Pub. 17 2020 Issue 1

10 O V E R A C E N T U R Y : B U I L D I N G B E T T E R B A N K S — H E L P I N G N E W M E X I C O R E A L I Z E D R E A M S WHAT THE CORONAVIRUS HAS REVEALED — OPINION By Mark Anderson, Legal and Legislative Assistant, New Mexico Bankers Association T he Coronavirus pandemic has overtaken our lives and turned the world into one we've never known before. It's an incredibly significant event that will take a long time to process, but it's important to step back and look at what this pandemic has revealed about our society. It's a rare opportunity to exam- ine what we can improve upon as a nation and, if we rally together, we can radically improve this country. Countless stories have occurred on the individual level of workers acting heroically in the face of this virus and people attempting to organize their lives amid complete chaos. Still, this virus has been amazingly revelatory in a relatively short period of time on a more macro level as well. I'm going to look at some of what the COVID-19 crisis has revealed on a larger scale. This moment can be labeled a humanitarian crisis, a health care crisis and an economic crisis all in one. Because of the way the United States is structured, we are uniquely vulner - able to a pandemic like this. First, we are the only developed country that doesn't offer universal health care. Because we have health insurance tied to employment, a foolish struc- ture that has been fully exposed during this pandemic, many Americans will now receive the double whammy of losing both employment and health insurance. Early projections from Health Management Associates indicate that 35-40 million Americans could lose health insurance during this pandemic at a time when they can least afford to do so. For years and years, politicians on both sides have main- tained that Medicare-for-All was a pipe dream because of the cost and the question that would constantly be asked around the subject was, "How are you going to pay for it?" The actual issue was never how we are going to pay for it, but the fact that many politicians of both political parties don't want to lift a finger for the average constituent because they are influenced by important donors. This has become increasingly clear and if many Americans don't realize it during this pandemic, they likely never will. It's time that we demand more from