Maybe a pandemic is what we need to push us to Medicare for All

[NickB79]

If the worst comes to pass and millions of Americans are sickened with COVID, the health care costs will be astronomical. Perhaps that would open our collective eyes to the mess that is our for-profit health care system.

[treestar]

1. Horrid thought, but with Americans that seems to be what it takes

Zero imagination. Has to be a fact before peoples' eyes.

[OhZone]

2. Or a dictatorship?

[DemoTex]

7. Or health care rationing?

[Squinch]

3. Hush your mouth. This is not something to wish for.

[NickB79]

11. It's not a wish

I don't want a pandemic, but if one comes, the only way that millions of Americans won't be saddled with crushing medical debt is through government assistance and health care reform.

[IADEMO2004]

4. Well now you can't win a Democratic Party Primary

[Firestorm49]

5. What a great way to take the public's mind off

of another week of corruption. He’s probably giddy.

[GeorgeGist]

6. And all the El Rushbo fans to take a deep breath.

[Wounded Bear]

8. Sad, but I've been more or less prediciting this for years now...

Our healthcare industry is not ready for a pandemic of any size.

My fear, though, is that Trump and Repubs will turn this into an opportunity to grab more power.

[Midnightwalk]

9. Nope won't work

Horrible thought but it also won’t work.

A pandemic would feed a the wrong idea that government involvement in health matters doesn’t work. Even though it would be a CDC failure rather than a healthcare failure.

By that point there would be quarantines and maybe travel restrictions. The government would be involved.

You can imagine the narrative. The government couldn’t handle containing a virus. Do you really want them managing your healthcare? Non sequitor but that won’t slow that message.

[Shermann]

10. The stock market malaise is likely to carry through to the election

So there are two silver linings on that dark cloud.

[democrattotheend]

12. It could go either way

If anything, I'm thinking it's better we don't have M4A, because if we did the GOP would underfund it the first chance they got and then it would be unable to handle something like this, and then they'd use it to "show" how badly government funded healthcare works.

[gratuitous]

13. I have my doubts

The story of Osmel Martinez Azcue is cautionary. See the Crooks & Liars account here.

Basically, Azcue came back from a trip to Asia recently and had some flu-like symptoms. Being a conscientious citizen, he went to the local hospital to get it checked out, and to make sure he wasn't carrying the Coronavirus. Would that everyone who experienced such symptoms did that.

In exchange for doing the right thing, Azcue got socked with a hospital bill in the thousands of dollars that wasn't covered by the cut-rate non-insurance insurance he had. Non-insurance insurance (low premiums, but doesn't cover much of anything) has made a comeback in our health care system thanks to the Trump administration. Some of our fellow citizens sympathize with Azcue, but a significant portion of our fellow citizens are perfectly happy to place all the blame for his situation on Azcue.

Even though Azcue did what he should have done, he committed the sin of buying cut-rate insurance, which absolves the rest of us and our fucked-up health care system from any blame for his predicament. There's always a reason to maintain the status quo, even when the present system inflicts such needless suffering.