 For more videos on People's Juggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Hello and welcome to People's Dispatch. Today we're going to talk about the Nonviolent Medicaid Army Week of Action. This is going to be organized from September 13th to the 21st. In this week of action, organizers across the United States are going to be drawing attention to the really pressing issue of healthcare. As we know, the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted communities across the world. In the United States, as we're about to find out, there are millions of people who don't even have access to healthcare. So this week of action is in an effort to raise awareness about this and raise demands about equal access to this really basic and fundamental right. So for this, we're joined by Nijmi Jurzenko, who's an organizer with the Nonviolent Medicaid Army. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Zoe. So just to get right into it, I think one thing to help people kind of understand the question of healthcare in the United States is if you could kind of just situate the, what is kind of the context, you know, it's, the U.S. is one of the wealthiest countries on the planet. But as you know, millions of people in this country don't have access to healthcare. So what is the reality of access for poor and working class people in the U.S.? What are the biggest barriers for them receiving health insurance? And can you kind of just give us an explanation about that? Yeah, of course. So one of the things that we're lifting up in this week of action is that, like you said, the U.S. is the richest country in the world, the richest country that's ever existed in the world. Yet we also have the highest number of COVID deaths in the entire world, almost 650,000. I don't even know if the number has already surpassed that, it's around that. 650,000 deaths from COVID, that's the highest number of COVID deaths in the entire world. So that's a huge contradiction right there. So you know that something is going on when you have the richest country in the world, but also the highest number of COVID deaths. It's a symptom of our healthcare system, but also the poverty in this country, something that a lot of folks aren't shown around the world, is that we have 140 million people in the country who are poor or near poor, and that's almost half of the population. In terms of healthcare, we have a system of healthcare that puts profit over people's lives. Even if people have access to insurance, they don't necessarily have care. Many people don't even get to use the insurance because it's so expensive. There's copays, there's deductibles, there's all kinds of barriers to people using that. And then there are millions and millions of people who are uninsured, who don't have care, who cannot get care. And there's large numbers of people who are on Medicaid. And that's one of the things that we're lifting up, and uniting those people, the poor and dispossessed, who are on this program called Medicaid. That's where the nonviolent Medicaid Army comes from, people who are on or excluded from this program called Medicaid. Right now in the US, we have 800 rural hospitals that are under threat of closure. We have 25% or more of people in this country who do not have a primary doctor. So that means that people have really fallen prey to a lot of misinformation about the virus. This is a direct result of all these, you know, a reason behind all of these steps is the fact that people don't have healthcare information, accurate information, because they don't have healthcare. So they can't get information from their doctor, they get information from the internet, and they get sick and die. And so we are lifting up this reality of a healthcare crisis in which healthcare is something that is a commodity it's sold for profit. It is not a public good. It is not a human right. And therefore we have 650,000 people that have died from this virus in the richest country in the world. Yeah, I mean, I think we should get back to a little later to talking a little bit more about Medicaid. But I'm just interested, you know, the Democratic Party is now in power, Joe Biden is president, the Democrats, you know, have a majority. So is there any hope that there will be an advances in extending healthcare access? And, you know, what are the major interests that block effectively guaranteeing full healthcare access to all Americans, all these millions of people you're talking about that don't have access? Sure. So we're 18 months into this pandemic, and there has been no expansion of healthcare in country. It has not been looked at as a solution. There's a very bipartisan consensus in this country to continue to have a healthcare system that is based on profit. We see that in the infrastructure bills that are currently moving through Congress, as well as the budget priorities of Congress, healthcare is not a top priority for the Democrats or the Republicans in terms of actually expanding healthcare, making it a right, as well as housing and other things that are so desperately needed in the course of this pandemic. These issues are interconnected, healthcare, housing, millions of people right now are facing eviction across the United States. Millions of people are having their utilities shut off, their water, their electricity across the United States. And while Congress is talking about infrastructure and talking about roads and bridges and, you know, logistics, we're saying that healthcare is essential infrastructure, water is essential infrastructure, housing is essential infrastructure for the working class. So we don't find that because a Democrat is in the White House or we have Democratic control of Congress that the powers that we are actually looking to solve this problem. The major interests that are in the way that really the ruling class in the United States and globally is very invested in healthcare, sees healthcare as a sort of a recession-proof place to put their capital, sees a lot of growth in the healthcare sector. And so they, you know, see it as a real source of profit, a real place