The Coronavirus pandemic is revealing at least two sets of problems in the United States. One set is the almost unbelievable level of President Trump’s ignorance and incompetence, along with his colossal disregard for human lives. The other is the non-existence of an American public health system.
I agree with Ralph Nader. President Trump is a clear and present danger to the United States. And his handling of the Coronavirus pandemic, the tip of the iceberg, is our focus here.
By the first week of January, Chinese scientists had identified and announced a coronavirus that was different and needed to be addressed as such. Several countries, especially in Asia, began to do something. But the U.S. did not.
South Korea and the United States confirmed their first coronavirus cases within a day of the other in late January. South Korea immediately began testing its population and instituting other measures to contain the spread of Covid-19. Meanwhile, Trump denied that it was a significant problem for the United States. As a result, the number of new cases of Covid-19 are decreasing in South Korea, while new cases are soaring in the United States.
The U.S. did know how to prevent or lessen the Coronavirus pandemic because in October 2019, before the Covid-19 outbreak, there was a pandemic exercise hosted by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in collaboration with World Economic Forum and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Rather than acting on this knowledge, Trump began his campaign of denial and lies, when tests should have been developed and supplies assembled. Many lives will be lost to this virus, but this delay added significantly to the toll. There is blood on his hands.
But there is another major problem we have, besides Trump. We do not have a public health system. Instead, as Robert Reich makes clear, we have a private for-profit system for individuals lucky enough to afford it.
“In America, the word ‘public’ – as in public health, public education or public welfare –means a total of individual needs, not the common good. Contrast this with America’s financial system. The Federal Reserve concerns itself with the health of financial markets as a whole. Late last week, the Fed made $1.5 trillion available to banks at the slightest hint of difficulties making trades.”
Thus we have a system to protect finances and financiers, but not one to protect the people’s health. Even if a test for the Covid-19 virus had been developed and approved in time, no institutions are in place to administer it to tens of millions of Americans free of charge.
As the dysfunctionality of the current health care system becomes more apparent, and the horrors of the private health insurance system keep being displayed, the public is moving toward a single-payer system (Medicare-for-All). A new poll shows a solid majority of Americans, 55 percent, in favor of such a system.
However, Almost the entire medical care industry is aligned against Medicare-for-All. Hospitals oppose it, insurance companies oppose it, and drug companies oppose it—for obvious reasons, their profits. But not the American College of Physicians, who represent primary care physicians. They came out for Medicare-for-All last month.
The evidence is clear. A “Medicare for All” single-payer system would guarantee comprehensive coverage to everyone in America and save money. Colleagues at three University of California campuses examined 22 studies on the projected cost for single-payer health insurance (Medicare-for-All) and reported their findings in PLOS Medicine. Every single study predicted that it would yield net savings over several years.
Among its many impacts, the coronavirus pandemic is underscoring the serious dysfunction of America’s mostly profit-driven health care system and that system’s inhumanity. Establishing a Medicare-for-All type health care system would be a significant step toward a public health system.
