Sign the Medicare For All Pledge
New Jersey residents face an ongoing crisis of affordability regarding the cost of their healthcare. Our system of for-profit health insurance, offered via employers or through the New Jersey marketplace, has failed to address these steadily rising costs:
- 2019 Census Data suggests that Passaic, Essex, Union and Hudson counties, all in North New Jersey, have experienced the highest uninsured rates in the entire state (avg. 13.1%).
- Our employer health insurance failed to protect an estimated 124,000 New Jersey residents who lost their jobs during the 2020 COVID quarantine.
- In 2022, health insurance premiums rose by an average 8%. 43% of state residents reported delaying or skipping medical treatment, and at least 20% rationed their prescription drugs.
This system of for-profit healthcare is brutal and inhuman, and preys on our state's sickest residents. We must enact Medicare for All to achieve health coverage that is truly universal for all of New Jersey!
Currently, the Medicare for All Act of 2021 (HR 1976) has 121 cosponsors in the US House of Representatives: a record for single payer legislation! This includes 4 of 11 of New Jersey's House Reps (Payne, Watson-Coleman, Pallone, Norcross).
Unfortunately, we aren't where we need to be regarding health care reform. The comparatively modest prescription drug price negotiation powers and Medicare expansions included in the Build Back Better Act have stalled along with that legislation.
So, how do we get to Medicare for All? It begins with YOU! We must let our all of our elected officials know how seriously our friends, families, coworkers and communities need Medicare for All, with so many lives on the line. We must let them know that they will not be getting our vote, at any level of government, if they can't endorse and champion this policy.
Please sign North New Jersey DSA's Medicare for All Pledge! Let our politicians know that our communities and workplaces are organizing around healthcare as a human right. That there isn't a political future that doesn't include transformative health justice for New Jersey, which only Medicare for All is capable of delivering!!!
