes! Connecticut, the Connecticut Working Families Party, and CT Latinas in the Resistance. In addition to blasting the Senate bill, many ralliers spoke up for a government-run single-payer health insurance system.

Sarah Croucher of NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut and Gretchen Raffa of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England (PPSNE) acted at the emcees, leading chants of ​“My body, My choice!” and offering spirited attacks on ​“Trumpcare” as they passed the bullhorn between a dozen different speakers.

“We’re here today because our health care is under attack,” Croucher told the crowd. ​“We’re going to show Republicans in the Senate that our health care is not something that can be cut in order make to tax cuts for the rich.”

The proposed Senate health care bill currently includes tax cuts for wealthy investors and high-income families, and repeals penalties for large companies that do not provide health insurance to their employees. (Many conservatives, on the other hand, argue that a Republican Congress must act quickly to ​“repeal Obamacare and replace it with a new set of options that empower Americans, not government.”)

“Your activism, your voice, your hard work is working,” Raffa said with encouragement, referencing Planned Parenthood’s week-long ​“Pink Out” protests outside the Capitol in Washington D.C. ​“Yesterday’s vote delay shows the power of the people and just how powerful your voice is when you speak out. We’ve protected Planned Parenthood patients for one more day, but we can’t let up.”

“This is the worst bill for women in a generation,” she continued. ​“It’s no wonder that there was mass outcry across America in opposition to this bill. It’s no wonder that Senator McConnel is struggling to get the support in the Senate that he needs. Slashing Medicaid and blocking millions of people from getting preventative care at Planned Parenthood, including 33,000 here in Connecticut, is heartless.”

Connecticut State Rep. Liz Linehan, State Sen. Mae Flexer, and State Rep. Sean Scanlon each took a turn at the microphone, supporting legislation like Connecticut Senate Bill 586, which proposes to expand mandated health benefits and contraception benefits for women, while excoriating the Republican U.S. Senate’s bill as a ​“war against families.”

“This bill is a travesty,” Linehan said. ​“It is anti-women. It is anti-family. It is anti-children. And it is spreading across this country like the cancer they don’t want to cover.”

Scanlon, who co-chairs the legislature’s Insurance Committee, implored the audience to speak out for the millions of Americans who would lose coverage if the Senate passes this bill.

“We’re here for people who can’t make it to rallies like this,” he said. ​“We’re here for people who are making decisions about whether they’re going to pay for food to put on the table or to get insurance. That’s not America. That’s not what we believe in as Americans.”

Disability rights activist Mellissa Marshall added another voice of outrage, dismay, and defiance to the line-up. ​“I was born with two pre-existing conditions,” she said from her wheelchair. ​“My disability, and now being a woman. I dream of a world where I don’t lie awake at night thinking about which of my friends will die if this bill passes.”

Single-Payer Solution?

Wednesday afternoon’s rally was not just a venue for local progressives to express their opposition to the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. It was also an opportunity for locals on the left to articulate a vision for a health care system that they would want to see. According to many in attendance, that system would be single-payer, also known as Medicare For All, a single government insurance program for all Americans.

Since the 2016 presidential election, more and more Democrats have been voicing their support for a national health care system that would have the government replace the private insurance industry and provide insurance directly to all taxpayers, regardless of wealth or privilege. Medicare For All was a central component of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. A national single-payer bill sponsored by Michigan congressman John Conyers currently has 113 Democratic co-sponsors in the House of Representatives. The state of California is seriously considering its own single-payer bill.

At the rally on Wednesday, speakers and attendees alike returned again and again to the conviction that health care is a right, not an entitlement.

“I am here because I think that health care is a human right,” said Teresa Sandoval, a cancer researcher at the Yale School of Medicine who lives in Hamden but grew up in Mexico. ​“That has never been understood in the history of this country. Health care here has always been about profit. We need a single-payer system.”

Jamar Farmer, a Middletown Avenue native who belongs to the Party for Socialism and Liberation, agreed. ​“It’s a moral right to have health care,” he said. ​“Everyone should have health care.”

The last speaker of the rally, Connecticut Affiliate President of the American College of Nurses-Midwives (ACM) Polly Moran, left the crowd with a story of her own recent exposure to socialized medicine.

She and her family recently went on a trip to London and soon found themselves at the hospital when her daughter had an asthma attack. After picking up a new inhaler, which costs her family $47 every year in the United States, she was surprised to find out that the device only cost her $12 in England. She recalled, ​“The nurses said to me, ​‘It’s socialized medicine, honey. Enjoy!’”