Jimmy Dore: “You’re only as healthy as the least insured person around you”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUVdSSOQHbQ

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Talks Coronavirus, the 2020 Election and the Youth Vote

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_WZym7ZJXE

What must be done to fight the Pandemic

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/03/06/pers-m06.html



6 March 2020

The coronavirus pandemic continues to spread through dozens of countries around the world in what is among the worst outbreaks of infectious disease in a century, threatening the lives of millions of people.

Refuting the White House’s criminally dishonest dismissal of the disease’s severity, the number of cases in the United States continues to rise rapidly. The response at every level of government has been negligent and incompetent, exposing a total lack of planning and preparation in the world’s richest capitalist country.

Even as the White House was downplaying the lethality of the virus and equating it with the common flu, the United Nations’ World Health Organization (WHO) reported on March 4 that 3.4 percent of people infected by the coronavirus had died.

There is no way to accurately determine the extent of the infection in the United States because of the absence of testing equipment.

The indifference of the Trump administration to the health of the population is no better, and perhaps worse, than the attitude of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt to the slaves. The media has spent far more time bemoaning the fall in share values on Wall Street than the loss of human life.

Congress has authorized a mere $8.3 billion to fight the outbreak—less than one tenth the annual cost of the war in Afghanistan and one fifteenth the wealth of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

Without emergency intervention, there is a danger that this pandemic will spread uncontrollably throughout the population and cause a staggering loss of life. In the worst-case scenario, outlined this week by Dr. Marc Lipsitch of Harvard University, as much as 60 percent of the global population could become infected. At current rates of mortality, this would mean the deaths of over a hundred million men, women and children.

As the World Health Organization pointed out in its February 28 report, “The COVID-19 virus is a new pathogen that is highly contagious, can spread quickly, and must be considered capable of causing enormous health, economic and societal impacts in any setting.”

The report noted that the virus “is transmitted via droplets and fomites [objects] during close unprotected contact between an infector and infectee.” The WHO added that “human-to-human transmission of the COVID-19 virus is largely occurring in families.”

Measures can be taken to dramatically reduce the number of infections and prevent the loss of countless lives. But the response of governments throughout the world has been disastrously inadequate and an untold number of people will die as a result. The vast majority of the victims will be from the working class, the poor and other vulnerable sections of society.

This social catastrophe must be prevented. All sections of the working class, youth and students must demand that governments take emergency action to stop the spread of the virus and provide the necessary care for all those who are infected by the disease. This requires a massive reallocation of social resources.

The principle that must guide the response is that the needs of society overrule the interests of profit. Capitalist calculations of share values and profits must not be allowed to limit, undermine, or prevent the combating of the disease.

From this standpoint we raise the following demands:

No expense can be spared in making testing for the coronavirus available immediately in every country. Trillions of dollars must be invested internationally in testing regimes, the manufacture of protective clothing, the purchase of oxygen machines and other necessary technology, the construction of new hospitals and the expansion of existing hospital facilities.


Accessible and universal testing: There is no way to combat the spread of coronavirus without testing that is accessible to all those who show symptoms. It is essential that testing be made available immediately throughout the United States and the entire world.

Free high-quality treatment: Stopping the spread of the coronavirus is impossible in a society where only those with money can see a doctor. In a country like the United States, where the average household cannot afford to pay cash for a $400 expense, providing free treatment is inseparable from controlling the spread of the disease.

Every country must immediately begin to provide free testing and treatment, and pay all medical costs associated with the coronavirus. Medical care is not a privilege, it is a right!

Paid sick leave for all workers: It is vital to ensure that workers do not feel pressured to work when they are sick. Corporations and governments must immediately begin providing paid sick leave for all employees.

Equality of care: In the United States, a vast and disproportionate share of medical resources is monopolized by the financial oligarchy. Reports abound of the V.I.P. emergency rooms in Manhattan and the Hamptons for the super-rich, and the massive emergency bunkers and private medical treatment centers being constructed by the oligarchs in their own mansions.

There can be no preferential treatment in combating this pandemic! Equality of care is not only a moral question, but an urgent social necessity. The private doctors of the rich and those engaged in vanity procedures must be immediately drafted to treat the general population. Access to care must be determined by necessity, not wealth. The rich have the right to the same treatment as anyone else—but no better.

