Winter 2024 Newsletter
American Hospitals Screening Recap
On January 20, HCFANC hosted a screening of the film, American Hospitals: Healing a Broken System at the People’s Solidarity Hub in Durham. This event was well attended with representation from The Triad Workers Assembly, the Southern Workers Assembly, the North Carolina Medicare for All Coalition, and many more. This film goes into a deep dive into the out-of-control cost of hospitals and their transformation into profit-driven corporations.
After the screening, there was a panel discussion with Dr. Rakesh Patel and nurse Lori Hedrick who gave powerful testimony about the connections between labor rights and single payer. Dr. Patel is currently mobilizing alongside health workers at Central Regional Hospital around the need for greater safety measures. Nurse Hedrick walked us through the historic union victory at Mission Hospital that pitted nurses in coalition with patients and the broader Asheville community against the profit-seeking Hospital Corporation of America (HCA).
Additionally, we were also honored to present the 2024 Maggie Nelson Courage and Justice Award to three North Carolina-based advocates. Recipients of the 2024 Maggie Award include:
Ma Mary Hill with CAUSE (Carolina Amazonians United for Social Equality)
Dominic Harris with the Southern Workers Assembly Medicare for All Campaign (Special thanks to Ben Smith from Triad Workers Assembly for accepting the award on Dominic’s behalf!)
Lori Hedrick, RN, on behalf of National Nurses United Mission Hospital Nurses’ Union
Check out this website if you missed this event and would like to host or attend another screening near you.
Member Spotlight - Rebecca Cerease
Health Care for All NC board member, Rebecca Cerese, was awarded the 2024 Health Justice Advocate of the Year for Health Coverage by national advocacy group Families USA on January 24th, as part of their Health Action conference. Several of Cerese’s peers nominated her for the award, recognizing her leadership and community engagement in North Carolina’s Medicaid expansion efforts.
Cerese works with North Carolina coalition partners and community members to promote better healthcare policies. She and the NC Justice Center’s Health Advocacy Project have spent the last five years working on a campaign to expand Medicaid. They are currently partnering with other organizations in the state on an outreach strategy to ensure every eligible person enrolls. A founding member of the NC Medicare for All Coalition, she is dedicated to continuing to fight for a universal healthcare system where everyone is covered and protected without cost at the point of service.
“I am truly grateful to work as a health advocate and be able to push for meaningful policy change while partnering with people who are directly impacted and centering their lives and experiences,” said Cerese.
“Together, we successfully pushed our legislators to do the right thing and expand health coverage to over 600,000 North Carolinians. I am also grateful that I got a national stage to challenge us to think bigger when it comes to healthcare reform in our country. Giant corporations put profits over people and are destroying our healthcare system. I believe our country is great enough to pass and design a healthcare system centered on wellness that works for everyone."
Check out the award montage and Rebecca’s acceptance remarks here.
Beware of Medicare (Dis)Advantage plans!
In 2023, Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) launched a major campaign to raise awareness of the harms of Medicare Advantage (MA) programs. Unlike traditional Medicare, MA plans are managed by private insurance companies who are reimbursed by the Medicare program.
Unfortunately, these plans are proving hugely popular and now cover more than 50% of Medicare recipients. This profusion of “privatized” plans is moving our healthcare delivery system even further away from a single-payer, publicly funded, publicly accountable program that would serve everyone, and for which Health Care for All NC members support.
Rather than being accountable to the public, MA plans are accountable to their shareholders and work to return big profits. Health insurers fill their coffers by restricting provider networks, by increasing rates of denials of care relative to traditional Medicare, and through such predatory or fraudulent means as aggressive and misleading marketing to consumers, and “upcoding” the records of the patients they cover to make them appear sicker than they are. The end result is that private health insurers claim increased reimbursement from Medicare and drain the Medicare program of many billions of dollars more than would be spent for the same care with traditional Medicare coverage.
Call to Action: Connect with your legislators today and encourage them to support the traditional Medicare program by completing this form here.
Student Organizing
Healthcare for All UNC's new student leaders Cameron, Carson, and Lindsay, are proud to announce their group action items for Spring 2024. They plan to register as an official Students for a National Health Program (SNaHP) chapter and utilize SNaHP national resources for peer education talks and to promote advocacy within our student body. Additionally, they hope to soon co-host a presentation/discussion panel with UNC's Islamic Medical Association chapter about the ongoing healthcare crisis in Palestine. Other plans include hosting lunch and learn presentations on topics such as NC Medicaid expansion, physician/healthcare provider unionization efforts in the south, and trainings on existing physician pay schemes in America.
Book Recommendation
HCFANC President, Howard Eisenson, MD, highly recommends the book, Medicare for All – A Citizen’s Guide, by Abdul El-Sayed & Micah Johnson.
Howard states, “I was initially hesitant to talk with groups about Medicare for All because I felt inadequately informed about the issues. However, reading this book changed that. Published in 2021 by Oxford University Press and authored by two very well-informed physicians, it is an easily readable, balanced, and well-referenced analysis of the problems of our current healthcare delivery system. The authors make a strong case for health care as a public good with a publicly financed, publicly accountable care delivery system that serves everyone. If you read nothing else on the topic I recommend you read this.”
If you haven’t already, go ahead and add this to your 2024 book list.
Upcoming Events
Join the Poor People’s Campaign on Saturday, March 2nd, for the Mass Poor People's and Low Wage Worker's Moral March to State House Assemblies. The purpose of this march is for North Carolinians to come together and raise awareness about the injustices that poor and low-wealth workers face in North Carolina. This march is taking place for the following reasons:
Over 40% of the state is poor or low-income
Over 1 million North Carolinians still lack health insurance
Nearly 2 million North Carolinians earn less than a minimum living wage of $15 an hour
The average household debt rose to 6% in 2022 to an average of $56,590
If you are interested in attending this event, please sign up here and check out their website to learn more about their cause.
