⏳ Medicare for All-esque Town Hall Side-Quest

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Medicare for All Town Hall

Timeline: January 17 – January 30

Discussion Thread

At the General Meeting, we planned to organize a Medicare for All Town Hall. We had a discussion about what it would look like during the meeting, but we need to settle on a more concrete plan. Then we can start advertising it and hold it mid-February.

After the GM, a few of us talked more about it. Here are the notes from that:

Similarly to the Tenant Union Workshop, there are questions around who are audience should be, what the goals of this town hall, what do we want people to do after attending this town hall, etc.

I thought this was a good article on where Medicare for All ended up: https://www.sublationmag.com/post/medicare-for-all-requiem-for-a-dream

@Turcotte and @Raiken_202, did either of you want to meet to talk more about the Medicare for All town hall? We could discuss how we might go about collecting the stories or doing outreach.

If you or any other @WCU_Members are interesting in meeting, please fill out this link with your availability so we can find a day that works for everyone.

If you don’t think you can make it, please leave your feedback in this thread. We’ll also follow up in here after the meeting.

Meeting Notes and Proposed Agenda
(Original notes here)

We held a meeting the other day to discuss how we could frame this town hall. Below is a proposed outline out of the ideas we covered. This is a work in progress though! and suggestions are welcome.


Reframing the Conversation

  • Asking the question: Whatever happened to Medicare for All?
  • Revisiting CALL Stockton and its status.
  • Instead of doing a generic M4A or something that implies we can help in the short term

Town Hall Agenda

1. Welcome & Introductions

  • This will be more than a policy-lobbying discussion.
  • Focus on how campaigns like M4A expose capitalist limitations and how they can spark bigger “systemic change.”

2. Context: Crisis of Healthcare and Capitalism

  • Present the current healthcare challenges.
  • Highlight broader systemic issues driving these issues.

3. Personal Healthcare Stories

  • Encourage participants to share their real-life experiences.

4. Why M4A Mattered and Why It Stalled

  • Explore the reasons many activists and progressives, including CA Nurses, used M4A to gather support for the Democratic Party.
  • Examine why M4A isn’t politically feasible at this moment.
  • Include discussion of elected officials who may co-opt left wing movements (AOC).

5. Beyond Policy: Building Class Consciousness

  • “Killing CEOs isn’t going to help” (by itself).
  • Why does class consciousness matter?
  • Transforming anger into collective action.
  • Recognize how politics tends to lose traction when it fails to deliver.

6. Local Solutions

I put together an example agenda (with more information that we will probably be able to fit) based on the outline we had above to give us something more concrete to discuss / vote on during the General Meeting.


Death of the Left II: Whatever Happened to Medicare for All?

The Healthcare Crisis

  • We still have millions of Americans with no health insurance; millions more underinsured
  • Two-tier healthcare system where half the population has inadequate or no healthcare access
  • The half with “good” insurance still deals with rising healthcare costs, it cutting into their paychecks for less coverage

The Capitalism Crisis

  • Profit-driven
  • Market Failure: Healthcare does not even operate as a normal market.
  • Profit over people.

Personal Healthcare Stories

Why M4A Matter and Why It Stalled

The Promise of Medicare for All

  • Universal coverage
  • Cost control
  • Freedom from employers
  • Free up time/money/ties to employment that would make it easier for socialists to organize

The Political Moment (2016-2020)

  • Bernie Sanders made it central to his presidential campaigns
  • 70% of Americans supported the policy
  • Primary way ‘progressives’ differentiated themselves from centrist Democrats during primaries (this was actually an issue…)

Why It Stalled (Sheepdogging and Co-optation)

  • Despite momentum, it has been abandoned:
    • Kamala Harris endorsed and then backed firmly away from it
    • Even AOC suggested M4A might just be a negotiating tactics for a public option
  • Democratic Party never on board (why)
  • Corporate Influence (never fully unleashed)
  • Sheepdogging (California Democrats)
  • Policy Dilution (top-down demand/slogan easy to twist)

The Failure of Conventional Politics

  • Healthcare costs are not higher than before Obamacare
  • Networks have narrowed, limiting access
  • The ACA preserved and entrenched industry profit extraction
  • Continued consolidation of the entire industry
  • But we need to move beyond trust-busting

