All Four National Co-Chairs of Sanders 2020 Campaign Renew Call to Include Medicare for All in Party Platform

By RootsAction and PDA, Reader Supported News

01 August 20

he four national co-chairs of Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign issued a joint statement Friday declaring: “We stand with the grassroots activists who understand that the party must stand for extending Medicare to everyone. Many hundreds of delegates are speaking out now with clarity to insist that Medicare for All belongs in the Democratic Party platform. They are correct to never waver in this fight for healthcare as a human right.”

In recent days, upwards of 700 delegates to the Democratic National Convention have signed a pledge saying they’ll vote NO on the party platform if it lacks a commitment to Medicare for All.

The 2020 campaign co-chairs – former Ohio state senator Nina Turner, Congressman Ro Khanna, San Juan mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, and Ben & Jerry’s co-founder, Ben Cohen – noted in their statement: “During the last few months, millions of people in the United States have lost their jobs. They should not lose their healthcare. Now is the time to reclaim the legacy of the Democratic Party, which sought healthcare for all starting with FDR and Harry Truman but lost its way beginning in 1980 when Medicare for All was stripped from our party’s platform.”

The co-chairs’ statement was released by two activist organizations that supported Sanders for president, RootsAction.org and Progressive Democrats of America. Turner is currently the strategic delegate advisor for RootsAction.

“This strong statement of solidarity from all of the Bernie campaign’s national co-chairs is a boost to the organizing now underway with delegates to confront the failure of the party’s pending platform to truly treat healthcare as a human right,” RootsAction national director Norman Solomon said. “One nationwide poll after another, as well as primary election exit polling, have shown that Medicare for All has majority support. Increasingly, the absence of support for Medicare for All from the top of the Democratic Party is bad politics as well as inhumane.”

Progressive Democrats of America applauded the four co-chairs’ statement and said: “We also support the Democratic National Convention delegates who have vowed to vote against the party platform because Medicare for All is not included. By voicing their dissent, these delegates have ensured that the call for a humane, rational, cost-effective healthcare system will be heard during the convention – and this will benefit the Democratic Party.”

PDA added: “If there was no debate over healthcare during party convention season, it would play into the GOP's hands. The majority of Americans, especially Democrats and independents, recognize the failure of our current employer-based private health insurance system. COVID-19 has laid bare this failure, and proves the need for Medicare for All is more urgent than ever.”

The above is a press release from RootsAction.org and Progressive Democrats of America (PDA).