Joe Biden and his fellow Republicrats have vowed to protect us from Bernie Sanders and his threats to take away our beloved health insurance policies, forgetting to mention that what Sanders actually proposes is replacing them with a far superior and cheaper policy. The people who don’t support Medicare for All seem to be members of two groups: healthy people who believe that they will never get sick, and comfortably employed people whose employer takes care of the hassle of providing them with health insurance, and who seem to believe they will never lose or change jobs.
Now comes Mr. Coronavirus to demonstrate two truths: you might well get sick when you least expect it; and you might lose your job when you least expect it; and both those things could happen at the same time. About half of all Americans depend on employer-sponsored health insurance. Last week — last week — 3.3 million people filed for unemployment insurance. An historic number of people, more than ever recorded in a single week, lost their jobs, their income and their health insurance in the middle of a deadly pandemic. That was just the first bad week, with many worse weeks to come.
Even if you still have your health insurance, getting the coronavirus could break you. Not to worry, says the Tweeter in Chief, the for-profit insurance companies have generously agreed to waive co-payments for coronavirus testing and treatment. How splendid of them, that’s a big hit to take for the team. Except they didn’t. As their trade organization said almost immediately after the president’s grand announcement, “Like hell!” (I’m paraphrasing, but the sentiment was clear.) They were prepared to give people a break on the testing, but not the treatment. That would have involved real money.
So rest assured, besieged Americans, that while your business is closed, your income is gone, your children are marooned at home, your rent and car payment are coming due, even with all this there are plenty of American companies gorging themselves on profits derived from your misfortune. Thank God we don’t live in a socialist country.
Dear Bernie:
The murder of another human being is forbidden by every religion and outlawed by just about every civilization in the history of the world. “Thou shalt not kill” is supposed to be non-negotiable. Of course we’ve been negotiating it forever.
When last we heard, the caravans of rabid child rapists and their drug-dealing mothers were almost at our southern border, to which our gallant troops had rushed to make a last desperate defense of the homeland against this pestilential invasion. That was, what? six months ago? Just before the election, as I recall. Time to get an update on the migration invasions.
