Committing to Fighting for Universal Healthcare

To me, the fight for universal, high-quality healthcare is deeply personal.

When I was 13, my great-aunt Jeanie, who was only in her forties, died of melanoma. It was an awful death, and it genuinely traumatized me at the time.

It was also fully preventable.

She and her husband did not have healthcare. So when they saw the early signs—they were reluctant to see a doctor. They waited a long time. And once melanoma has advanced, it is lethal.

My Aunt Jeanie—who always called me “Ronnie Paul”—was one of the kindest people I have ever met. She laughed and hugged easily, and filled a room like a song. Despite feeling larger than life—she was just as physically fragile as the rest of us.

I remember when my aunt Rhonda spoke at her graveside, she said Jeanie had been her godmother, and she had always thought of her as a fairy godmother. That seemed right.

Sadly, my aunt Rhonda also died young—in her fifties, from complications related to an autoimmune disorder. She too went years without healthcare, and her lack of access to good treatment destroyed her body’s basic functions.

I was in my late twenties by then—less traumatized, but no less filled with grief.

When I think about the fact that both could still be with us, I can only feel grief and rage. Their deaths have long animated my belief that healthcare should be a universal, basic, public good.

So i just signed the Whole Washington Pledge. Washington State is easily rich enough to fund universal healthcare—we just choose not to do so. Almost every middle income to wealthy country in the world has some form of universal healthcare.

It’s time we step into modernity, and embrace this basic form of morality.

Whole Washington has a representative bill, and a funding plan.

I plan to fight for it, and I hope you will join me.