I wish it were not the case but it is: I have an intimate knowledge of the US healthcare system. Back in 2008, on a sun-dappled December day in Washington DC, we took my 9-year-old son to the doctor: he’d been losing weight and seemed out of sorts.
Everything changed for him that day and for us as a family. He was diagnosed with type one diabetes; incurable, dangerous, and in those days, deeply unpleasant for children who had to prick their fingers and inject themselves with insulin every few hours.
How did the US system perform?
Magnificently. No waiting. No fuss. No rationing of anything. A hospital stay. Kit and caboodle to help cope at home. Appointments with sales people during which they would compete to try to get us to choose their insulin pump over the other guys’. Everything paid for by our insurers.
We worried about plenty of things, but never the availability of anything that any human being had ever invented to cope with this condition.
This is why Covid-19 presents such a foundational threat to the US healthcare system. That’s why it could change the politics of healthcare in a way that will leave both Donald Trump and Joe Biden (let us assume it is him) scrambling for new thinking by the time of the presidential election.
Bluntly: the unfairness does not matter. The fact that plenty of Americans with type one diabetes struggle to get even basic care and the insulin to keep them alive has motivated the Bernie Sanders Left to call for a UK–style guarantee of government funded care — but frankly they have made little political headway. The tipping point, the moment of truth, is not the public health emergency caused by a weak primary care system, or the inability of millions of uninsured people to get access to a doctor at all.
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SubscribeLet’s hope it’s OK. The article is short on facts and figures but it’s worth noting that: A/the vast majority of cases don’t require hospital care at all and B/ that America has some formidable additional resources available through FEMA, other agencies and their military institutions.
Good luck to all.
The US has seen only a few more deaths than the UK. This seems to be quite an achievement given the relative populations and the fact that all its medical supplies etc have been outsourced to China. Trump’s travel bans have saved perhaps thousands of American lives. This makes him more or less the only US president in my lifetime to save lives rather than squander them.
So, the USA currently has a limited number of ICU beds. Like EVERY other country. And, like other countries, the USA can work around any shortfall by repurposing other spaces and staff, buying and manufacturing more equipment, and building more wards if needs be.
What a crap article. It is beyond tiresome to have this crisis become yet another excuse for anti-American sentiment. Don’t know this writer but presume his BBC history should be indicative.
This article doesn’t have updated info. I’m going to deliberately ignore the anti-Capitalist bent, to focus on the truth. Many insurers are guaranteeing COVID-29 patients that they will bear no financial burden for their Drs. appointments and hospital stay. That relieves literally millions of dollars of debt from the consumer. The government is actively courting alot of other insurance companies to do the same. Make no mistake. Never count America out. We can handle this pandemic just fine. The gleeful drooling by the EU, at the mere thought America isnt up to handling COVID19, shows just how sick, twisted & poisonous the anti-America, anti-Capatilist, anti-freedom organizations have become. Never bet against us.