Melanie D'Arrigo Profile picture
Exec Director @NYHCampaign, VP Legislation NY National Organization for Women, LGBTQ nonprofit cofounder Bluesky: @darrigomelanie Threads & IG: @melanie_darrigo

Mar 27, 2022, 16 tweets

The House Oversight Committee will be holding a #MedicareForAll hearing on Tuesday — the first since the pandemic began and exposed just how much harm our for-profit healthcare system has done to families and our economy.

🧵Here are 🔟 things you may not know about #M4A ⬇️

1⃣ Health insurance ≠ healthcare.

#MedicareForAll would guarantee high-quality healthcare to every single person in America. "Healthcare is a human right," means there are no physical, bureaucratic or financial barriers to care — which is what #M4A delivers. ⬇️

2⃣ #MedicareForAll removes the red tape and financial barriers to care. When you're sick, you can just see your doctor. There would be no more worrying about which doctors are in your insurance company's network, if you've hit your deductible or if your visit will be covered. ⬇️

3⃣ #MedicareForAll covers vision, dental, hearing, mental health, reproductive care, substance treatment, long term care and more. #M4A is about keeping your entire self healthy.⬇️

4⃣ #MedicareForAll would save families a lot of money by eliminating unnecessary and expensive premiums, co-pays and deductibles. Instead of the government giving subsidies to insurance companies, they would give it to your doctors to cover the cost of your care. ⬇️

5⃣ No one should be left to die or go into debt because they can't afford their medication— this should be something we can all agree on.

#MedicareForAll caps a person's yearly prescription costs at $200 per year. ⬇️

6⃣ Right now the U.S. ranks dead last in healthcare outcomes because of the financial and bureaucratic barriers to care.

By eliminating those barriers with #MedicareForAll, roughly 68,000 American lives would be saved each year. ⬇️

7⃣ Small businesses pay, on average, $6,485 per individual and $13,737 per family, per employee each year.

#MedicareForAll would remove the financial burden from employers allowing them to focus on growing their businesses and giving them the ability to raise wages.⬇️

8⃣ #MedicareForAll is a job creator. #M4A would create an estimated 2.3 million new healthcare jobs, and up to 17 million new jobs when you factor in new long-term care employment opportunities. ⬇️

9⃣ Doctors would save time and money with #MedicareForAll.

Small practices would save $83,000 a year and 9 hours a week by eliminating the administrative time associated with health insurance companies. This would allow them to see more patients and expand their practices. ⬇️

🔟 Congress has a mandate to be fiscally responsible.

By funding healthcare and not subsidizing the unnecessary middleman of health insurance companies, #MedicareForAll would save an estimated $458 billion per year and cost $600 billion less than a Public Option. ⬇️

In 2021, the top 5 health insurance received $35 billion from the U.S. government and reported $39.6 billion in profit.

We should be helping people by funding healthcare, not helping CEOs increase their wealth by funding health insurance company profits.⬇️

Over the last 20 years, the insurance, health and pharmaceutical industry spent over $10 billion in lobbying to protect their profits by keeping healthcare inaccessible, expensive and designed to maximize profits instead of health outcomes.

The corruption is killing us.⬇️

Unfortunately, because taking money from lobbyists is bipartisan, so is opposing #MedicareForAll and other solutions that would lower healthcare costs.

We must end the lobbyist control over Congress by making sure we're electing people committed to refusing their money.⬇️

Universal healthcare with #MedicareForAll is not only morally and fiscally responsible, but overwhelmingly supported across the aisle by voters with 69% support.

Only Congress and the lobbyists cutting them checks are holding us back from the solutions we need.
⬇️

As an allied health professional, I've see our broken healthcare system from the inside— and how it harms our families physically and financially.

I'm fighting to protect our families with #MedicareForAll

Please chip in today to support my campaign.
secure.actblue.com/donate/melanie…

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