Jackson: SC should expand health care for poor

Veteran civil rights leader Jesse Jackson continued to press Friday for expansion of health care for the poor in South Carolina.

Political leaders in his home state should end resistance and recognize that improving medical treatment is vital to prosperity, he said.

Better health care should become as much a goal as enhancing education to assure economic and social progress, Jackson said.

He singled out Gov. Nikki Haley, saying her opposition is “trying to block the new South Carolina.”

Haley, like many other Republicans, says the step is too costly, even though supporters of the idea say much of it would be paid for by federal aid.

Jackson joined lawmakers and clergy at a seminar at Brookland Baptist Church in West Columbia in promoting a package of goals that include better health care for the poor. The news conference was sponsored by the Legislative Black Caucus, Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH coalition, the Conference of Black Mayors and the SC Progressive Network.

He also called for making voter registration automatic at 18, ending labor for prisoners and increasing efforts to assure that firms owned by African-Americans receive a greater share of work on state projects.

The political and social climate for African-Americans has improved greatly but “we definitely have a long way to go,” said the Rev. James Blassingame, a Sumter pastor who is president of the Baptist Educational and Missionary Convention.

A push for the causes Jackson champions has emerged as a follow-up to removal of the Confederate battle flag in July from State House grounds, a longtime goal of African-American leaders.

“The flag is down but this agenda is up,” Jackson said.

This story was originally published August 28, 2015 at 3:23 PM.