"Medicare for All" Is Missing a Vital Group: The Incarcerated
"Can true criminal justice reform succeed without addressing the health and human rights of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people?"
Nearly 60 percent of Americans support some version of “Medicare for All,” an expansion of federally-funded health insurance to cover everybody. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., the new face of the progressive movement, has suggested it is a moral priority, and multiple 2020 presidential candidates have made it a part of their platforms. But no one is talking about making federal health insurance truly “for all” by extending eligibility to the 2.2 million people incarcerated in this country.
As a primary care doctor who cares for low income people, some of whom are or have been involved in the justice system, I have dealt first-hand with the problems created by the so-called “”—and it is
