Hello everyone, my name is Chris Blankenhorn and I am a Green Party of the United States National Co-Chair, a Vice Chair of the Illinois Green Party, and a memmber and organizer with the Youth Caucus.

If you are like me, you’ve been getting emails, phone calls, and text messages on a daily basis from the Healthcare Marketplace reminding you that the deadline for Open Enrollment is fast approaching. This has become an all too familiar and depressing yearly chorus. In the fall you recieved a letter that your premiums premiums may go up. Then you recieve a letter about the new plan my your insurer wants to auto-enroll you in. This plan is seemingly guaranteed to be more expensive and provides less benefits. If you are like me, you recieved the same letter from your insurer last year. And the year before that. And the year before that. Every year it’s the same story. You’re premiums are skyrocketing and Benefits crashing.

Sign up by December 15!

URGENT! TIME IS RUNNING OUT!

This is the reality of life for millions under the ACA. This is what the Democratic Party considers to be progress. These emails and calls are becoming what seems to be an unending, deliberate torment for me. Because this year, I have found myself priced out of health insurance byt he Affordable Care Act. A bill that forced millions of americans to become customers of one of the malicious industries out there and did little to address actual costs the US healthcare system

So now I am looking at plans that are 50% co-pay across the board with high deductibles. And these plans cost a large chunk of my working class income.

It’s not doable for me.

I cannot spend 20% of my pre-tax income on health insurace, even after my small subsidy is applied. I hope that I can find a solution and get myself covered next year. I hope that an answer falls in me and my families lap. But healthcare shouldn’t be based on hopes.

What this country needs are real solutions when it comes to healthcare. We don’t need another half measure. We don’t need another gift of millions of customers to the private insurance industry. We need a system that ensures basic, quality healthcare for all. Not a multi-payer compromise, but true single payer healthcare. It is not a matter of resources, but political will. Our mismanagers in Washington call substantive solutions like single payer impractical. They say we can’t afford it. Yet, we have billions for war, billions for tax breaks to the wealthy, billions in corporate giveaways in a rush to the bottom that both capitalist parties in washington are in agreement on.

It’s time to break free from the norm. It’s time to forge a new path. The Green Party is the only mass political party in the United states that is fighting for single payer. Together, we can put people over profit. We can empower our communities. We can build a better future. But we can’t do it alone. So contact your local green party, organize in your community for healthcare justice, and join the chorus of green voices fighting for a brighter future.