On a cold Indianapolis morning, Kiah Morris stands in front of the headquarters of the health insurance company Elevance/Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, along with hundreds of others. Like her, they have come from all over the country to demand their right to health care.
"Who are you to decide if we live or if we die?" she cried, recalling how her husband, a strong, hard-working man, was denied necessary treatment for a serious heart condition when his private insurance calculated that their profits were worth more than his life.
Thousands of miles away in Minneapolis, Jenn Coffey, a former New Hampshire state representative and emergency medical technician, shares her frustration at the offices of UnitedHealth, the nation's largest and most profitable private health insurance company.
Diagnosed with breast cancer and complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), Jenn and her doctor spent months pleading with UnitedHealth for an infusion to ease her suffering. But her Medicare Advantage plan, which is paid for by the government with our taxes but run by this private company, repeatedly denied her care.
"I don't want to die!" Jenn cried, recalling with anguish how she was forced to sell the last valuables she owned to pay for her medications, as UnitedHealth celebrated a new record profit of more than $32 billion for the year, while at the same time they denied her treatment.
My heart breaks when I hear stories like Kiah’s and Jenn’s. That’s why our organization, People’s Action, organizes campaigns and actions to help people when they are denied treatment. For them, it is often a matter of life or death.
Now Donald Trump, if he returns as president, wants to give private companies like Elevance and UnitedHealth the power of life and death over us. As part of his #Project2025, he will force those on Medicare to have their medical treatment administered by private companies, who value their investors’ returns more than our health.
Trump's plan also seeks to end protections for people with preexisting conditions, which would leave millions without access to the health care they need. It would also impose a new health insurance tax on those who get their insurance through their employers, increasing health care costs for working people.
It would also impose severe restrictions on reproductive care, empowering the government to monitor our pregnancies, with the threat of suing women who choose to have abortions. It would allow employers to deny workers access to contraceptives.
If implemented, Project 2025 will leave millions of people without access to essential health care and drive up drug prices, throwing the most vulnerable into the clutches of a system that puts corporate profit before human life. All of this will further impact Latino families, who often do not seek medical treatment when their loved ones have other needs.
In recent years, the Biden-Harris administration has improved our healthcare system by curbing the bad influence of private insurers. They have lowered the cost of essential medications like insulin, and empowered Medicare to negotiate even lower costs for us.
These are small but important steps that can pave the way toward creating a Medicare for All system that will finally provide quality health care to everyone in this country who needs it, when they need it.
This should remind us that the decision we make at the polls this November will not only influence the policies of the coming years, but also our health. That is why it is essential that we do everything we can to prevent Donald Trump and his allies from returning to power.
If we want adequate health care, we must elect those who are willing to fight for a fair and equitable health care system, rather than one that favors enriching private companies at the cost of thousands of lives.
