About Healthcare-NOW!
Healthcare-NOW! is a member of the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care.
We are also an endorser of Amnesty International’s Healthcare is a Human Right Coalition.
Our Mission
Healthcare-NOW! is an education and advocacy organization that addresses the health insurance crisis in the U.S by advocating for the passage of national, single-payer healthcare legislation. Right now, the National Health Insurance Act (HR 676) is the only legislation that will create a national, single-payer healthcare system. We see healthcare as a human right, not a privilege tied to the ability to pay.
Our Vision
Healthcare-NOW! is a 501c4 organization that is fuelled by committed volunteers, activists, and interns supporting single-payer national health care. We are highly decentralized organization with hundreds of active members spread all over the country. We firmly believe that bottom-up efforts are the only way to win single-payer, guaranteed, and universal healthcare. We aim to engage and empower leaders at the grassroots level who will understand the issue and implement a wide range of tactics to push support for HR 676 into National legislation. We provide tools and leadership trainings to help them more effectively organize for single-payer national health care.
Our History
Healthcare-NOW! was formed in 2004, originally under the name of the Campaign for a National Health Program NOW, to bring national attention to the health insurance crisis facing Americans and bring together a large citizens’ movement for single-payer national healthcare reform. The first meeting of the coalition was the Campaign for a National Health Program NOW Conference: “Health Care Crisis and Election of 2004.” The Conference was a convergence of support from those that agree healthcare is human right. The Conference was attended by participants from various healthcare, labor, and faith-based communities along with Representative John Conyers, sponsor of HR 676, and Kim Gandy, President of the National Organization for Women (NOW).
With unwavering resolve, Healthcare-NOW! has developed into the broadest coalition in support of single-payer healthcare, mobilizing a large community of advocates composed of organizers and activists in more than 300 cities in all 50 states. Healthcare-NOW! remains focused on representing the citizens’ movement for single-payer healthcare reform by actively working to educate the public about America’s healthcare crisis and to support HR 676.
Marilyn Clement, our National Coordinator, used her national contacts from a career of national organizing to form Healthcare-NOW!, specifically to educate the public about America’s healthcare crisis and to support HR 676. Our mission has not changed since. Ms. Clement has served in executive positions of major national movement organizations advocating for social justice and human rights, including: Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Center for Constitutional Rights, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and Women’s Division of the United Methodist Church.
The initial call for national organizing in support of HR 676 came from Rep. John Conyers, Congressional sponsor of HR 676. He argued that a single-payer bill could only pass with the support of a national movement. He first introduced HR 676 in 2004 with no intention, at that time, of moving it through the Congressional process. He knew the bill needed a movement behind it, and a change in administration, before the time would be right to move it through Congress.
Since then, Healthcare-NOW! has joined forces a strong coalition of organizations that support single-payer, universal healthcare. Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), who provide technical support for our movement. contribute policy support, speakers, and financial analysts towards our mission. Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) provides grassroots support focused on electoral campaigns that may potentially elect pro-HR 676 candidates to office. The California Nurses Association (CNA) provides leadership in winning organized labor support for HR 676. CNA also has resources that have helped every aspect of this movement. Representative John Conyers, who introduced HR 676, and is its most passionate advocate in the U.S. Congress, along with his legislative staff, are a resource to all four of the major national advocates. The four organizations have formally joined forces under the name “Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care.”
“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane.”
-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
