Persimmon Alley Press
Persimmon Alley Press
  • About Persimmon Alley Press
  • Books
    • Close Encounters with the Cold War
    • Mother's Century: A Survivor, Her People and Her Times
    • Encounters: Ten Appointments with History
    • Killer Protocols
    • Clean Coal Killers
    • The Killer Trees
    • A Feast of Famine
    • Molly Malice in Alterland
    • Alligator In My Basement
    • Sudden Addiction
    • The Flesh of the Cedarwood
  • Smoke the Dottle
  • Richard's Rants
  • Contact

Rant 575: Focusing Our Minds on Healthcare Reform

3/27/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
COVID-19 exposes the glaring vulnerabilities of our under-siege healthcare system, forcing us to consider what we need to do to overhaul it once the current crisis has passed.
 
We can quickly identify at least four major reforms that need to be implemented:
 
1. Every American must have access to affordable healthcare at all times. No exceptions. As Bernie Sanders says (and I am no Bernie supporter): “Healthcare is a human right.” This means, at a minimum, that we need to provide an affordable public option to supplement the private insurance model that has served employed people and their families reasonably well for years. It is unconscionable that, during this health crisis, the Trump administration continues to pursue its court case seeking to terminate the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and take away health coverage for 48 million Americans, removing their protection from pre-existing condition coverage denials and throwing their children off their insurance coverage long before the current age 26 mandate. The next Congress needs to enact “Medicare for all who want it” immediately upon convening.
 
2. The connection between employment and health insurance must be severed. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability act of 1996 was supposed to accomplish this, but did not. Neither did Obamacare. The 158 million Americans who get their health coverage through their employer must be permitted to take their health coverage with them if they lose their jobs. They, and people who are not working, must be automatically enrolled in a public option plan while unemployed. No one should ever be without health coverage.
 
3. The Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) must always be fully funded and fully stocked. The Stockpile is the public health emergency equivalent of the National Defense Stockpile. Its purpose is simple and straightforward: rapid deployment (within 12 hours) to resupply overwhelmed local medical supplies during any public health threat. It has failed to achieve this, falling woefully short in the current pandemic. In 2009, the H1N1 influenza pandemic triggered the largest deployment in SNS history when 12.5 million antiviral regimens were deployed across the country as well as 19.6 million pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE) and 85.1 million N95 respirators. Since 2017, the Trump administration allowed the number of ventilators to plummet to only 16,600 (or 2½ per U.S. hospital)! The SNS must be stocked with more than enough PPE—masks, ventilators, scrubs, gloves, etc.—so that we are never caught short again when a pandemic strikes. And it is a certainty that, in an increasingly complex and intertwined world, there will be more pandemics.
 
Since assuming office, the Trump administration has undermined the SNS by: (1) moving responsibility for it—and what should be included in it—from the non-political Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to a political appointee in the Department of Health & Human Services. This was a license to politicize what products the government purchases for the SNS. Pharmaceutical firms began to lobby heavily for their products in lieu of the prior approach where only CDC medical experts made purchasing decisions; and (2) attempting, year-after-year, to slash the SNS budget despite its already being underfunded. So far, Congress has managed to stave off these cuts, but at the cost of being unable to increase funding for SNS supplies deemed essential to combatting a pandemic.
 
4. International cooperation to combat public health emergencies is a must. “America First” in this context means “America Worst.” The U.S. should take the lead in crafting an international treaty committing the nations of the world to work together to plan ahead, to combat future pandemics and to coordinate supply chains of essential materials so that they can be produced and shipped wherever needed. In the absence of such an agreement today, a German startup is currently trying to coordinate the production of PPE around the world by 3-D printing firms that have volunteered to aid in the battle against COVID-19. Viruses do not give a damn about borders. Neither should politicians.
 
Dick Hermann
March 27, 2020

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Author

    Richard Hermann is the author of thirteen books, including Encounters: Ten Appointments with History and, most recently, Mother's Century: A Survivor, Her People and Her Times. Soon to be released is his upcoming Close Encounters with the Cold War, a personal reflection on growing up in the nuclear age. He is a former law professor and entrepreneur, and the founder and president of Federal Reports, Inc., a legal information and consulting firm that was sold in 2007. He has degrees from Yale University, the New School University, Cornell Law School and the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s School. He lives with his wife, Anne, and extraordinary dog, Barkley, in Arlington, Virginia and Canandaigua, New York.

    Archives

    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed