Green Seeks Support Amid Salad Greens

Wearing a bright blue mask emblazoned with the words, ​“Medicare for All,” Justin Paglino wandered among shoppers of healthful greens to pitch them on helping a Green candidate run Congress on a universal health care platform.

Paglino is a Green Party candidate seeking to challenge three-decade incumbent U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro for New Haven’s Third Congressional District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

He spent Saturday morning and afternoon at the weekly CitySeed farmers’ market off of Chapel Street near Conte West School in Wooster Square seeking to gather petitions for his bid to make the Nov. 3 general election ballot. Also running for the Third Congressional District seat is Republican candidate Margaret Streicker.

To each person who walked by, Paglino made a variation of this pitch: ​“Hi, I’m Justin. I’m trying to put Medicare for All on the ballot. I’m the only candidate on the ballot supporting that.”

In order to make the ballot, the third-party candidate must first secure 1,896 signatures of registered voters by Aug. 7.

As of Friday, he had more than 900 signatures, he said. Paglino said he aims to collect 20 percent more than the required number because he expects some signatures to be rejected for illegible handwriting or incomplete information.

With him on Saturday afternoon outside the market was attorney Paul Garlinghouse, another Green Party candidate, who is running for a spot as one of the city’s Registrars of Voters.

To secure ballot access in November, Garlinghouse needs to collect 261 signatures from New Haven registered voters. As of Saturday, he is ​“well over half-way” there with more than 150 signatures, he said. (Click here for a previous story on the two candidates’ campaigns.)

The main platform of Paglino’s campaign is his advocacy for Medicare for All: a single-payer, national health insurance program that would provide everyone with comprehensive healthcare coverage, no co-pays or deductibles required.

During a pandemic where millions of newly-unemployed people have lost their employer-provided health insurance (over five million people, according to this report), Paglino said he thinks it is more important than ever to advocate for universal single-payer health insurance.

“It’s absurd that we still have health insurance tied to employment. That is not the way we should be doing it,” said Paglino.

Many of the people who signed Paglino’s ballot petition Saturday morning agreed with him about the importance of providing universal affordable healthcare.

Those who stopped by to talk to him at the farmers’ market included a retired nurse who served for 38 years, a man with chronic health conditions who is strongly in favor of affordable healthcare for all, and a physician.

Dave Axelrod, who signed the ballot petition, showed Paglino his swollen fingers.

At 32 years old, Axelrod has a rare muscle disease and suffers from gout, an inflammatory condition. He spoke to Paglino about how many people are unemployed due to disabilities need Medicare, but cannot access it because only those 65 years old and above are currently covered by the federal health insurance program.

“There are too many people nowadays who go without healthcare because of the high cost of it,” he told the Independent. ​“I, luckily, have health insurance from my employer, but I know people who it will impact. I have a friend who has no health insurance right now. She just started with a new company and there is a 90-day waiting period. She is afraid to go anywhere because if she gets Covid or anything else and she has to go to the hospital — tens of thousands of dollars.”

Paglino criticized incumbent U.S. Rep. DeLauro for not supporting or co-sponsoring the Medicare for All Act of 2019. He said the healthcare insurance bill she introduced in 2019 would not help the government achieve the same cost savings as a single-payer system that centralizes healthcare insurance.

“We need to go to a single-payer healthcare system as soon as we can the way most other modern, industrialized countries already have years ago. Not only do people deserve healthcare but we can afford to give it,” Paglino said. ​“It would be less expensive. We would save up to 15 percent.” He supports using a progressive income tax to pay for the cost of the single-payer healthcare system.

DeLauro in 2019 introduced an alternative bill that would guarantee that Americans’ monthly premiums would never exceed 9.69 percent of their monthly income, and that would enable people to remain on private health insurance plans if they so choose. (Click here for a story about a Medicare For All protest at DeLauro’s office.)

When asked for comment on Medicare for All, DeLauro said over email through her spokesperson ““Healthcare is a fundamental right, and I believe every individual should have high-quality, affordable health coverage. That is why I wrote the Medicare for America Act, which builds on the success of Medicare and Medicaid, and achieves universal health coverage by auto enrolling every child at birth, those who are uninsured, and those who currently purchase their coverage on the individual market, in the new Medicare for America program.”

Efia James, a physician who works in internal medicine and occupational and environmental medicine, showed up at the market and signed Paglino’s petition. ​“I’m healthcare for all. C’mon, it’s a basic human right,” said James.

Lindsay Matthews is one of Paglino’s volunteers. She said she is against privatization of healthcare and believes in the importance of Medicare for All.

Matthews arrived mid-morning to deliver a stack of posters for him that read ​“Wanted! On the ballot.”

