| Dear Katy, Last night, our activism brought Republicans' seven-year push to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to a screeching halt.1 Despite Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan failed miserably at keeping their party together to move their cruel and heartless Trumpcare bill forward. Our resistance to Trumpcare stopped it three times, but the debate over health care will never really be over. Now is the time for Democrats to go on offense and fight back. To make health care truly accessible for every American, Democrats cannot just resist Republican attacks on health care and protect the ACA. They must unite behind a bold and clear alternative like Medicare for All, also known as "single-payer" health care.2 Progressive champions Sens. Bernie Sanders, Jeff Merkley and Elizabeth Warren and Rep. John Conyers are calling on congressional Democrats to support a national single-payer health care system.3 If we want to defeat Republicans' cruel agenda once and for all and expand the modest reforms of the ACA, we must add our voices to their call now. Add your name to demand that all Democrats who run for national office stand with the progressive base of their party and publicly support Medicare for All. Tell all Democrats running for national office: Support Medicare for All. Click here to sign the petition. We unleashed a massive storm of progressive grassroots activism on key members of Congress to protect our health care, and it made a huge difference. Together, we showed up for protests at senators' offices, saturated social media with videos that generated tens of millions of views, deployed anti-Trumpcare billboards in five key states, and flooded the phone lines and inboxes of members of Congress with more than 70,000 calls and 650,000 petition signatures opposing Trumpcare. Sen. Warren publicly thanked CREDO members for their relentless activism, and Sen. Merkley said that CREDO was "instrumental in saving our health care."4,5 Now we must use the same grassroots power to make our goal of health care for all a reality. It is important to be clear: The problems with health care in America are not because of the ACA. American health care costs so much and heals so little in part because predatory insurance companies and Big Pharma stand between people and their doctors and use monopoly power to rob us blind. The ACA made modest but still life-changing reforms that we should defend against Republican attacks. Millions of people have already been helped – people with pre-existing conditions, young adults who get to stay on their parents' plan, beneficiaries of the Medicaid expansion and those who would have faced lifetime caps on coverage. Now we need to expand the ACA's reforms. Medicare for All would leave the medical system in place, but replace the for-profit insurance companies that drive up costs without making us any healthier. So it's no wonder that more than half of Americans support Medicare for All.6 Earlier this year, Rep. Conyers introduced a Medicare for All bill in the House, and for the first time ever, the majority of House Democrats are backing the bill.7 Sen. Sanders is planning to introduce a Senate version soon. Overwhelming support for Medicare for All among members of the Democratic party is moving some of the most prominent leaders toward embracing it. Just recently, former President Jimmy Carter and former Vice President Al Gore came out in support of a single-payer national health insurance plan.8,9 Even Sen. Chuck Schumer is now indicating that "single payer" needs to be "on the table" for the agenda of the Democratic Party.10 Progressive superstars Sens. Sanders and Warren have already been barnstorming in their home states and across the country urging Democrats to embrace single-payer.11 Progressives know that we could solve today's health care crisis by expanding a program that is already up and running – and working. It is time for the rest of the Democratic party to get on board. Tell all Democrats running for national office: Support Medicare for All. Click here to sign the petition. Medicare already covers 40 million Americans over the age of 65, providing quality care at prices that are much lower than the private market. If we start by lowering the Medicare eligibility age, it will provide competition to bloated predatory insurance companies and bring us closer to the day when people are covered from birth. During his campaign, Trump promised to provide "insurance for everybody." But that was just another lie. Medicare and Medicaid are our nation's most-effective and efficient health care programs, but right-wing Republicans have long had their sights set on dismantling our social safety net. Now, Trump is helping them do it. Their ultimate goal has been to end Medicare as we know it and cause skyrocketing premiums and loss of coverage for nearly 57 million of us. We cannot fight back with half-hearted, corporate solutions. Democrats who run on Medicare for All are the only ones who can make universal coverage a reality. Help us ramp-up the pressure on all Democrats to make sure they put the full weight of their caucus behind Medicare for All. Tell all Democrats running for national office: Support Medicare for All. Click on the link below to sign the petition. https://act.credoaction.com/sign/dems_medicare_2017?t=8&akid=24272%2E12967895%2EVDDNXu Thank you for speaking out, Nicole Regalado, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets Add your name: References: - Amanda Michelle Gomez, "Republicans defect, kill Senate effort to repeal Obamacare," ThinkProgress, July 27, 2017.
- Jake Johnson, "Following Death of Trumpcare, 'Now It's Time for Medicare for All','" Common Dreams, July 28, 2017.
- Clare Foran, "Why So Many Democrats Are Embracing Single-Payer Health Care," The Atlantic, July 18, 2017.
- CREDO Mobile, "Video," May 31, 2017.
- Sen. Jeff Merkley, "Tweet," July 28, 2017.
- Richard Eskow, "Medicare For All Is Coming, No Matter What They Say," HuffPost, July 12, 2017.
- Foran, "Why So Many Democrats Are Embracing Single-Payer Health Care."
- John Nichols, "Jimmy Carter Calls for Single Payer," The Nation, July 27, 2017.
- Mollie Reilly, "Chuck Schumer Says Senate Democrats Are Open to Single-Payer Health Care," HuffPost, July 23, 2017.
- Graham Vyse, "How to Sell "Medicare for All" to All Americans," New Republic, July 10, 2017.
- Foran, "Why So Many Democrats Are Embracing Single-Payer Health Care."
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