DETROIT, MI — Pauperization is an act of depriving someone of food or money or rights.
As human beings, we have always struggled to change the conditions under which we live. The result has always been the development of new more efficient means of production and new social relations of production to take advantage of those new means of production.
Electronic and robotic production is already here. It is the new means of production.
A recent article entitled “The American Dream is fading everywhere, but almost nowhere faster than Michigan”, published by the Bridge Magazine, describes the changes that electronics and robotics have brought to the lives of one Michigan family.
The article states, “In 1977, Bryan Kaminski walked out of high school and into an Ypsilanti factory. By 19, the General Motors employee, making what amounted to $26 an hour in today’s dollars, had enough money to buy a house.
In 2012, son Kyle Kaminski walked out of high school and onto the campus of Central Michigan University. Five years later, armed with a bachelor’s degree, he earns $16 an hour as a reporter, the equivalent of 60 percent of what his father made straight out of high school. He rents a small Traverse City apartment he can only afford because his girlfriend splits the rent. He drives a 12-year-old car with 185,000 miles on it that he doesn’t know how he’ll ever be able to afford to replace.”
This father and son are not alone. This is where we all are today. This is the struggle for a new social relationship to take advantage of electronic and robotic production to benefit everyone.
Less than a week later another article entitled “Opinion: Pelosi’s ‘Medicare for All’ Problem”, published by Roll Call, describes Nancy Pelosi’s opposition to HR676 – The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act.
The article says, “The documents help explain why and how Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi is trying to squash her own party’s desire to fight for a health care system in which the government is the single payer for necessary medical expenses and the health insurance industry is all but eliminated as a middle man.”
There is plenty of healthcare access to be had. The problem is that if you cannot afford that access then you don’t get it.
The leadership of both the Democratic and Republican parties in Congress favor depriving us of access to healthcare.
HR 676 is the beginning of access to healthcare for everyone.
We stand with U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr. and the 112 cosponsors of HR 676 against the “pauperization” of access to healthcare. Please stand with us.
Please tell your congressional representatives and senators that you want them to support HR 676 Medicare For All and run on this issue in 2018.
Our fight is to change how we gain access to healthcare in this new productive environment. Healthcare access is a right not a reward.
