Fall 2024 Newsletter
2024 Annual Meeting
Health Care for All NC will be celebrating our 30th birthday on Oct 5, 2024 at Color Works in Greensboro, NC. This event will be a celebration of our achievements over the past 30 years and late board members including presentations from three amazing speakers, hors d'oeuvres, and birthday cake!
We will have the following speakers:
Keynote: Rose Roach – National Organizer for Labor Campaign for Single Payer and Chair Healthcare for All MN.
Topic: The benefits of a single payer health care system to unions and union members with strategies that bring unions deeper into the healthcare justice movement.
Diljeet K. Singh – Women’s health advocate, an integrative gynecologic oncologist, and president-elect of PNHP (joining us via live stream).
Topic: The relationship between reproductive justice and the movement for profit free universal healthcare. Additionally, Dr. Singh will discuss the advantage of coalition building with partners interested in supporting access to reproductive care.
Sudarshan (Sud) Krishnamurthy – Community organizer & MD/PhD Student based in Winston-Salem, NC.
Topic: The need for a mass movement that starts at the grassroots-level in order to achieve a national health program. Health care professionals have the opportunity to be involved in their communities through ongoing efforts in labor and tenant organizing, and mobilize the communities they are organizing with towards health care programs for all.
Entry is free, but please RSVP with a ticket on this page.
Current Events
Every eligible hospital has signed on to Governor Roy Cooper's Medical Debt Relief plan. This will relieve debt for approximately 2 million low and middle income North Carolinians.
Advocates of “Medicare for All” are eagerly awaiting the outcome of the presidential campaign to “see what the next chapter is". Democrat Kamala Harris has abandoned her former pledge to support the PNHP goal. Instead, she only talks about building on the successes of Obamacare and drug price negotiation. (Washington Post Sept. 10, 2024)
For details on how Harris dropped her support of the PNHP idea in 2019, see Amos Barshad in The Lever, Aug 2, 2024
Prof. Jacob S Hacker, the so-called “father” of the public option, urges Harris to return to that to give people the choice of public or private coverage. (NY Times Aug. 14, 2024).
Community Outreach
On March 25, At-large Board Director and former HCFANC President Jonathan Kotch spoke remotely to graduate students in the online MPH program, The course, “Public Health Solutions: Systems, Policy, and Advocacy,” is taught by Dr. Emily Taylor, a former student of Dr. Kotch. In his presentation Dr. Kotch traced his own evolution as an advocate for single payer health care in the context of historical proposals for national health insurance in the US. The lecture was so well received that he was invited to present to the next cohort of students who took the course over the summer. One of the students promised to join HCFANC!
Along with other advocates for single payer universal health care, HCFANC President Dr. Howard Eisenson responded to a request from North Carolina’s Presbytery of New Hope (representing over 100 congregations) to help draft a resolution in support of universal health care via a publicly funded, publicly accountable program. The draft resolution was well received and it is hoped that other North Carolina Presbyteries, and eventually the Presbyterian Church USA will endorse this position.
Upcoming Events
Join PNHP's tweet-a-thon virtual event on September 30th to raise awareness about the harms of Medicare Advantage by getting their hashtag #MedicareDisadvantage trending on X, pushing people to sign on to their action. Register via the QR code, or use this link.
Election deadlines in NC are approaching. Are you ready to vote? Here are the dates you need to know.
October 11 – Voter registration ends
Register to vote online by 5PM, or have your registration postmarked on this day.
October 17 – Early voting begins
You may also qualify for same-day registration if you missed the October 11 deadline.
October 29 – Absentee ballot request deadline
A request for an absentee ballot must be received online or by mail by 5PM on this day.
November 2 – Early voting ends
You may also qualify for same-day registration if you missed the October 11 deadline.
November 5 – Election Day
This is the last day to vote! Absentee ballots must be received by 7:30PM on this day.