Protect refugees, prisoners and the homeless: Around the world, millions of people are homeless, millions more are fleeing war and poverty, and countless others are imprisoned under conditions that make them vulnerable to infectious disease. Everything must be done to improve the conditions of prisoners, refugees and the homeless and provide these vulnerable populations with access to hygiene and the best quality medical care.

Stop price gouging: Medical supplies and sanitary products must be made available to households and medical workers, and all those profiting from the crisis should be held criminally liable.

Safe working conditions: Employers and the government must be responsible for providing all employees—from medical workers to factory, warehouse, retail and service workers—with a safe work environment.

The supervision of safety cannot be left to the employers. Workers should form rank-and-file committees to make sure that safety codes are being observed by the employers and measures are being taken to combat the spread of the disease. These committees will ensure that workers are not compelled to work in an unsafe environment and that coworkers who become ill receive the necessary treatment and support.

Support the ill and the quarantined: No one should fear that being designated and quarantined means neglect and ostracism. Workers should form neighborhood committees to ensure that those who are sick and quarantined are safe and have social support and the necessary food and supplies.

For international collaboration: US economic sanctions against Iran are causing severe medical shortages in a country with over 3,000 coronavirus cases, and the US political establishment has been waging a campaign to demonize Chinese scientists and doctors. All sanctions must immediately be lifted and all restrictions on international medical collaboration ended!

In responding to this dangerous disease, one principle must guide us: that human need is primary. Combating an epidemic that threatens millions of lives cannot be subordinated to considerations of private profit.

Any claim that there is no money to save the lives of millions of people is a contemptible lie. In the United States alone, there are more than 13,000 individuals with over $30 million in wealth. Just three people—Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett—own more wealth than the poorest half of American society.

Funding shortfalls must be covered by emergency seizures of the fortunes of ultra-high-net-worth individuals.

It is necessary to build a mass movement of the working class to demand an immediate emergency response to the crisis, to be paid for by the corporations, the government and the financial oligarchy.

As the International Committee of the Fourth International wrote its statement of February 28, 2020:


In demanding that capitalist governments implement these emergency measures, the international working class does not abandon its fundamental aim: the ending of the capitalist system. Rather, the fight for emergency action will raise the consciousness of the working class, develop its understanding of the need for international class solidarity, and increase its political self-confidence.

The opportunities provided by modern medical technology to stop such an outbreak are unprecedented. Never before has so much been known about a pathogen so early: Its genome has been sequenced and effective tests have been designed within a matter of weeks.

But the outbreak of the disease has exposed the gaping chasm between the enormous promise of modern medical technology and the totally irrational character of a society based on the private accumulation of wealth.

Whatever the outcome of this pandemic, the crisis irrefutably establishes the fact that capitalism cannot deal with the existential threats facing humanity—from climate change to natural disasters and infectious diseases. The coronavirus crisis poses the urgent necessity for the socialist reorganization of society.

Statement of the Socialist Equality Party (United States)

Will Joe Biden Run Away from Bernie Sanders Debate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM2pQ-OvJXw&feature

Dying Medicare for All Activist Ady Barkan Says, "I'm All In" for Bernie Sanders

"It's not about him. It's about us."
by
Jon Queally, staff writer





3 Comments




https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/05/following-warren-exit-dying-medicare-all-activist-ady-barkan-says-im-all-bernie?







Dying healthcare rights activist Ady Barkan announced he was "all in" for Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday, just hours after the candidate he earlier endorsed, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, dropped out of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.

While Barkan—who found the Be a Hero organization to advocate for progressive issues, including Medicare for All—endorsed Warren over Sanders in November, he says now there is only one candidate in the Democratic race with the kind of vision he believes is needed in the White House.

Sanders, said Barkan: "has reshaped American politics. Reshaped what we think is possible. Reshaped how we dare to dream. But, of course, it's not about him. It's about us.


In an earlier tweet, Barkan thank Warren for her inspiring campaign. "Your candidacy has been simply stunning: From your historic platform to your exceptional modeling of what it means to be humble and open to critique to your repeated recounting of the history of America's freedom fighters," Barkan said, addressing the Senator. "You have so much to be proud of."

