Briahna Joy Gray, former national press secretary for Sen. Bernie SandersBernie SandersSanders opposes Biden Interior nominee in procedural vote Briahna Joy Gray on how Sanders changed the healthcare conversation Sanders ‘delighted’ DeSantis asked White House to import Canadian prescription drugs MORE’s (I-Vt.) 2020 presidential campaign, touted what she called Sanders’s success in reframing debate over healthcare.
“A lot of folks inside really struggled with their healthcare concerns but didn’t really understand that there was a political solution to it until Bernie started talking about it and until they heard other people who shared their concerns at these town halls,” Gray said during a Wednesday appearance on Hill.TV’s “Rising.”
“At that point they felt like they were empowered to start talking about it more and prioritizing it politically in a way that they might not have done before,” she added.
Gray specifically praised former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner (D), another Sanders ally who is running in a special election for a U.S. House seat, for promising to fight for Medicare for All in a recent ad.
Gray said it is “really smart” for Turner to “exploit” the current circumstances surrounding the healthcare system amid the COVID-19 pandemic to stump for the single-payer healthcare program.
She said 15 million Americans lost their health insurance “because we have this really ridiculous healthcare system where your ability to get coverage is linked to your ability to stay employed, so when you’re in your moment of crisis is exactly when you lose your health care.”
Gray added she hopes the fallout of COVID-19 forces people “to think more critically about the kind of system that we’ve set up for ourselves” and “I think it’s really smart to go ahead and continue to beat that drum.”
Post source: Thehill