The battle for universal health care provision in the US has a long history, closely integrated with feminist demands. As far back as World War I, militant unions like the International Ladies’ Garment Workers radicalized the campaign for health care — and came within an inch of victory.

Women have been kept persistently poorer than men because they have been forced to take on both wage and social-reproductive labor, then negotiate this contradiction individually. If women are uniquely burdened by competing family and work roles, then both must be reorganized, redistributed, and alleviated by social-democratic care policies.