In the past 30 days I have spend over $1000 in medical co-pays. Our health
insurance systems encourages people to not take care of their health. Even a
"public option" would not be the cure as the for profit system would entice
folks not to take the public option by offering slightly cheaper premiums and
hiding the real costs of the co-pays and items not covered. This doesn't even
start to talk about the medicines. That is another train wreck.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
Sent: Saturday, March 7, 2020 11:27 AM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] For-profit US ‘health care’ will increase virus
threat,Revolutionary Cuba points the road forward
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.”
― Neil DeGrasse Tyson
