The Scam We Call Healthcare:

The bare minimum a country can do is keep its citizens healthy. If they fall sick or are injured, they must be swiftly cared for. But, as many working-class Americans know, the United States has completely failed to meet even our lowest expectations.

If we can afford good health insurance, what happens? We’re slammed with $6,000 deductibles, denied claims, surprise bills, and hours of excruciating calls trying to convince a corporation our children deserve to live. Most of the time, if a company didn’t deliver what you paid for, we’d call it a scam. But when our life is on the line, suddenly it’s legal.

And if we can’t afford insurance? The system tells us to either suffer or take on crushing medical debt just to survive. Every year, thousands of our fellow Americans die uninsured because they couldn’t survive this system, built on cruelty and the stripping away of our dignity.

Our Lives Are Not a Compromise:

Half measures are completely unacceptable. It is impossible to truly reform a healthcare system that has its foundation in profit. The Affordable Care Act was absolutely vital, but a bandaid on a gaping wound. Reducing insurance costs isn't enough. Expanding the ACA isn’t enough. A Public Option isn’t enough. 

We deserve the bare minimum. We deserve dignity. We deserve better than to be treated as sacrifices to a CEO’s profit margin. And since the federal government refuses to do its job, it is up to the state government to end this farce. As soon as we have the votes, we will pass state-run Medicare for All. This is non-negotiable.

Triage, Not Treatment:

Unfortunately, if we don't control the Texas Legislature, passing a state-run Medicare for All program will be delayed. Until then, we will use every tool to go to war on Big Pharma. We’ll organize to, at the very least, have cities pass caps on medical debt and expand Medicare coverage. In the state house and senate, we will fight to pass price caps on life-saving medicine such as EpiPens and asthma inhalers.

None of this is Medicare for All, which is what we fundamentally deserve. It’s triage until we have enough votes. But we will still introduce it. And if it does pass commission and goes to the legislature, any puppet who votes no we turn into a pariah in their district for supporting a system built on greed and cruelty. We will kick the puppets out of office by supporting candidates who believe in actual dignity of life.

The Stolen Dream of Safety:

A home isn't just a house. It's where we can settle down and feel safe and secure. And yet, this country makes that a pipe dream. How can we possibly feel safe when the bank leaves us mortgaged up to our teeth, or when we’re one disaster, one roof repair away from losing the house? How can we possibly feel secure when our landlord keeps increasing our rent?

The answer is: we aren't supposed to.

Through predatory mortgages, massive property taxes, and hedge funds, the oligarchs have turned housing into a commodity, making it out to be some “privilege” instead of the necessity it is. And when we can’t keep up with their outrageous mortgage rates or rent fees, we’re somehow the ones at fault.

This. Is. A. Lie.

They are purposefully trying to squeeze out every penny — then gaslight us into thinking we’re to blame. But we’ve done everything right. It is the billionaires who made the conscious decision to artificially jack up the cost of living.

This Land Was Made for You and Me:

Having a home is a matter of literal life and death. Without one, we expose ourselves and our families to a life of loss, hardship, and suffering. We’re punished for desiring something as self-evident as a roof over our heads. Instead, the billionaires have forced us into a seemingly eternal struggle. We’re either hamstrung by appalling mortgage rates or paying crippling rent to our landlord. And to top it all off, housing prices have become so sky-high that, for many of us or our children, owning a home is a pie-in-the-sky fantasy.

This system of holding our lives hostage to the whims of banks and corporations must end. Banning corporate ownership of single-family homes prevents hedge funds like BlackRock from stealing from would-be homeowners by buying up entire neighborhoods and turning them into rentals. Stopping BlackRock and their fellow hedge fund cronies from hoarding what belongs to us will end the artificial scarcity that’s driving up housing costs. Strong rent control laws can finally stop sudden rent hikes that crush working families.

We also need massive investment in public and social housing to build high-quality, affordable homes. Mixed-income housing that’s built for struggling families, seniors, and veterans as a guarantee that they, too, are entitled to the dignity of life.

Note: This tab currently focuses on college tuition and student debt. Our stance on K–12 education, teacher pay, and school funding will be added in the coming weeks. The current draft does not yet meet our standards for properly addressing these issues.

Sabotaging Our Future:

Education shouldn’t come with a price tag. It shouldn’t be locked behind a financial wall. It shouldn't be a commodity. Because access to knowledge is a human right. Learning is a human right. Education is a human right. And yet Texas and the United States as a whole has failed to understand this basic principle that most of the world has realized by now.

We are forced to either suffer years of student debt for a diploma or be locked out entirely because we can't afford being sentenced to a debt spiral. It is completely absurd that a nation would purposefully sabotage its future by extorting us out of our livelihoods or flat-out denying higher learning to new workers. Yet our government does so and treats it like a fact of life. Grass grows, birds fly, and we deserve to be saddled with debt for the crime of wanting to better ourselves.

This is entirely by design. The billionaires don’t want us to be educated. They don’t want us to understand how the government or economy functions. They don’t want us to realize they’re the ones sabotaging our future. So they shamelessly raise tuition fees year after year, trying to lock as many working-class people out as possible. They are terrified of the possibility that we’ll start asking questions and demanding basic respect and dignity. Or, as Ronald Reagan’s advisor Roger A. Freeman once put it, in the most elitist way possible: “We are in danger of producing an educated proletariat.”

Knowledge has no Fee:

The commodification of education needs to be ended permanently. The very concept of putting a price tag on learning is morally bankrupt and corrosive to the fabric of society. Complete student debt forgiveness and free college tuition is the only acceptable long-term solution. Every other competently run country does this — so why can’t we?

Anyone who says that this is unrealistic and tries to offer half-measures is lying to you. One-time debt forgiveness leaves this predatory system untouched. Having financial literacy classes so we learn to “budget better” is like learning every chess strategy while your opponent flips the board. There is no winning when the other side won’t let you play the game. And if you only make community college tuition-free, you create a two-tier education system that unjustly locks working-class people out of opportunities.

Total student debt forgiveness and free college tuition is not radical. It’s the bare minimum — and it’s what we deserve. And with enough votes, we can make college tuition free on the state level.

Access for All:

Until we have enough votes, we’ll fight to make college as accessible as possible. That means attempting to cancel student debt and expanding free college programs at the state level, amd capping tuition increases. Most importantly, we make it clear exactly who in the Texas House and Senate supports the continued violation of our human right to education.