Jones Best Understands the Challenges Facing Families Today
I am the volunteer executive director of Sustainable Port Chester Alliance, a former president of my local NAACP branch and a former board member of my local League of Women Voters. I am also a sitting trustee for the Village of Port Chester. There’s a thread that runs through everything I do and that is to create a more just and equitable community.
There is one candidate I trust more than anyone to take this fight with him to Congress, and that’s Mondaire Jones.
Mondaire understands what it’s like to face adversity, and how to persevere when all odds are working against you. He was born to a single mother and grew up living in Section 8 housing and relying on food stamps. He is running because we need a representative who has the lived experience to fight for progressive policies with urgency.
In recent years, my family and I have relied on my husband’s health insurance coverage. But the current crisis is exposing what my family and so many others like ours have known for far too long: this uncertainty is no way to live.
My family has lost coverage before. We know what it’s like to make the difficult decisions you face after you lose coverage due to job loss. Not seeking medical help when you’re sick or avoiding your annual physical altogether because you worry about out-of-pocket expenses, or rationing to extend access to prescription drugs.
We need someone in office who will fight to make sure that families don’t have to cobble together money for medical expenses. Or worse, go without.
Mondaire will fight to alleviate this suffering, and I know he will, because he’s been there himself. At multiple town halls, he has discussed the difficulty he and his family faced affording medical care when he was growing up. He is the only candidate of the top five contenders to call for Medicare for All, which removes the uncertainty of employer-based coverage, fully covering mental healthcare, vision, dental and at-home care, while also capping out-of-pocket prescription drug costs. This would especially help black and brown communities like Port Chester and Mondaire’s childhood home of Spring Valley, which, as we have seen reflected in the COVID-19 death toll, bear the brunt of our current system’s failings.
On June 23, I will cast my ballot for the only candidate who has the lived experience to fight for the future I want to leave my kids. I hope you will join me.
Joan Grangenois-Thomas
Port Chester
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