To view full video from the rally at Chicago’s Federal Plaza, click HERE (video queued to start with Dr. Pam Gronemeyer’s remarks at 33:40).
By Jenna Barnes
WGN-TV,
CHICAGO — More than 100 people marched from Maggie Daley Park to the Federal Plaza to draw attention to their fight for Medicare for All.
“John Lewis said if you see something is not right, not fair and not just, you have a moral obligation to do something about it,” registered nurse Martese Chism said.
The rally was part of rallies in more than 50 other cities across the United States in support for a single-payer health care system.
“Are we so star-spangled awesome that we can’t figure this out and everybody else can?” protester Tim Lively said.
Advocates for Medicare for All are calling for zero copays, zero deductibles, full dental and vision coverage and no out-of-network restrictions.
“If you get injured outside of your predetermined health care network, you have to pay for it all. Where’s the freedom in that?” Lively said.
A Gallup poll earlier this year found that one in five Americans are unable to afford the care they need. A Pew Research Study last year found that 63 percent of American adults said the government has a responsibility to provide health care coverage for all, something proponents said we’ve seen glimpses of during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“You show them your ID, you get your vaccine, you’re done. That’s the universal health care they always say can’t work here, but it did work here,” Cook County Green Party member Troy Hernandez said.
Critics of the proposal say the federal government can’t afford it, requiring a tax hike and eliminating all private insurance.
For protester Georgette Druck though, that doesn’t compare at all to what Americans are missing out on in health coverage.
“I think we can be number one. We used to be number one in everything in America, I don’t see how we can’t be number one in health care outcomes too,” Druck said.
