Bernie Sanders received immense support from the crowd as he spoke at this year’s California Nurses Convention to discuss the Medicare For All Act at Yerba Buena Gardens.
Doctors, nurses, students and Bernie supporters gathered together in downtown San Francisco, wearing red shirts to show their solidarity with one-third of the Senate Democratic Caucus that sponsored the event.
Sanders speech happened hours after Senator John McCain publicly denounced the Republican’s attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act that provides healthcare to low-income individuals.
Other speakers included Sanders’ wife, Jane Sanders, and a nurse practitioner and activist, Nina Turner.
“If we can go to the moon, we can have medicare for all,” Turner shouted as the crowd cheered in agreement.
Juliette Groffilier, SF State foreign exchange student from France, explained that she was there because she is interested in how the U.S. government is dealing with health care budget allocations.
“We kind of wanted to see what the situation with health care was here since, in my country, it is something that was acquired a long time ago,” Groffilier said. “When [Sanders] said that he wanted to give healthcare to all employees, regardless of the enterprise they work at, so that people would be able to actually work in jobs they like and not just ones where they have health care, is something that I had never thought about.”
SF State alumna, May Chomm, explained that she was in attendance at the rally mainly to see Sanders in person, but also to show patronage for medical care for all U.S. citizens.
“My mom is a member of Medicare and so to be here and support this is very important to me,” Chhom said. “Realistically, it will be hard. I don’t want to say it won’t get passed but I know it will be hard. Especially because the republicans are working really hard to get it repealed and replaced.”
