Robert Reich: America has no real public health system – coronavirus has a clear run // America Is a Sham
In America, the word 'public' means a sum total of individual needs, not the
common good.
Dr Anthony S
Fauci, director of
the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and just about the only
official in the Trump administration trusted to tell the truth about the
coronavirus, said last Thursday: “The system does not, is not really geared to
what we need right now … It is a failing, let’s admit it.” While we’re at it,
let’s admit something more basic. The system would be failing even under a
halfway competent president. The dirty little secret, is that there is no real public health system in the United
States.
The ad hoc response
fashioned late Friday by
House Democrats and the White House may help a bit, although it’s
skimpy, as I’ll explain. As the coronavirus outbreak in the US follows the same
grim exponential growth path first displayed in Wuhan, China, before herculean
measures were put in place to slow its spread there, America is waking up to
the fact that it has almost no public capacity to deal with it.
America Is a Sham why should any sick worker fear losing their pay or their job at any time? And why are the most vulnerable to punitive sick leave practices the workers making the lowest wages? In every single one of these cases, it’s not just that most of these practices are accepted as “standard.” It’s that they are a way to punish people, to make lives more difficult, or to make sure that money keeps flowing upward..
Instead of a
public health system, we have a private for-profit system for individuals lucky
enough to afford it and a rickety social insurance system for people fortunate
enough to have a full-time job. At their best, both
systems respond to the needs of individuals rather than the needs of the public
as a whole. In America, the word “public” – as in public health, public
education or public welfare – means a sum total of individual needs, not the
common good. Contrast this with
America’s financial system. The Federal
Reserve concerns itself with the health of financial markets as a
whole. Late last week the Fed made $1.5tn available to banks, at the slightest
hint of difficulties making trades. No one batted an eye.
When it comes to the
health of the nation as a whole, money like this isn’t available. And there are
no institutions analogous to the Fed with responsibility for overseeing and
managing the public’s health – able to whip out a giant checkbook at a moment’s
notice to prevent human, rather than financial, devastation....read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/15/america-public-health-system-coronavirus-trump