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What I learned from asking struggling people back home in Ohio: Do you think health care is a right? @NewYorker bit.ly/2fKThc0
My tl;dr: Many said no. A right to health care sounded like a demand to pay for others’ needs, when they don’t have enough for their own. /1
In America, working people w $3000 deductibles can be bankrupted while paying taxes for poorer people to get free Medicaid w $0 copays. /2
It triggers bitter feelings over who is deserving and who is not – i.e., who is valued and who is not. /3
But nearly all supported Medicare. Why? Because it’s less about a right than: We all contribute and we all benefit as equals. /4
Friend wrote to note: the fight for marriage rights (what you must give me) irked; the fight for marriage equality (what we share) won. /5
Points the way forward: the fight is less for health care rights than for health care equality -- insuring all lives have equal worth. /6
ACA growing support as it helps working class w equal protections for pre-existing conditions, under 26 coverage, limits on cost-sharing. /7
But I saw: Dems still lack trust that they value the lives and voices of the working class equally. That trust must be built. /8
My bet: trust grows w showing ways people, over an 85+ yr life, can contribute and benefit more equally for basic needs like health /End
