Although the U.S. has less than 5% of the world’s population, U.S. COVID cases currently (as of Jan. 18, 2021) comprise a staggering 20% of world-wide COVID cases and 15% of the world’s COVID deaths. How is that possible? It boils down to one big lack —a national single payer health care system (aka Medicare-for-all). Instead America has a for-profit healthcare industry focused on private gain not public health. The evidence is everywhere you look whether it’s the contradictory messaging coming out of government health agencies, stumbling and bumbling progress in acquiring needed equipment and supplies and the specter of all segments of the medical industrial complex from providers to institutions trying to make a quick buck off the backs of desperate Americans. How could single payer healthcare surmount these obstacles? First and foremost, end the reign of the private health insurance industry where faceless bureaucrats hold the power of life or death over their customers by denying treatment or medication. End those punishing premiums, deductibles and copays that make health insurance unaffordable for a vast number of Americans. End employees’ fear that losing their jobs will cut off their families’ access to medical care. End those narrow provider networks which rob people of the freedom to choose a provider or facility. Between for-profit medical care and rampaging COVID, it’s been a bleak winter in the U.S. To those of you who shake your heads in frustration or bow them in resignation, check out “For-Profit Healthcare Meets the Pandemic and Collapses” and prepare to be dumbfounded at how deep the rot in for-profit medicine goes.
