By Johnathon Ross, M.D., M.P.H.
The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, Letters, June 3, 2020
The social distancing needed to fight the COVID-19 outbreak shut down the economy. Most of the country has avoided overwhelming our dangerously unprepared, fragmented and profit-seeking health system. We now face a looming severe recession.
Over 30 million have lost their jobs and many will lose their employer-based health insurance. Even before the pandemic, 30 million were uninsured and 44 million more underinsured. One in three Americans already go without needed medical care because of costs. Medical bankruptcies are commonplace.
As the economy spirals downward, unaffordable health care bills will compound the suffering already caused by this pandemic.
Recent legislation eliminated cost-sharing for COVID-19-related diagnostic testing. However, it didn’t cover treatment for COVID-19 or any other illnesses. Nearly a third of Americans now face a potential health care financial disaster.
This COVID-19 crisis proves we need health care as a human right, not an employment benefit. An improved and expanded Medicare for All would guarantee affordable seamless lifelong coverage for everyone in the United States, eliminate cost barriers for needed care, whether for COVID-19 or other conditions, and ensure that precious health care dollars are spent on care — not wasteful bureaucracy and corporate profits.
We must demand fundamental reform now.
Johnathon Ross, M.D., secretary, Single Payer Action Network of Ohio, Toledo