At the present time, approximately 28 million Americans (9% of the population) do not have health insurance, mostly because they cannot afford it. But if those 28 million Americans don't have access to health care, they won't visit the doctor or seek medical treatment.
From a practical point of view, those uninsured will end up spreading COVID-19 to the rest of the population.
So it makes sense that SOMEONE has to pay for basic health care for the poorest 9%.
Otherwise the other 91% of the population will suffer as well.
There are studies which show that universal health coverage (which has to involve subsidies to the poorest), results in a healthier population OVERALL.
The original goal of Obamacare was that the poorest would barely have to pay anything.
It would be along the lines of the UK or Germany for example, where the unemployed and low income earners barely pay anything, but still have access to basic healthcare.
They would be subsidised by the middle and higher income earners.
But then the Republicans gutted Obamacare so this didn't happen.
From a moral and philosophical point of view, a nation which see sees itself as a single people, shouldn't begrudge basic health care for the poorest sections of its fellow citizens.
After all, who knows if you will lose your own job and then need basic health care provided by the government?
And looking forward to the future after COVID-19 has passed, a rational US would enact universal health care for the entire population, and ensure the poorest only pay minimally. We're talking like a $5 copayment for each visit to a family doctor.
But Republican ideology is against government intervention and subsidies to the poorest.
Plus the existing entrenched healthcare lobby is happy with the situation as it is.
Remember, they did manage to gut Obamacare.
I DID lose my job Andrew! and NO I did NOT receive GOVT healthcare, I was unemployed for nearly 2 years, in fact Obamacare individual mandate fined me a couple of thousand bucks for NOT having health insurance,,, I can assure you I was very poor at that time with NO money in savings, and yes it did hurt me, my wife, and our children....
I used 763 US dollars a month to pay my Cobra health ins for the first 18 months until that ran out and my previous employer cancelled my coverage, then I was fined for each month thereafter until I found a job with healthcare coverage....
So that nonsense about the government providing basic healthcare is NOT true, doesn't happen, didn't happen.....
end off topic: anyway, this is the coronavirus, no unsubstantiated rumours thread, so back on topic
Hospitals in the US do not turn away patients, they treat them, they have for a very long time, the money they don't collect from those patients is "charged back" to the patients, who have health care and do pay... so we all pay higher prices for those who are treated without medical coverage.
So NO ONE who "presents" at a hospital with coronavirus symptoms will be turned away, they will be placed in isolation and treated....
Now the govt is making a valiant effort to make sure people are cared for and provided the outstanding medical care that so many continue to take for granted.
