Gillum today: "Healthcare is a right."

[stranger81]

Link to tweet

?s=21

Boom.

Full stop.

No qualifications. No equivocations.

Not "access to private health insurance is a right." Not "health insurance coverage is a right."

"Healthcare is a right."

Imagine where our party could be if more Democrats would fully, wholeheartedly embrace this position. People are pleading for it. Hell, people are literally dying, every day, for lack of it.

More Democrats like Andrew Gillum, please.

[at140]

1. But if it costs too much, what good is that right?

The monthly premiums are too high and deductibles are too high. We need free healthcare paid for by taxing the rich.

[drray23]

2. Or you could actually read the party platform.

From the 2016 platform :



Securing Universal Health Care

Democrats believe that health care is a right, not a privilege, and our health care system should
put people before profits.

Thanks to the hard work of President Obama and Democrats in
Congress, we took a critically important step toward the goal of universal health care by passing
the Affordable Care Act, which has covered 20 million more Americans and ensured millions
more will never be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition. Democrats will never
falter in our generations-long fight to guarantee health care as a fundamental right for every
American. As part of that guarantee, Americans should be able to access public coverage through
a public option, and those over 55 should be able to opt in to Medicare. Democrats will empower
the states, which are the true laboratories of democracy, to use innovation waivers under the
ACA to develop unique locally tailored approaches to health coverage. This will include
removing barriers to states which seek to experiment with plans to ensure universal health care to
every person in their state. By contrast, Donald Trump wants to repeal the ACA, leaving tens of
millions of Americans without coverage.


You can find the whole document online.

[Garrett78]

5. It's been part of our platform since at least the 1960s.

From the 1960 platform:

6. "The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health."

Illness is expensive. Many Americans have neither incomes nor insurance protection to enable them to pay for modern health care. The problem is particularly acute with our older citizens, among whom serious illness strikes most often.

1968:

The best of modern medical care should be made available to every American. We support efforts to overcome the remaining barriers of distance, poverty, ignorance, and discrimination that separate persons from adequate medical services.

During the last eight years of Democratic administrations, this nation has taken giant steps forward in assuring life and health for its citizens. In the years ahead, we Democrats are determined to take those final steps that are necessary to make certain that every American, regardless of economic status, shall live out his years without fear of the high costs of sickness.

1976:

We need a comprehensive national health insurance system with universal and mandatory coverage. Such a national health insurance system should be financed by a combination of employer-employee shared payroll taxes and general tax revenues. Consideration should be given to developing a means of support for national health insurance that taxes all forms of economic income. We must achieve all that is practical while we strive for what is ideal, taking intelligent steps to make adequate health services a right for all our people.

1984:

It will not be enough to say that our nation must offer equal access to health care—we must put comprehensive health care within the reach of all of our citizens, at a price all can afford.

1992:

All Americans should have universal access to quality, affordable health care—not as a privilege, but as a right.

And so on.

[pnwmom]

3. Hillary and other Democrats also say it's a right. I like Gillum, but he didn't invent the idea n/t

[leftstreet]

4. DURec