The fresh endorsement of Sanders comes as progressives nationwide on Thursday urged Warren to join forces with the Vermont Senator to take on former Vice President Joe Biden and the corporate establishment that has now rallied around him.

'Give Us an Hour on MSNBC': Sanders Says He Would Love to Debate Medicare for All vs. For-Profit System With Joe Biden

"We're spending twice as much per capita on healthcare as the people of any other country and yet 27 million are uninsured, 30,000 people die, half a million people go bankrupt every year because of medical-related debt, and we spend far and away the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. You want to defend that system?" Sanders said. "Let's do it."



Jon Queally, staff writer




https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/05/give-us-hour-msnbc-sanders-says-he-would-love-debate-medicare-all-vs-profit-system?







Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday night said he would "love to debate Joe Biden on this issue"—the difference between a Medicare for All plan that dozens of studies show would cover all people for less overall cost and the for-profit status quo that leaves an estimated 28 million Americans uninsured and tens of millions more underinsured, vulnerable to bankruptcies, or lacking care due to financial reasons.

"It's time to say it: Medicare for All is now the mainstream, popular, nationwide consensus position for the Democratic Party in 2020. Voters are sick and tired of awful deductibles, surprise bills, stifling networks, and begging strangers for help with medical bills on GoFundMe." —Wendell Potter, Medicare for All Now"Medicare for All is wildly popular with working class and lower income people who understand that we have a dysfunctional health care system," Sanders said in an interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.

"We are spending twice as much—and by the way—I would love to debate Joe Biden on this issue, give us an hour on MSNBC," Sanders said, "where we can talk about how anyone can defend this system in which we're spending twice as much per capita on healthcare as the people of any other country and yet 27 million are uninsured, 30,000 people die, half a million people go bankrupt every year because of medical-related debt, and we spend far and away the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. You want to defend that system? Let's do it."

Watch:


While Sanders won the biggest-delegate state of California on Super Tuesday—along with victories in Colorado, Utah, and Vermont—Biden swept the other ten states leaving him with a slight lead in the national count for Democratic delegates in the party's primary. Strikingly, in every single one of the primary races held so far that had entrance or exit polls on the question, Medicare for All has shown to be more popular with Democratic primary voters compared to those defending the for-profit system.

Wendell Potter, a former health insurance executive turned whistleblower who now runs the group Medicare for All Now, said the primary polling should be considered a "watershed moment" in public opinion:


"It's time to say it," Potter continued, "Medicare for All is now the mainstream, popular, nationwide consensus position for the Democratic Party in 2020. Voters are sick and tired of awful deductibles, surprise bills, stifling networks, and begging strangers for help with medical bills on GoFundMe."

"To my great shame," he added, "I spent years helping the private insurance industry trick the American people into thinking the for-profit healthcare system benefits them, when the very opposite is true. I've never been more glad to see my own legacy erased. It's a new era in America."




As study after study after study after study has shown, Medicare for All would cost the American people less money overall while providing comprehensive, free at point of service coverage to all—even as Biden continues to fearmonger over the pricetag.

Sanders has made Medicare for All a cornerstone of his 2020 campaign while Biden has attacked the progressive solution to the nation's healthcare woes by using GOP and insurance industry talking points and misleading mathematics to denounce it.

As Biden has repeatedly attacked the ten-year estimated cost of Medicare for All by saying it would cost $35 trillion, what he repeatedly leaves out is that, as Los Angeles Times columnist David Lazarus points out this week, citing figures from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, total spending under the status quo for-profit system "over the subsequent 10 years likely will reach a staggering $60 trillion — at least." As Lazarus writes:


That's the cost of doing nothing. It's what opponents of healthcare reform are saying is our best option.

And that, of course, is insane.

"We've gotten ourselves into a big hole by letting expenditures get out of hand," said Vivian Ho, a healthcare economist at Rice University. "It's happening right before our eyes, and we're not doing anything about it."

On Thursday morning, a new study by researcher Josh Bivens at the Economic Policy Institute found that a Medicare for All system "would bolster the labor market, strengthen economic security for millions of U.S. households, and would likely boost the number of jobs in the U.S. labor market."

