Letter to Senator Duckworth calling for Medicare for All During COVID 19

Apr. 15, 2020

Senator Tammy Duckworth
Office of Senator Duckworth
230 S Dearborn St., Suite 3900
Chicago, IL 60604

Dear Senator Duckworth:

The coronavirus pandemic has made the total inadequacy of our current health care system crystal clear and proved the necessity of adopting an improved and expanded Medicare for All system in the US as soon as possible.

Our current system of health care is basically a rationing system that punishes those without access to health insurance or whose health insurance is inadequate.  In the latter case a recent study demonstrated that with rare exceptions, most policies leave individuals and their families with large portions of health care expenses left uncovered.  This is the reason why a growing number of health care professionals and analysts, including the American College of Physicians, have called for passage of Medicare for All legislation like that proposed by Bernie Sanders.

Now passage of this legislation becomes even more essential.  The reports of people who cannot pay the medical bills for coronavirus treatment proliferate.  In select cases symptomatic individuals hesitate to come forward for fear of the expense of care.  Not least given the ability of drug companies, hospitals and doctors to charge anything that the “market will bear”, current estimates of the total costs of the pandemic for the US economy are astronomical.

Given inequities in access to health care, as well as living and working conditions that make it harder to practice social distancing, communities of color have been hit the hardest in this pandemic. But the reality is wealth and access to the best health care money can buy guarantee nothing with a community-spread virus. Implementation of a single payer system covering all is in every American’s interest.

Given the grim reality of the pandemic and the lessons it offers us, the Illinois Single-Payer Coalition- Central Illinois Chapter (or just Illinois Single-Payer Coalition), urges you to immediately sign on as a co-sponsor of S 1129.

Respectfully,

Illinois Single-Payer Coalition – Central Illinois Chapter