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Defending the Affordable Care Act and saying that a Medicare for All program ought to be considered, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi campaigned for Democratic Congresswoman Gwen Moore in Milwaukee Saturday. 

Pelosi spoke to a group of about 75 people at Independence First, a resource center for people with disabilities located on the city's south side.

Moore was not there because she had an unexpected medical issue, one of the event's speakers told the group.

Pelosi, minority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives since 2011, whose district includes San Francisco, has been an advocate for government-paid health care.

"Our goal has always been to expand coverage and to do so in a way that improves benefits ... and we have to address the affordability issue that is so undermined by the Republicans," Pelosi said.

Democrats have strongly opposed President Donald Trump's repeated efforts to scuttle former President Barack Obama's signature achievement, the Affordable Care Act.

Many Democrats have backed government-paid health care for everyone, through Medicare or what's called single payer, a taxpayer-financed system that covers the costs of essential health services. 

"All of it is on the table for discussion, whether it's Medicare for all, single payer or just pushing forward to expand the Affordable Care Act. They all have the same goal, and we look forward to having those discussions," Pelosi said.

"We are not giving up on this fight because (health care) is a value. It's not even an issue; it's a value in our country."

The Affordable Care Act is a good starting point, according to Pelosi.

"The point is, you cannot get to health care for all unless you go down the path of the Affordable Care Act. ... Advocate what you want, figure out how you want to pay for it, but in the meantime let's continue to expand the access," she said.

Trump and congressional Republicans tried repealing the Affordable Care Act last year and failed. But they've chipped away at it, cutting federal subsidies to many insurers, erasing the penalty for people who don't buy insurance and opening the door to low-cost plans providing less coverage.

Pelosi referred to it as "sabotaging" the ACA.

Others at Saturday's event agreed and said health care is a right, not a privilege. They criticized not just the weakening of the ACA but the addition of Medicaid work requirements, drug testing of recipients and other administrative requirements that make it more difficult for individuals to qualify.

"Who on earth, in our history, has ever put a work requirement on Medicaid or Medicare? These are social support networks ... that we must protect at all costs," said University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Vice Chancellor Joan Prince, who stressed she was speaking as an individual and not for UWM. 

"I know many individuals, family members, whose financial health was destroyed by a disease that insurance would not cover," she said. 

Rebecca Bernstein, one of the event's speakers and a family practice physician in Milwaukee, said reining in the cost of coverage is critical for low-income patients covered by the program.

"The ACA is a complex program that varies from person to person ... but my patients are toward the lower end of the income spectrum, where they are insured on the exchange and even small increases in costs are unmanageable."

Candice Owley, president of the Wisconsin Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, said she's also seen the harm of rising health care costs.

"We know that far too often our patients go without medications," she said.

"They skip them, take them every other day, break pills in half or just don't take them at all."

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