Pub. 17 2020 Issue 1
Issue 1 • 2020 11 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 n WHAT THE CORONAVIRUS HAS REVEALED continued on page 12 For years and years, politicians on both sides have maintained 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. our elected officials. Ask yourself this question: Why is it that the United States, the world's wealthiest nation, has been so woefully unprepared to handle this pandemic? It's not a ques- tion of possessing the resources, which we so clearly do, but a matter of having priorities that have become so out of whack. For a full context of some of the factors that have led to this pandemic becoming out-of-control, let's look at a couple of instances that have directly impacted its severity. In 2018, President Donald Trump fired the pandemic response team unit in place on the National Security Council and didn't replace them. This was included in cost-cutting measures that destroyed the United States' infectious disease defense infrastructure. Meanwhile, the U.S. has seen increasingly enormous military budgets over the past few years, deficit-ex - ploding tax cuts for corporations and billionaires, yet the pandemic response team was fired because of cost-cutting. No matter what your political affiliation, this should infuriate every single American and is an illustration of wildly mis- placed priorities. This is a complete failure of our leadership. The President's decision to fire pandemic experts has clearly left us less prepared for this crisis. Secondly, according to reports, Trump was warned about a possible pandemic in both late January and mid-February and reportedly ignored the warnings, didn't disclose anything to the American people, and was labeling the pandemic a "hoax" into late February. When leaders in the federal government refuse to be honest with the American people even in instances of complete crisis, regardless of which side of the aisle they reside, then we must consider that a failure of our system. We are truly in trouble when that happens. This pandemic has exposed many issues that have been bubbling at the surface for a long time, but I believe we can use this moment as either a chance for improvement or possible devolution. As I touched on earlier, our health care system has become a worldwide scandal. Obviously, our doctors and nurses are wonderful, but the insurance system that essentially acts as a price-gouging middleman between everyday Americans and their doctors is rightfully viewed with a combination of horror and disbelief from the outside. Americans should demand a health care system that catches us up to the rest of the devel- oped world. According to former Cigna VP Wendell Potter, now an advocate for a Medicare-for-All system, "I think that Amer- icans are beginning to wake up. One of the things that we saw even just during the first primaries that have been held, more than 20 of them, that every single state where Democrats voted in entrance and exit polls, they said they supported replacing private insurance plans with Medicare-for-All. So, it has wide- spread and growing support. And I think we're going to see that support increase as we go deeper into this crisis. And more and more Americans realize just how we've been sold a bill of goods by the insurance industry over many years." In addition to more than 35 million Americans possibly losing health insurance, according to a study by California health marketplace group Covered California, "Analyzing a wide range of models, Covered California expects that this year's care associated with the virus will cost between $34 billion and $251 billion, or between 2% of premiums and 21% of premiums. The analysis estimates that insurers would price the costs at double the rate into their 2021 premiums, projecting increases that range from as little as 4% to more than 40% for the 170 million workers and individuals who have private plans." So, during a catastrophic health crisis, our health care sys- tem will not only be kicking millions of Americans off their in - surance, but it will also be increasing premiums by up to 40%. Does that sound like a functional health care system? A better health care system, one that catches up with the modern world, should be the absolute bare minimum American voters should be demanding. Something else that the pandemic has fully exposed is that our government's fear-mongering about costs, debt, deficits, etc. is largely a political football used to set the conversation and narrative and to convince voters that improvement simply isn't possible. That's how they sell voters on punishingly slow incrementalism. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is pumping trillions into the economy every week. Also, the United States controls its sovereign currency, so debt only becomes a problem as it relates to inflation. The point is, the United States has more than enough money for things like Medicare-for-All, the elim- ination of student loan debt, a move toward renewable energy, and other goals that will sustain us into the future. Our elect- ed officials simply choose not to prioritize these things. Before this Coronavirus crisis, it would be far easier to write off some of these ideas as things that can be addressed in the future. Not anymore. There was a tenfold spike in
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