General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMaybe a pandemic is what we need to push us to Medicare for All
If the worst comes to pass and millions of Americans are sickened with COVID, the health care costs will be astronomical. Perhaps that would open our collective eyes to the mess that is our for-profit health care system.
treestar
(82,383 posts)Zero imagination. Has to be a fact before peoples' eyes.
OhZone
(3,212 posts)DemoTex
(25,403 posts)Squinch
(51,004 posts)NickB79
(19,258 posts)I don't want a pandemic, but if one comes, the only way that millions of Americans won't be saddled with crushing medical debt is through government assistance and health care reform.
IADEMO2004
(5,559 posts)Firestorm49
(4,037 posts)of another week of corruption. Hes probably giddy.
GeorgeGist
(25,323 posts)Wounded Bear
(58,706 posts)Our healthcare industry is not ready for a pandemic of any size.
My fear, though, is that Trump and Repubs will turn this into an opportunity to grab more power.
Midnightwalk
(3,131 posts)Horrible thought but it also wont work.
A pandemic would feed a the wrong idea that government involvement in health matters doesnt work. Even though it would be a CDC failure rather than a healthcare failure.
By that point there would be quarantines and maybe travel restrictions. The government would be involved.
You can imagine the narrative. The government couldnt handle containing a virus. Do you really want them managing your healthcare? Non sequitor but that wont slow that message.
Shermann
(7,428 posts)So there are two silver linings on that dark cloud.
democrattotheend
(11,607 posts)If anything, I'm thinking it's better we don't have M4A, because if we did the GOP would underfund it the first chance they got and then it would be unable to handle something like this, and then they'd use it to "show" how badly government funded healthcare works.
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)The story of Osmel Martinez Azcue is cautionary. See the Crooks & Liars account here.
Basically, Azcue came back from a trip to Asia recently and had some flu-like symptoms. Being a conscientious citizen, he went to the local hospital to get it checked out, and to make sure he wasn't carrying the Coronavirus. Would that everyone who experienced such symptoms did that.
In exchange for doing the right thing, Azcue got socked with a hospital bill in the thousands of dollars that wasn't covered by the cut-rate non-insurance insurance he had. Non-insurance insurance (low premiums, but doesn't cover much of anything) has made a comeback in our health care system thanks to the Trump administration. Some of our fellow citizens sympathize with Azcue, but a significant portion of our fellow citizens are perfectly happy to place all the blame for his situation on Azcue.
Even though Azcue did what he should have done, he committed the sin of buying cut-rate insurance, which absolves the rest of us and our fucked-up health care system from any blame for his predicament. There's always a reason to maintain the status quo, even when the present system inflicts such needless suffering.