OUR ISSUES

Healthcare Human Rights

Healthcare Human Rights is part of PDA’s Fund Human Needs/Cut Pentagon Waste platform. We endorse and work primarily on Expanded and Improved Medicare for All (National) and state-based single-payer universal healthcare plans with elected officials and allied organizations.

It is a moral outrage for a country as wealthy as ours to leave 27.5 million people with no reliable access to health care and tens of millions more with inadequate or overly expensive coverage. In addition, despite spending nearly twice as much as other developed nations on healthcare, our system performs poorly, because the commercial U.S. insurance bureaucracy soaks up as much as one-third of all the money and pharmaceutical interests overburden America with predatory pricing and by avoiding price competition.

Expanded and Improved Medicare For All will save millions of lives and billions of dollars. PDA is fully committed to enacting Medicare For All, with the intention of achieving nothing less than healthcare justice and equity for all Americans.

Equal Rights Amendment

The ERA 3 State Strategy Issue Team is dedicated to ratifying the ERA in the timeliest manner possible—to finish what Dr. Alice Paul started 90 years ago. Our strategy is two-fold—removing the ERA ratification deadline on the national level by Educating Congress to support Joint Resolutions SJRES 5 and HJRES 53 while simultaneously organizing in targeted un-ratified states to gain the 3 additional required to make the ERA the 28th Amendment of the United States Constitution.

End Corporate Rule

Time and again, whether we are seeking sensible healthcare, environmental, economic, or foreign policy—supported by a majority of Americans—we hit a barrier, because corporate lobbyists and donors have managed to get between our legislators and us. National and local media is right-wing and true journalism has suffered.

Stop Global Warming

No issue reveals more clearly the flaws of the U.S. political-economic system than global warming. Greed and corporate power dominate the public good, and impose nearsighted focus on short term profits instead of serving our long-term needs and the welfare of future generations.

Voter Access Protection & Election Integrity

The U.S. election system is in crisis. Big-money interests dominate U.S. politics in ways unknown in other industrialized countries, with social and environmental progress often blocked by officials who cater to big donors to insure re-election funds. Incumbents are unfairly insulated by district gerrymandering and rules, which obstruct independent candidates and parties.

Economic and Social Justice

The enormous wealth disparity between the top 1% and the rest of America is an unsustainable economic and social injustice. We are committed to an economic recovery that employs all those willing and able, that houses all those needing shelter, and that imposes the cost based on the ability to pay.

End Wars and Occupations

PDA, founded in 2004 in opposition to the raging war and occupation of Iraq, opposes wars and occupations of foreign countries. Our dedication to peace has not wavered over the years. The U.S. war machine harms the planet and the peoples of the world. We call for the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction that are constantly a looming threat to the world and its people. 

We need a new U.S. foreign policy based on peace, cooperation, and support for human rights and democracy. PDA advocates for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and contractors from endless wars across the Middle East and other areas of the world. We oppose the unbalanced policy of U.S. sanctions on countries of Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba, while simultaneously giving political and military aid to repressive governments that are our so-called allies. We support diplomacy and international cooperation, Palestinian rights and the rights of indigenous peoples, and growing calls for peace in conflicts around the world.

PDA works tirelessly with progressive members of Congress to support legislation that divests from the war machine, reduces the Pentagon’s soaring military budgetary priorities, and redirects our tax dollars into healthcare, education, green jobs, and other human needs.

Comprehensive National Immigration Reform

PDA stands for fundamental fairness and equality for all. We are working with our allies in the forefront of the fight for justice and human rights for the millions of our immigrant neighbors and friends. We strongly support federal legislation that will give legal status and a path to citizenship for all undocumented persons living in the United States.

We call for a stop to all raids, detention, and deportation, and an end to the criminalization of immigrant communities. We believe that U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) should be abolished and replaced with an agency whose first mission is human rights, fairness, and family unification. We call for a government policy that provides protection and security without walls and militarization at our borders. 

We believe that the root causes of migration – Income inequality, U.S. government oppression and support for corrupt governments, and climate change to name a few – need to be thoroughly  examined and remedies acted on so that future immigration is, fair, humane, and regulated,  rather than chaotic and repressive.