For the past two years, American health care has had Jekyll and Hyde qualities.
Meanwhile, the federal government has been actively intervening to help people avoid or recover from COVID-19. Meanwhile, it waits while Americans fight other illnesses and expose vast cracks in the broken system.
The government’s pandemic response is incomplete, but in many ways successful. Is there a lesson on how to treat other illnesses?
For example, the Biden administration is currently taking steps to give Americans access to COVID-19’s rapid home test kit.
Acting late and swiftly, the government has launched a centralized, easy-to-understand website for people to order free antigenic test kits. The site is surprisingly easy to use, requires no information other than name and address, and is distributed by the United States Postal Service.
That effort followed the announcement that a private health insurance company would need to reimburse patients for the cost of such tests purchased from their pockets.
The government is finally offering free masks. Experts now say that reusable cloth masks aren’t enough for Omicron, and the White House will make 400 million N95 masks from strategic national stockpiles available to Americans for free. Announced the program.
The insurance company even agreed to cover all COVID-19 treatment costs until last fall, but the uninsured was borne by the government itself.
At the same time, these policies show that the federal government is recognizing the exorbitant costs of rapidly changing and protecting itself from increasingly contagious viruses. Vaccines, tests, and even almost free treatment, policy makers are more intervening in COVID-19 than any other medical problem.
This is commendable. But what about Americans with other conditions?
Cancer affects 1.6 million Americans each year and is the second leading cause of death in the United States. Cancer-related mortality rates are much higher for people who do not have health insurance. Similar trends exist in millions of Americans with heart disease, diabetes, and other common illnesses.
What do you need to treat these illnesses, as you did with COVID-19? In other words, it is a centralized universal healthcare system.
We are the only big and wealthy country without it. Instead, we have added very poor countries like Afghanistan and Yemen to the list of 10 notable countries without a universal health care system run by the government.
It shows. According to the Federal Reserve, 17% of adults will “pay unexpectedly high medical costs” in 2020, and nearly a quarter of U.S. adults will “get medical care because of insolvency.” I didn’t. “
Medicare for All saves money and lives over relying on a private insurance company. It would also improve our pandemic response.
Vaccine and testing deployments were often confused as the federal government had to rely on private and public health care, private commercial drugstore chains, and patchwork systems for small nonprofits.
According to Public Citizen, “Countries with a more unified system are deploying tests because they do not have to navigate a large number of private insurers or handle uninsured testing and treatment. , You can track the spread and intervene appropriately. ” “
The solution seems simple. Extend the COVID-19 exception to cover all illnesses, or extend the Medicare program to cover all Americans. Both steps guarantee that Americans will not give up medical care because they cannot pay.
Sonali Kolhatkar is the host of the Freedom of Speech television and Pacifica television and radio show “Rising Up With Sonali”. This commentary was created by the Independent Media Institute’s Economy for All project and adopted by OtherWords.org.