Medicare for All, according to the study, would:
Provide a potential boost to wages and salaries by allowing employers to redirect healthcare spending to workers' wages.
Increase job quality by ensuring that every job would come bundled with a guarantee of health care.
Lessen the income loss, stress, and economic shock of unemployment and job transitions by eliminating the loss of health care that accompanies job-loss
Support self-employment and small business development—which is low in the United States relative to other rich Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries—by eliminating the daunting cost of health care from startup costs.
Inject new dynamism into the overall economy by reducing "job lock," by allowing workers to go where their skills and preferences lie, not just to workplaces with affordable health plans.

"A fundamental health reform like Medicare for All would be an unambiguously good policy for the labor market, for the economy overall, and for U.S. workers," Bivens said in a statement. "Besides the obvious benefits of expanding health care to millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans, Medicare for All could raise wages, boost productivity, and help small business owners."

'Hospitals Not Prepared,' Warn Nurses as Nationwide Survey Shows 'Fractured' System Amid Coronavirus Outbreak

"We just don't have the capacity in the hospitals and health systems to deal with a massive influx of patients and keep them isolated."

Eoin Higgins, staff writer





9 Comments







https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/05/hospitals-not-prepared-warn-nurses-nationwide-survey-shows-fractured-system-amid?
















The nation's healthcare system is unprepared to handle a coronavirus outbreak that could already be underway, health professionals are warning, and the result could be "chaos."

"This crisis highlights our country's completely fractured health care system and failure to invest in public health," said Bonnie Castillo, executive director of the National Nurses United (NNU), on Thursday as her union released preliminary findings from an ongoing nationwide survey of health professionals and facilities.

"Facilities don't have a plan, or they haven't explained the plan, or they don't have the supplies, equipment, and training to carry out any plan," said Castillo. "The outcome of this chaos is that health care workers, patients, and the entire community are exposed to this virus and needlessly put at risk."

The survey focused on coronavirus (also known as COVID-19) preparedness and made clear that the vast majority of healthcare facilities are not ready to deal with an outbreak, the group said.

According to NNU:


Thousands of responses show that high percentages of hospitals do not have plans, isolation procedures, and policies in place for COVID-19; that communication to staff by employers is poor or nonexistent; that hospitals are lacking sufficient stocks of personal protective equipment (PPE) or are not making current stocks readily available, and have not provided training and practice to staff on how to properly use PPE.

"The survey results confirm what we have been hearing from nurses across the country: Hospitals are not prepared," said Castillo. "This crisis highlights our country's completely fractured health care system and failure to invest in public health."

The survey results came just after President Donald Trump said on national television Wednesday night that people with the coronavirus could go to work and suggested—based on a "hunch"—that global reporting on the virus' death rate was false.

A Washington Post report Wednesday evening cited similar concerns from health professionals worried about their ability to handle an outbreak.




"We just don't have the capacity in the hospitals and health systems to deal with a massive influx of patients and keep them isolated," Johns Hopkins University professor Gerard Anderson told the Post.

According to the Post:



The amount of federal funding given to state and local officials to prepare for health emergencies has been cut in half or more over the past couple of decades, according to Crystal Watson, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.


The two key federal programs amounted to $1.4 billion in 2003. Those two programs amount to $662 million this year.



"Every administration has made cuts to these programs," Watson said. "It's been in a downward trend for a long time."

In Seattle, the hardest-hit U.S. community to date, city councilmember Kshama Sawant called on local and state officials to take action to protect the public beyond simply declaring the situation an emergency.


In its press release announcing the survey's results, NNU called on federal and state governments, as well as health facilities, to emphasize clear communication, health protocols, and to immediately provide federal spending to address the unfolding crisis. NNU Executive Council vice president and nurse Cathy Kennedy said that help from healthcare administrators would be critical to ensuring public health.

"Nurses are confident that we can contain this disease and prevent unnecessary deaths and suffering," said Kennedy. "But our employers and the government need to provide us with the right guidelines, staffing, equipment, and supplies in order for us to do this work safely. We, our patients, and the public deserve nothing less."