https://themilitant.com/2020/03/07/for-profit-us-health-care-will-increase-virus-threat/
For-profit US ‘health care’ will increase virus threat
Revolutionary Cuba points the road forward
article
BY ROY LANDERSEN
Vol. 84/No. 10
March 16, 2020
ACN/RODOLFO BLANCO CUÉ Clinic in Camagüey, Cuba, in March. Through its
neighborhood doctors, nurses and special programs put in place since
outbreak of
coronavirus, Cuba has mobilized to confront new disease. Unlike the
for-profit system in capitalist countries, in Cuba no one is left on
their own. figure
Clinic in Camagüey, Cuba, in March. Through its neighborhood doctors,
nurses and special programs put in place since outbreak of coronavirus,
Cuba has
mobilized to confront new disease. Unlike the for-profit system in
capitalist countries, in Cuba no one is left on their own.
ACN/RODOLFO BLANCO CUÉ Clinic in Camagüey, Cuba, in March. Through its
neighborhood doctors, nurses and special programs put in place since
outbreak of
coronavirus, Cuba has mobilized to confront new disease. Unlike the
for-profit system in capitalist countries, in Cuba no one is left on
their own. figure
end
The coronavirus contagion is now spreading faster outside China, where
it first appeared in December, than inside. The Chinese regime’s
extremely aggressive
lockdown of hundreds of millions slowed the advance of the disease for
now, but by March 2 the highly contagious COVID-19 strain had spread to
at least
82 countries. The new hotspots are in Iran, South Korea, northern Italy
and Japan.
COVID-19 is a new disease, and that makes it more dangerous. So far no
government — except revolutionary Cuba — has mobilized all its resources
to prepare
and organize its people to fight it.
The death toll as of March 4 was 3,221 and confirmed cases were over
94,000. The march of the virus is compounding economic, political and
social crises
facing capitalist governments and working people around the world. The
only good news is that the mortality rate so far is relatively low.
In the biggest slump since the 2008 financial crisis, world stock
markets dropped steadily for a week. Finance ministers and central
bankers rushed to
assure wealthy investors they were readying new “stimulus” measures. But
since interest rates remain near zero from previous stimulus efforts,
there’s
little room for anything significant.
Despite attempts by Beijing to restart production after the biggest
quarantine in history, factory production there remains crippled. The
extent of the
industrial shutdown in China and its effect on production elsewhere is a
sharp reminder of the limits of “globalization.”
Authorities in Iran have reported the second highest number of deaths,
77, and 2,336 coronavirus cases, but working people there think these
numbers are
significantly undercounted. Trying to deflect public attention from the
government’s responsibility for the quick spread of the disease there
and to the
surrounding region, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani claimed fears about
the virus are the result of “the enemy’s plots.”
But one in 10 Iranian members of parliament have tested positive and one
has already died. Public trust in the Iranian regime has been further
shaken after
the earlier brutal repression of protests by workers and youth against
the Iranian rulers’ wars abroad and economic crisis at home, as well as
the government’s
effort to cover up the Revolutionary Guard shootdown of a Ukrainian
jetliner.
Opposition to rulers in Iran, Iraq
“We have a very negligent government,” Hamid Bahmani in Sanandaj, Iran,
told the Kurdish publication Rudaw.
“Now is the time for the state and all the other media outlets to
heavily focus on the coronavirus,” Sanandaj pharmacist Dr. Ramin
Husseini said. “One
more reason why the virus spread so fast was that the virus was hidden
from the people after some people who had returned to Iran from China
turned out
to be infected with the virus. It was never announced.”
In Iraq, where people frequently visit back and forth with Iran,
coronavirus cases are beginning to turn up. The government responded by
shutting down
all schools, universities and other public spots through March 7. They
thought this would also mean the end of widespread protests against the
government
that have rocked the country for months. The opposite happened. Many of
the students headed straight to protest centers in Baghdad and Diwaniya.
“The real virus is Iraqi politicians,” 18-year-old Fatima, a medical
student from Baghdad, told Rudaw.
Outraged by the government’s refusal to prepare for the virus, the
protesters began transforming the medical facilities they had set up to
deal with assaults
by the cops and Tehran-backed thugs into centers to deal with COVID-19.
They’ve distributed leaflets and organized lectures on coronavirus
prevention, while volunteers have handed out free medical masks. They’re
dispensing
gloves and sanitizer. And volunteers in biohazard suits are lining up
protesters and taking their temperatures.
“Even in normal times our health care system is totally run down,”
Fatima said. “Now, on top of everything, we have a coronavirus outbreak.”
In the U.S. the government at every level is far from prepared as cases
are beginning to spread. The capitalist rulers see public health
expenditures as
a drain on profits. They know they can afford whatever health care they
may need. This is true whether Democrats or Republicans are in power.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar called for Congress to
back the government’s proposal for $2.5 billion to fight the disease,
including funding
for developing a vaccine. But at a Congressional budget hearing Feb. 26
he flatly opposed the suggestion that such vaccines be made affordable
and accessible
to everyone.
“We can’t control that price because we need the private sector to
invest,” said Azar, a former lobbyist for the Eli Lilly drug development
outfit.
The U.S. rulers have one special problem that flows from their position
as top imperialist dog. Washington has over 100,000 troops stationed
where the
outbreak is spreading, including in South Korea, Japan, Italy and Bahrain.
As the disease spreads in South Korea, the U.S. military has placed all
its bases there — home to 28,500 troops — in lockdown. The U.S. and
South Korean
high commands have also shut down all joint military exercises “until
further notice.”
‘Nobody should be turned away’
“Nobody should be turned away from medical help or hospitalization
because they don’t have health insurance or money or the proper
immigration papers,”
Alyson Kennedy, Socialist Workers Party candidate for president, told
the Militant March 3. “We demand government-provided health care at no
cost for everyone.
“If workers won control over production — a fight that will come in the
future as millions join to fight the effects of the capitalist rulers
attacks on
our class — the production of drugs and equipment needed to treat and
ultimately vaccinate against the virus would be made a priority,
regardless of profit,”
said Kennedy. “Under a workers and farmers government — like they have
in Cuba — the government would organize a crash course to mobilize
working people
to accomplish these goals and make the results available to people
worldwide.”
Kennedy pointed to the inspiring example of internationalist solidarity
given by 256 volunteer Cuban doctors and nurses in leading the fight
against the
Ebola epidemic, the opposite of the profit-driven priorities of the U.S.
rulers. This story is told in the new book by Pathfinder Press,
Red Zone: Cuba and the Battle Against Ebola in West Africa.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
“God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance.”
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