PHOTO/ILSINGLEPAYER YOUTUBE
CHICAGO—On June 8, doctors, nurses, medical students, patients and others gathered here where the American Medical Association was holding its annual meeting. The AMA, which only represents about 20% of doctors, is opposed to Medicare for All, and the activists rallied to demand that the AMA support Medicare for All. Below are comments from some of the marchers, excerpted from a video of the march.
A nurse – Being a nurse and seeing patients denied healthcare, denied medicines because they can’t afford it, working all their lives, losing their retirement to medical costs—it’s not acceptable. We need Medicare for all. The AMA needs to quit taking their money from the pharmaceuticals and from the insurance industry and they need to back and take care of their patients.
Dr. Peter Orris – The AMA still defends and protects the private health insurance industry and I have no idea why. It’s time for them to give up on this private-profit medicine and treat it as the social service it ought to be.
Glenda Monet – My daughter was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 32 and has been through holy hell with the insurance companies to get the care that she has needed. She lost her breast. She had a horrible time getting it reconstructed and it was all because of insurance companies being despicable to a young woman who had a great school age child to raise.
Jennifer Epps-Addison – My husband was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis three years ago, and through his illness, my family has seen that this current healthcare system not only does not work for no income and low income people, it doesn’t work for middle class families who are struggling to get by either, and we have to fight with the insurance companies that we pay so very well just to get them to cover what we need.
A doctor – We live in a world of abundance, not want or scarcity. We make abundant resources scarce through privatization by making it so only the wealthy few have access.
A doctor – I am here because I’m Native American and I grew up all my life knowing that the Indian Health Service is where you go to die. And this is unacceptable.
Rex Tai, medical student– The current corporatized, profit-above-all health system is causing great harm to patients and healthcare workers alike, while lobbyists and executives get rich off of our suffering.