“In my own life, I’ve had to fight for healthcare for my handicapped son, for years,” Matthews said, citing the deep-seated flaws of the privatized healthcare system and advocates for state-provided healthcare. She said state healthcare practitioners provide a higher quality of care than private workers do.

“When I heard that he was getting out there [with Medicare for All], I thought, thank God,” Matthews said Paglino. ​“Even if you only get Medicare reduced to 60, that’s going in the right direction. Especially in this area where the clientele is poor.”

Westville resident Janet Brodie spoke to the Independent about how she is in favor of having multiple candidates on the ballot, regardless of whether or not she supports a particular candidate’s campaign. Wearing a rainbow-colored mask, she signed Paglino’s ballot and said, ​“That’s democracy. Anyone who wants to run should run, and on Election Day we can make our choices.”

She also explained how more candidates on the extremes can incentivize the centrist candidates to change their position, regardless of if they get elected. ​“I mean, look at how far Joe Biden has moved to the left,” she said. Political analysts have observed how Vermont Sen. and two-time presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has moved Biden’s presidential promises to include more progressive policies, including lowering the age for Medicare to 60.

“You’re a Democrat?” one man asked Paglino.

“I’m from the Green Party,” Paglino responded.

“Okay good. Republican won’t do,” the man said.

“I Believe I Have A Shot At Winning.”

Paglino said he has spent almost every day since he announced his plans to run for Congress in mid-June canvassing for signatures by walking the streets, standing at public venues like farmers’ markets, and visiting events. At the farmers’ market Saturday, Paglino collected a signature about once every five minutes.

Rain or sunshine, Garlinghouse also said he still will go out. He showed the Independent one of his ballot petition signature sheets that got wet during Friday’s rain. The paper was water-damaged, the ink slightly smudged, but the signatures were still legible.

During a pandemic, when public gatherings are limited and people are afraid for their health, Paglino said it is very difficult to collect the required number of signatures. There have been legal efforts to reduce the number of signatures required to gain ballot access and allow for electronic balloting given the pandemic situation, to mixed results.

Paglino did a quick mental calculation and said he would need to collect 15 signatures an hour and canvas for 10 hours a day for 20 days to get the required number of signatures, if he was working alone.

He said he has a team of 15 to 20 volunteers behind him including his campaign manager, who is also his wife.

He is not a stranger to persisting amid difficult challenges. Working as a researcher for 15 years, he spent five of them working on a virus treatment for cancer that did not end up succeeding; the data he collected did not support his hypothesis. ​“Of course, that’s frustrating. You run into dead ends sometimes,” he said.

His background in science has informed his politics: ​“A science-based approach to problem solving is the best thing,” he said. Anthony Fauci is an idol for Paglino. ​“You don’t get to be in his position by being a bad scientist. He’s an amazing scientist and you don’t get to be an amazing scientist by being dishonest,” Paglino told one person who signed his petition.

He also drew an analogy between racism and virus infection.

“Racism is a social phenomenon that exists in society, not unlike an infectious disease. It can be passed from person to person, it can be passed from generation to generation, and it has public health impacts because it leads to reduced opportunities for people who are victims of racial discrimination, in housing and employment opportunities, in ways that dramatically impact their lives,” he said.

In 2004, Paglino got his start in activism and politics when he became an organizer for Howard Dean’s Democratic presidential primary campaign. Paglino was a critic of the Iraq War; so was Dean.

In the back room of the Playwright Irish Pub in Hamden, and at the tables of Wall Street Pizza in New Haven, he met with other political organizers to discuss how to mobilize the growing ground support for Dean’s presidential campaign.

Dean did not win, but Paglino was deeply impacted by the experience and realized the power of political activism.

This year, as he passed his mid-40s, he began thinking about what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. ​“You only have one life to live, and there are so many problems I would like to take a stab at,” he said.

It quickly became apparent to Paglino that the most effective way he could make change in issues he cared about was by running for office.

“That’s where the real power is, that’s where things really change,” he said. ​“Doing this, I feel confident I’m having an impact. I get to talk to a lot of people about important issues: Medicare for All, rank-choice voting.”

When one woman at the Saturday farmers’ market heard that Paglino moved from doing medical research to entering politics, she said, ​“God bless you.”

Paglino’s main goal for now is to get enough signatures to make the ballot. His next goal would be to secure the 1 percent of votes in the election needed to guarantee the Green Party a spot on the ballot during the next Congressional election.

And he isn’t ruling out winning.

“Do I have a shot at winning? Yes, I believe I do,” he said. ​“And I’d be very happy to go to Washington and stand up for the principles that I believe in.”