By Claudia Fegan, M.D.
Chicago City Council, Committee on Health and Human Relations, March 10, 2026
My name is Dr. Claudia Fegan, I retired in December of 2024 after 12 years as the Chief Medical Officer of Cook County Health, and 24 years with the system. I am the National Coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program, a national organization with over 25,000 members, based here in Chicago. I am grateful to all the members of this committee who have already signed on to Alder Cruzās Resolution Supporting Medicare for All. While many people think access to health care is a national issue to be addressed by congress, this is a crucial issue for Chicago, and Iām thankful for the opportunity to address you today and explain why it is so important to address now, prior to the midterm elections.
As the resolution points out, the city of Chicago spends over $600,000,000 annually to provide health insurance to city employees. Think for a moment what the city could do with those funds if we had universal health care, if employers were no longer expected to pay for their employees to have access to health care. Employers are not expected to be responsible for the education of the children of their employees or guarantee their access to police or fire protection. What could Chicago do with an extra $600,000,000?
A poll of voters from November 2025 showed 90% of Democrats and the majority of independent voters support Medicare for All. Voters want to regain control of their health care and lower costs. We are the only industrialized country that does not guarantee access to health care for everyone living within our borders. Not just every citizen, everyone living here. We already spend enough on health care; we spend more money per person than any other country in the world. We allow patients to be denied access to care they need to maximize the profits of the insurance industry.
There has been a lot written about burnout among people in health care. This past year PNHP partnered with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to assess that burnout. Surveying over 1100 practicing physicians, we found what has been labeled as physician burnout is often moral injury inflicted by the financialization of the practice of medicine in this country. We found it has harmed the morale of the entire health care workforce, leading to increased shortages and decreased access to care as professionals retire early, cut back on their hours or leave the practice of clinical medicine altogether. Tragically, there are increasing totals of suicides among physicians. More and more, physicians are frustrated by their inability to offer patients the most appropriate care. They are stymied by required prior authorizations that issue inappropriate denials of care, make treatment recommendations their patients cannot pursue and create conflicts between health goals for their patients and the financial goals of the institutions that employ them.
It would be life-changing for Chicago to take the lead here and make a statement by supporting Medicare for All. If the city that sent the first Black woman to the Senate, that first sent Barack Obama to the Senate and then to the White House could send the message that health care is important for everyone, it would have a tremendous impact and continue our local tradition of initiating progress.
The tide is going to turn in this country. We need to build our power and be prepared to take what we need when the opportunity presents itself. We must be represented by people who have the courage to support our agenda. Medicare for All is something representatives have to be willing to fight for. We have a Congress that has acquiesced its power to a president who doesnāt believe in checks and balances. We will not get universal health care while Donald Trump is in the White House. We must be prepared for when Trump is gone. In 3 years, we must be prepared to seize the opportunity when it presents itself.
Last year, one-third of Americans delayed getting care they needed or skipped care entirely. That is the highest number since Gallup started asking questions about this 30 years ago.
I am reminded of a woman I admitted to the hospital one night a few years ago. Both of her breasts were rock hard. They were infiltrated with cancer with palpable lymph nodes in her axilla. She worked as a hairdresser, owned her own shop but had no health insurance. She was sitting at home waiting to die. She believed she had no other choice. She knew she could not afford her care. Her daughter made her come in. Remarkably we were able to get a dramatic response with treatment. No one should ever have to sit at home waiting to die in this country, when we have treatments that can be lifesaving.
Families are desperate for solutions to their everyday health care problems, skyrocketing drug prices, rising copayments and deductibles, surprise medical bills; and are tired of having to switch doctors because of the revolving door of job-based health insurance.
The United States has struggled with the effects of āFor Profitā Health Care for decades. The country has never embraced access to health care as a basic human right.
In the United States, we know some 28 million people or 8% of the population are uninsured and that 45,000 people die each year as a direct result of not having insurance.
If there is a lesson for the rest of the world to learn from the United States, it is the lesson of the private insurance industry. The insurance companies have a fiduciary responsibility to make as much money as possible for their shareholders. They also determine which patients have access to which care. There is an inherent conflict of interest here. By eliminating the waste and greed of private insurance, we can afford to cover everyone in our country for all necessary care, and end the scourges of surprise bills, skipped medications, and medical bankruptcy. Medical illness or medical debt is the number one cause of bankruptcy in this country, even though the majority of people who declared bankruptcy had insurance at the time of their precipitating illness.
There will always be limitations on how much money is available to spend on health care. Those decisions need to be based on societal need, cost effectiveness and population health, not profits and financial yields.
We already spend enough money on health care in this country; we just allow too many people who do none of the work of delivering health care to take profit from it. I am asking the Chicago City Council to have the political courage to lead the way and to tell our nation that health care needs to be a right for everyone. Thank you so much.
Read the full Chicago City Council resolution HERE.