CHICA­GO — What began as back pain end­ed in a five-month stay at the hos­pi­tal for an excru­ci­at­ing spinal infec­tion that almost par­a­lyzed Cather­ine (name changed for pri­va­cy). She is ready to go home, but to recov­er, she requires a hos­pi­tal bed, a Hoy­er lift to get from her bed to her wheel­chair, a wheel­chair ramp, in-home care, and trans­porta­tion to her doc­tor. To afford it all, Catherine’s fam­i­ly turned to GoFundMe, a pop­u­lar web­site for crowdfunding.

Because seniors already have Medicare and may be retired, changing the healthcare system is not typically considered a key issue for their voting demographic. The problem? “No one’s asked us."

At a ral­ly in sup­port of Medicare for All, Dylan Kos­son-Healy, 30, read aloud from Catherine’s GoFundMe page: ​“While $15,000 is sure­ly a lot to ask of our fam­i­ly and friends, it is about the cost of her out-of-pock­et med­ical expens­es for just the next three months.” The family’s request is one of a quar­ter mil­lion on the plat­form rais­ing more than $650 mil­lion for med­ical bills annu­al­ly, accord­ing to the site.

Some 30 addi­tion­al pro­test­ers packed into the small field office of Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep. Mike Quigley (IL‑5) on Feb­ru­ary 13, the day before Valentine’s Day, to read more heart­break­ing tes­ti­monies from Quigley’s con­stituents. Then they broke into a chant: ​“Con­gress­man Quigley, sup­port Medicare for All” — known in the House as H.R. 1384.

Led by the Jane Addams Senior Cau­cus, most of the mem­bers of the Chica­go Medicare for All Coali­tion in atten­dance were over 65.

“Until you sign on and pass Medicare for All, your con­stituents have to turn to friends, fam­i­ly and strangers on the inter­net to help them sur­vive,” said Mary Ellen Winkel­man, 81, co-chair of the Jane Addams Senior Caucus.

Because seniors already have Medicare and may be retired, chang­ing the health­care sys­tem is not typ­i­cal­ly con­sid­ered a key issue for their vot­ing demo­graph­ic. The prob­lem? ​“No one’s asked us,” Winkel­man tells In These Times. ​“They just assume we are okay with [the cur­rent system].”

Dr. Anne Scheetz, 69, retired from her clin­i­cal prac­tice so she could focus on polit­i­cal advo­ca­cy work with Physi­cians for a Nation­al Health Pro­gram, a coali­tion mem­ber group.

“Clin­i­cians are suf­fer­ing from the dis­con­nect between what they went into their pro­fes­sions to do for peo­ple, and what they can do,” Scheetz says. ​“It breaks your heart to have to tell some­body their insur­ance won’t pay for what [they] need.”

Sin­gle-pay­er health­care would be valu­able for every­one, includ­ing seniors, says Thomas Wil­son, 68, board pres­i­dent of the Illi­nois Sin­gle-Pay­er Coali­tion, anoth­er mem­ber group. Medicare, in its cur­rent state, is not per­fect — out-of-pock­et expens­es are high and not all med­i­cines and pro­ce­dures are cov­ered, leav­ing those who can afford it to nav­i­gate a con­fus­ing mar­ket­place of sup­ple­men­tal insur­ance, which still may not cov­er everything.

Medicare for All leg­is­la­tion—spon­sored by Con­gres­sion­al Pro­gres­sive Cau­cus co-chair Rep. Prami­la Jaya­pal (WA‑7) in the House and Bernie Sanders in the Sen­ate — would estab­lish a gov­ern­ment-spon­sored health­care sys­tem that abol­ish­es pri­vate med­ical insur­ance and makes care free at the point of ser­vice. For cur­rent Medicare recip­i­ents, this new sin­gle-pay­er sys­tem would elim­i­nate out-of-pock­et expens­es and fill the cov­er­age gaps, Wil­son says.

About half of the 232 Democ­rats in the House have co-spon­sored the bill, includ­ing five of Chicago’s eight Con­gress mem­bers. Chicago’s excep­tions are Quigley and Reps. Dan Lip­in­s­ki and Raja Krish­namoor­thi, all fac­ing Medicare for All sup­port­ers in Illi­nois’ March 17 Demo­c­ra­t­ic primary.

At a pri­or meet­ing with the Jane Addams Senior Cau­cus, Quigley report­ed­ly implied that Medicare for All isn’t pop­u­lar among his con­stituents. So the group respond­ed by send­ing 1,000 con­stituent Valen­tine cards call­ing for him to sign on, sealed in heart-shaped boxes.

While Quigley’s office did not answer In These Times’ request for com­ment, he told the Chica­go Tri­bune in Jan­u­ary he favors expand­ing the Afford­able Care Act with a pub­lic option. He was not present at the Feb­ru­ary protest at the office he shares with Chica­go Ald. Tom Tun­ney, but the alderman’s staff did call Quigley to lis­ten in. (It is unclear who took the call.)

For some of the younger pro­test­ers — includ­ing mem­bers of Chica­go Demo­c­ra­t­ic Social­ists of Amer­i­ca (DSA) and Stu­dents for a Nation­al Health Pro­gram—it was the first time work­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty across the age spectrum.

“It was real­ly impres­sive,” says Kos­son-Healy, union attor­ney and Chica­go DSA mem­ber. ​“I go to a lot of ral­lies that are main­ly made up of younger peo­ple, and to see an inter­gen­er­a­tional pres­ence was uplifting.”

The protest was just the most recent of ongo­ing Medicare for All actions staged by the Jane Addams Senior Cau­cus. At an annu­al con­fer­ence of the Amer­i­can Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion (AMA) in June 2019, for exam­ple, more than 40 activists (most­ly seniors and peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties) held a ​“die-in,” telling heart­break­ing med­ical sto­ries while lying on the floor with grave­stone-shaped signs com­mem­o­rat­ing loved ones they had lost. Two months lat­er, the AMA end­ed its mem­ber­ship in Part­ner­ship for America’s Health Care Future, a cor­po­rate lob­by­ing group of pri­vate hos­pi­tals and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies against single-payer.

The sen­ti­ment of the die-in — des­per­a­tion, urgency — was echoed in a sign held by an old­er pro­test­er at the Valentine’s Day action: ​“Dear Quigley, peo­ple are dying of bro­ken hearts. Do something!”