Amy Vilela

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When it comes to health care in America, we're not just numbers on a screen or in a ledger. We're living, breathing, feeling human beings. When we’re sick we don't just need “access.” We need care.

But for tens of millions of Americans, going to the doctor when they are sick or injured is inconceivable. Many more also routinely forgo treatment because they are underinsured and can't afford skyrocketing premiums, copays and deductibles. Because of our badly broken system, more than 30 million Americans still don’t have health care and even more are underinsured.

Four years ago, my daughter Shalynne experienced firsthand the cruelty of this broken system that puts profits over people. Shalynne rushed to the emergency room for a painful, swollen leg. She had all the major risk factors and signs of a blood clot: She was black, she had sickle cell trait, she was on birth control, and she had just driven 22 hours from Kansas City on a healing injured knee. But the first thing they asked was when she got to the hospital was, “Do you have insurance?”

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She answered “no,” mistakenly thinking her insurance coverage ended after she left her job to move to Nevada. This simple answer sealed her fate. Through tears, she called me from the hospital and said, “Mommy, they’re not helping me.”

Shalynne’s life was cut short because they believed she didn't have insurance and therefore would not perform the routine tests that would have detected a blood clot. The hospital’s bottom line was more important than my daughter’s life.

Her last conscious moments on this earth were spent in the back of an ambulance in extreme pain from a pulmonary embolism. I held my daughter as she took her last breath and whispered in her ear that she would not die in vain. My eyes were opened to the injustice of our health care system. The pain of losing my first child needlessly was unbearable.

I was absolutely lost.

Then I heard about Bernie Sanders, who was running for president on a platform that included Medicare for All. In 2016, Bernie Sanders stood on the national stage and boldly declared that health care was a human right.

That same year, I found my purpose again. I became a health care activist. Through my activism, I learned just how many people across Nevada and the country were suffering every day due to our broken and unjust health care system.

Thanks to Bernie’s campaign and activists across the country, Medicare for All is now at the forefront of this presidential primary. In Medicare for All, we have the solution to fix our dysfunctional health care system — a solution that every other major nation has figured out. We can provide high-quality care to everyone and significantly cut our costs if we elect leaders with the political will to stand up to insurance and pharmaceutical industries that makes billions for their CEOs, while denying basic medical treatment to millions of Americans.

But as the primary progresses, lies and misinformation are being spread by corporate special interests and the candidates they are bankrolling. As we continue to lose our loved ones to preventable deaths, they continue to promote half-measures that will still let tens of thousands of Americans die because they lack insurance. They also continue to mislead the public about what Medicare for All will mean for us, the working class.

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I want to lay out the facts: Under Bernie’s Medicare for All plan, over a four-year period, we will take the successful Medicare program and simply expand it to cover every man, woman and child in the country. In addition to eliminating copays, deductibles and premiums, Medicare for All would substantially lower prices on prescription drugs. No one would ever be denied the medical service they need.

Bernie Sanders has been fighting to guarantee health care to all for longer than most of us have been alive, and today, his mission is clearer than ever. We are fighting to finally put people over profit. We are fighting for the future of our nation. I'm proud to stand with Bernie Sanders on the shoulders of the giants who came before us.

Through tragedy I became a health care warrior, and I'm ready to do what it takes to ensure the needless suffering and deaths end. As we look at Donald Trump, we have to decide: Is this the country we want to be, or can we do better for all of us? Together we can win. Together we can elect Bernie Sanders as the next president of the United States of America and change the course of history as we know it. Lives literally depend on it.

Amy Vilela is a health care reform advocate, former congressional candidate, and co-star in the Netflix documentary “Knock Down the House.”

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