Nina Turner is the President of Our Revolution. I contribute to that group and support it. It is the next step of the political revolution of the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign:
Campaigns end. Revolutions endure.
The next step for Bernie Sanders' movement is Our Revolution, which will fight to transform America and advance the progressive agenda that we believe in.
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Our Revolution has three intertwined goals: to revitalize American democracy, empower progressive leaders and elevate the political consciousness.
Nina Turner said today something with which I very much agree. If you call yourself a Democrat, and you oppose Medicare-for-All, there is something wrong with you. Seriously f..king wrong (ok I said that last part).
“Any Democrat worth their salt that doesn’t unequivocally say Medicare-for-all is the way to go? To me, there’s something wrong with them,” said former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution. “We’re not going to accept no more hemming and hawing. No more game playing. Make your stand.”
Paste: Nina Turner: There is "Something Wrong" With Dems Who Won't Support Medicare-For-All
Make your stand. Which side are you on?
Damn right. Health care is a human right and if you don’t get that, there is something wrong with you.
In U.S News and World Report, Pat Garofalo writes about how it is good for the Democratic Party to decide what it stands for, even if that involves primaries:
As I've written before, it's OK, and even desirable, for the Democrats to have these sorts of fights over what the party believes in and which policies, if any, are non-negotiable.
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But if anything, 2016 should have dispelled the notion that anyone really knows where the electorate is at a given moment. Few thought a vulgar, proudly uninformed con artist could ascend to the presidency, and yet here we are, dealing with just that. Nobody really knows if Sanders or Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren-style populism can work in a place until it's on the ballot; it'll be more successful in some places than in others, and only elections can sort it out. If that means what, in retrospect, are a few fumbles, then so be it.
Plus, at the end of the day, neither Sanders nor any of his supporters has the unilateral ability to declare something a litmus test. If Democratic voters just aren't interested in single-payer as a defining concept for the party, they'll vote as such. Again, let's put it on the ballot and see what happens.
I remember when folks like Blanche Lincoln gave lip service for ECRA, and then helped filibuster a bill. No more lip service. Make your stand. Dems can fight change and lose again, or Dems actually start fighting for real change.
I thought November 2016 was hitting bottom, but Dems seem never to fail to find a deeper bottom. There is something wrong with a Dem who fights Medicare for All, who calls it a fantasy, who sucks the hope from people.
Nina Turner is right.
Update I: John Conyers on why he introduced a Medicare for All Bill in the House (and has been for along time):
Half a century ago, addressing the convention of the Medical Committee for Human Rights, Martin Luther King Jr. declared, "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane."
I strongly agree with Dr. King, which is why I have been a firm supporter of President Obama’s landmark Affordable Care Act (ACA).
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But there is still much more to be done to eliminate injustice in health care in the United States, while making our system more cost-efficient. The United States still spends almost twice as much per person on health care as any other country, yet our key outcomes – life expectancy, infant mortality and preventable deaths – too often lag behind our peers. A recent Commonwealth Fund study ranked the U.S. healthcare system dead last among 11 highly developed countries in terms of quality, efficiency and access to health care.
That is why I am leading the charge in the House of Representatives for single-payer, universal healthcare system. By implementing a “Medicare for All" system – the standard for health care throughout the industrialized world – we can achieve hundreds of billions of dollars in cost savings that can be used to cover the nation's remaining uninsured and upgrade coverage for millions of underinsured citizens. More and more people across the country understand that a single-payer healthcare system is the only way to guarantee quality care and at the same time reduce medical costs. A poll from [date] showed that more than half of Americans -- including 80 percent of Democrats and a quarter of Republicans -- support expanding health reform to "Medicare for All."
That is why I have introduced my bill, The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, in every Congress since 2003. It is co-sponsored by more than 50 Members of Congress and support continues to grow.