The case for Medicare for All was once again made by the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, Sen. Ed Markey tweeted on Sunday, after Republican politicians were able to check themselves into hospitals shortly after announcing they had tested positive for Covid-19.
Markey noted that throughout the coronavirus pandemic, in which more than 7.4 million cases have been detected and more than 209,000 people in the U.S. have died, people have attempted to get care at hospitals after testing positive and showing worsening symptoms, only to be turned away and “told only to come back when they could not breathe.”
“Now politicians are checking into hospitals as a ‘precaution.’ Healthcare should be a right, not a privilege,” Markey wrote. “We need Medicare for All.”
The senator’s statement came a day after former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a member of the president’s debate prep team this past week, announced he was checking himself into Morristown Medical Center after testing positive on Saturday.
“While I am feeling good and only have mild symptoms, due to my history of asthma we decided this is an important precautionary measure,” Christie tweeted.
Christie’s announcement angered social media users whose own family members had been denied admission at hospitals even as their symptoms grew more severe earlier this year, as medical centers faced severe shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) — and as the Trump administration seized shipments of the supplies and claimed the federal government was not responsible for ensuring healthcare workers were equipped to combat the pandemic.
Truly cannot put into words the rage I feel when I hear Chris Christie has checked himself into hospital “out of an abundance of caution.” How many have died because they are told not to use hospitals’ scarce resources until they are literally at death’s door?
— 𝙹𝚞𝚕𝚒𝚎 (@resisterhood) October 3, 2020
All these politicians checking in to hospitals as a “precaution” is amazing to me because when my mom, a healthcare worker, had suspected COVID, they told her to only come back if she needed a ventilator.
— Alisha Rai (@AlishaRai) October 3, 2020
My mom was sick for 6 weeks, could barely get up and feed herself, and never even close to being admitted. These privileged fucks.
— Christina Lauren⁷ ᴮᴱ (@ChristinaLauren) October 4, 2020
“How many lives of 207,000+ lost could’ve been saved if hospitals had had the PPE they needed?” wrote one critic. “The surge ventilators they desperately requested? How many parents, children, wives, husbands would still be here if they could’ve gotten early care ‘out of an abundance of caution?'”
Others noted that under the for-profit healthcare system in which insurance companies decide whether a patient’s treatments and hospital stays are medically necessary and should be covered or if the person should have to pay out of pocket, the vast majority of Americans are in no position to simply decide to go to the hospital — or often, even to a doctor’s office — as a precautionary measure.
Since when do hospitals just let people walk up and check themselves in as a precaution? They…don’t. And no insurance company would pay for it. They’d order the patient to go home and refuse to reimburse the hospital at all. https://t.co/9kqtJXRkMC
— Kurt “Mask Up, Vote Early” Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 3, 2020
My daughter’s doctor admitted her to the hospital because they were afraid she’d go septic. The insurance just denied coverage because they didn’t think she was sick enough.
Now, these politicians are checking themselves in “as a precaution”?
I hate everything.
— Andrew Kinsey (@KinseyAndrew) October 3, 2020
“Mystifying that people think this kind of class system in healthcare is worth fighting to preserve,” tweeted journalist Steve Lubetkin.
The details of the president’s condition, and how far into the illness he is, remained murky on Sunday after a press conference the previous day in which his physician, Dr. Sean Conley, suggested Trump had first been diagnosed with Covid-19 last Wednesday, rather than late Thursday night. After Trump on Sunday released a video of himself at Walter Reed Medical Center, where he’s been since late Friday, saying he was feeling “much better,” his medical team reported that his oxygen levels had dropped to 93%, below normal range and to the level that doctors generally consider a severe case of Covid-19. The president was reportedly given the steroid dexamethasone on Sunday as well as the experimental drug remdesivir. Dexamethasone has been shown to help patients with severe coronavirus cases.
The time and place where Trump contracted the coronavirus is unknown, but the ceremony he hosted last Saturday at the White House to celebrate his nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court has been called a “super-spreader” event, after at least eight people in attendance have tested positive for Covid-19 in recent days. The White House is reportedly overseeing contact tracing of the event, where more than 100 people gathered both indoors and outdoors, social distancing was not observed, and few people wore face coverings.
On Twitter, journalist Anand Giridharadas summarized the last week in Trump’s presidency, during which the New York Times also reported on his failure to pay taxes for 10 of the 15 years preceding his term, and that he paid just $750 in 2016 and 2017.
He hosted a super-spreader event to honor a justice who would have the government control your body but refuse the duty to care for it, and when the virus he helped go around came around, he availed of the healthcare he would deny others, financed by the taxes he refuses to pay. pic.twitter.com/Oi0rwMG2Xo
— Anand Giridharadas (@AnandWrites) October 4, 2020
“The moral of the story is, he lied to you for months and encouraged you to live recklessly during a pandemic, and when it got to him he received every top tier treatment and medication to ensure his survival while your friends and family died alone,” wrote comedian and writer Travon Free. “Remember that on Nov 3rd.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy