The Real Costs Of The Affordable Care Act
Even with Biden’s proposed tweaks, the American health care system has costs that can’t be measured in mere dollars
Content Warning: This article contains discussion of sensitive topics including suicide and may be disturbing to some readers.
With reports coming out of Representatives Pramila Jayapal and Debbie Dingell planning to introduce a Medicare for All bill in the House, as well as news on some details of Biden’s plans to “build on Obamacare,” it seems like a good time to talk about health care in the US, or rather, the lack thereof.
A paper recently released by Public Citizen points out some horrifying details of how badly the for-profit health care system here in the US has failed us during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper reports that “Before the pandemic, approximately 87 million Americans were uninsured or underinsured. About one-third of COVID-19 deaths and 40% of infections were tied to a lack of insurance.” That means that approximately 182,000 deaths just from COVID could have been prevented with universal health care.
If we add in other people dying from lack of health care, that number becomes much higher. In 2009, Harvard researchers found that “Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year —…