to put capital, excess capital. And so that is one of the reasons why we see healthcare as a very strategic issue, because the ruling class has no solutions for us. They're not actually solving the problem. They're not even pretending to. And for us, it's a real rallying point because everybody is affected by it. Everybody has a story about it. Everybody has an experience with it. So it's a very uniting issue for the working class. But Wall Street is in the way of us getting healthcare as human right, quite frankly. And you mentioned before Medicaid, which is a program that does grant, you know, healthcare access to poor and low-income people. Can you talk a little bit about what Medicaid is and what would it mean to expand Medicaid to more people? Yeah, thank you. So one of our rallying prizes, Medicaid for all, Medicaid is the largest public program that we have. It was one out of struggle, just like Medicare. It comes out of the struggle of the working class. It is a program that covers poor and disposed people. However, they're also just like in many places around the world, where public programs are constantly under threat of privatization. Privatization is a feature of Medicaid, as it is a feature of Medicare, right, another program that covers older people in this country. So we're fighting for healthcare as a human right and a public good. As we call to expand Medicaid to all, which we believe Medicaid should be expanded to all, it needs to be a publicly run. And it's publicly funded and oftentimes is privately managed, right? And so that's something that we see all over the place as a way that, you know, the ruling class can kind of get around and still profit off of the fruits of our struggles. So as we call for Medicaid for all and the expansion of Medicaid to all, we also call for the decommodification of healthcare and healthcare as a human right and a public good. Definitely. And, you know, this week is the week of action, demanding Medicaid for all. So what are the, some of the strategies, what are some of the actions that are going to be undertaken in this week? And what can we expect to see? Yeah. So this, the Nonviolent Medicaid Army is really a vehicle to to unite the working class and to identify and develop leaders and to unite those leaders. And so it's a vehicle for strengthening the working class movement in the United States. And so organizations are joining the Nonviolent Medicaid Army because they're trying to figure out these questions of how do they unite the class? How do they do this work in states across the country and seeing how healthcare can be a strategic way of doing that? So the whole purpose of the week of action is to strengthen the organization that's already going on, the activities that people are doing, the organizations that they're trying to build. So from California to, you know, the, the LA tenants union, picking this up and making the connection between housing and healthcare, which is so critical because housing is healthcare. That's one of the slogans. And to, you know, folks out in Wyoming looking at the issues of rural healthcare to Wisconsin, where, you know, folks who are citizens and folks who are undocumented are coming together to recognize that even if you get citizenship in this country, it doesn't mean you have healthcare because citizens don't have healthcare, right? And so we all think we have a common stake in this. And to, to Alabama, to Florida, where folks in the Amakuli workers are going to be having a rally around someone who, it's a year anniversary of someone who was killed while in mental health crisis by the police. We know that a quarter of the people who are killed by the police are in mental health crisis. So people are lifting up that issue as a form of state violence and connecting its healthcare to, you know, Vermont to one, a state based universal healthcare system. And then their democratic governor refused to implement the program and actually turned their back, turned his back on, on it. So across the country, folks are taking this up to make connections between all of these different issues and fronts of struggle. And they're doing all kinds of different actions, from visuals to pop up healthcare clinics to family sort of centered events to rallies. So there's a whole variety of things that people are going to be doing. But everywhere they go, they're going to be lifting up this question of why is it that in the richest country in the world, we have the highest number of deaths from COVID-19. And what does that tell us about the way our system is structured and about healthcare in this country? And how do we come together as we're objectively united in this, in this struggle? How do we actually make that a reality to really bring us together? Well, we'll definitely be looking out for all of the actions and activities that are going to be organized in this week. And we'll be staying tuned with the Nonviolent Medicaid Army. And thank you so much for joining us. You're welcome. I just want to say one more thing, which is that to, you know, international comrades that were very inspired by all the work around the world, around healthcare, the advances that have been made through revolutionary struggle to have healthcare be a human right and a real revolutionary demand were very, very inspired by that work, whether it's the advances that have been made in Cuba or the, you know, the real work going on the ground in India with the People's Health Movement and all, you know, all across the world. So we take a lot of inspiration. We're also standing up against vaccine apartheid, again, you know, the structural adjustment programs that are preventing countries from actually providing healthcare to their people. And so the same state, the same U.S. state that is imposing these conditions on the world is also oppressing the working class here in the United States. So we have to be united as a global working class. And we take a lot of inspiration from our comrades around the world. Yeah, that's exactly right. Well, thank you so much again, and we'll be staying tuned. Thanks. Thanks so much, Joey.