The pandemic has powerfully demonstrated the need for a universal health care system. Has it also made the US public more open to the value of collective solutions? Dr. Margaret Flowers will discuss a plan for improved Medicare for All. She will describe how health care as a public good is superior to the present private system. How could it be financed and what would it cost, compared to the present private system? Compare and contrast such a system with the health care systems of Canada, Britain and Cuba. Then there is the vexing question, how can the opposition of interest groups like the insurance industries and pharma be overcome? What is the political strategy?
Margaret Flowers is a mother of three young adults and a Maryland pediatrician who practiced medicine for 17 years, first as director of pediatrics at a rural hospital and then in private practice. In 2007, Margaret left practice to advocate full time for National Improved Medicare for All single payer healthcare. She is an adviser to the board of Physicians for a National Health Program, volunteered as a Congressional Fellow during the health reform process in 2009-10 and is co-chair of the state chapter. She co-founded the Maryland Healthcare is a Human Right campaign, and is also the national coordinator of the Health Over Profit for Everyone (HOPE) campaign.
In 2011, Margaret was a core organizer of the Occupy Movement in Washington, DC. That work developed into the website Popular Resistance -- a daily movement news website that also organizes issue campaigns and participates in coalitions for economic, social and environmental justice and peace. She is also active in the Green Party, both at the local and national level.
*/