Faith in the Valley TU Example

  • Movements that on their face challenge capitalism directly are often redirected into channels that do not fundamentally threaten the system

CALL Stockton Example

Not Just About Policy - It Is About Building Class Consciousness

Beyond Single-Issue Reform

  • Build Class Consciousness: Develop shared understanding that workers’ interests fundamentally differ from those of the capitalist class
  • Create Independent Organizations: Working-class institutions independent from Democratic Party and Donor control
  • Develop Political Education: Helping people understand how capitalism works and how it perpetuates crisis

Why is building class consciousness important

  • Breaks political dependency: Helps workers see beyond the Democratic/Republican false choice
  • Creates solidarity: United people across differences around shared economic interests
  • Enables strategic action: Allows for an analysis of and coordinated pressure at key points in the system vs only relying on lobbying and electoralism
  • Provides an alternative vision: shows that another society is possible centered around different interests, not just profit and capital
  • Builds lasting power: Well-educated and experienced workers become lifelong organizers who can recruit and develop others

From Frustration to Organized Power

  • The Medicare for All campaign’s failure reveals a critical lesson: popular policy campaigns cannot succeed without organized working-class power. Our strategy must build independent power beyond lobbying politicians.
  • Strategic Local Organizing
    • Healthcare Worker Network Development
      • Map San Joaquin County’s healthcare sector: hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, facilities
      • Research ownership structures (corporate chains, private equity, non-profits)
      • Identify union status and contract expiration dates for strategic intervention
      • Build cross-facility healthcare worker networks to share information and coordinate actions
      • Support healthcare unionization drives with organizing trainings and resources
      • Link workplace struggles directly to the broader M4A fight
    • Patient-Worker Solidarity Campaigns
      • Organize union workers to include patient demands in contract negotiations
    • Public Ownership Options
      • Research public healthcare models like NYC Health + Hospitals, serving 1 million people with 1.5% of NYC’s budget plus federal funding
  • Building Strategic Alliances
    • Cross-Sector Solidarity
      • Connect with unions representing workers in logistics, pharmaceuticals, and other strategic sectors
      • Coordinate political education across different sectors to build class consciousness
    • Collaboration
      • Build relationships with grassroots healthcare advocacy groups
      • Support tenant organizations fighting for healthy housing conditions
  • Political Education as Organizing Tool
    • Historical Context and Analysis
      • Study past healthcare victories like Britain’s NHS creation
      • Analyze ACA structural failures and limits of incremental reforms
      • Examine successful union-based healthcare campaigns
      • Learn from movement setbacks and co-optation
    • Connecting Local to Systemic
      • Develop materials showing links between local healthcare problems and capitalism
      • Host regular study groups on healthcare political economy
      • Train members to articulate connections between healthcare issues and systemic problems
  • Maintaining Revolutionary Politics
    • Long-Term Vision
      • Frame Medicare for All as removing a burden that facilitates future organizing
      • Focus on building working-class power beyond policy asks
      • Maintain independence from Democratic Party
    • Politics
      • Assess relationships between reform campaigns and revolutionary goals
      • Prevent politicians from co-opting the movement
    • Connecting to Broader Movements
      • Link local organizing to statewide and national Medicare for All campaigns
      • Share organizing models and lessons with other groups

Winning single-payer in the U.S. will require working people organizing across many sectors. By building independent working-class power through local organizing and start and coordinating more broadly from there, we can create the conditions where Medicare for All becomes not just popular polling-wise, but an active campaign where people see it as a stepping stone to overcoming capitalism.

Update from the 2025-03-06 WCU General Meeting Minutes:

We also started working on an outline of the presentation here.

During that meeting, we discussed delaying the Town Hall to give ourselves enough time to do outreach (and presentation prep). But since the date was set at the General Meeting, we would need a vote to do that. Since quorum was 5, would need 6 votes total to reschedule it to April 26th.

@Tanner @HipGnosis let me know if the date is right/wrong before we start voting.

I am voting yes because we not ready!!

1 Like

I vote to delay until April

I vote yes to postpone

Yes

Yes

Yes to postpone.

yes