Graphic by Yuko Tanaka/The Choate News
The coronavirus has pushed hospitals to capacity, sent the economy grinding to a halt, and left millions unemployed, exposing weaknesses in the United States’ vital institutions and flaws in the Trump administration’s response to disaster.
In particular, it has revealed the disparities in the healthcare industry, reinforcing the need for a healthcare system in which medical treatment is accessible for people who are uninsured or living in low-income communities.
There is no need to push forward an entirely new healthcare system — we simply need to reform. One method of doing so is by enforcing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in all 50 states. The ACA provides a lifetime of coverage and prohibits insurance companies from denying a patient health insurance based on pre-existing conditions.
Since 2012, states have been able to decide whether or not to adopt elements of the ACA. Currently, 14 states have opted out of Medicaid expansion.
The healthcare system in the United States is under more pressure than it has been in the past three decades, and the cracks are starting to show.
For many uninsured U.S. citizens, finding the money for testing and treatment is nearly impossible. In Florida, which has only partially adopted the ACA, Miami resident Mr. Osmel Martinez Azcue went to the emergency room out of concern that he had contracted the virus. Getting tested for the flu and the coronavirus alone cost him $3,270 without insurance. If Mr. Azcue had tested positive for the virus and was admitted to his local hospital, he would have faced a $73,300 bill — for a six-day hospital stay.
What’s more: the uninsured who are going to be footing these kinds of bills are more likely to be exposed to the coronavirus than those who are insured. These are people who often lack stable housing and for whom working from home is frequently not an option.
Implementing the ACA would greatly alleviate this financial burden. People in lower socioeconomic communities could finally take that trip to the doctor’s office without the fear of leaving with a large medical bill.
The situation is worse in states that have chosen not to enforce the ACA at all, such as Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, and Alabama. In these states, people need to meet certain work requirements to qualify for Medicaid, disadvantaging people living in lower socioeconomic communities with pre-existing illnesses.
It’s no surprise that these states have also experienced a higher death rate; not only were they late to impose shelter-in-place legislation and social distancing measures, but their health insurance policies exclude the people who need it most.
In addition, southern states’ refusal to enact the ACA despite their large African American populations has exacerbated racial inequality. African Americans — who are less likely to be insured when compared to other races — are more likely to be denied treatment and testing, making them more susceptible to contracting and spreading the virus.
For example, 70% of coronavirus victims in Louisiana were African American, even though the group constitutes only 32% of the state’s population.
Ultimately, enforcing the ACA in all 50 states could have saved thousands of lives and prevented the coronavirus from disproportionately harming underprivileged groups.
