Responding to Coronavirus: Medicare for All, Universal Basic Income & Universal Housing VS More Bailouts for Big Business.

Due to the fact that the United States has one of the most corrupt and inefficient healthcare systems in the world, the U.S. has proven itself woefully unprepared to handle a pandemic like the Coronavirus. As coronavirus spreads across the United States, organizations like the Centers for Disease Control have advised the public to wash their hands regularly, and refrain from leaving home as much as possible in an effort to practice "social distancing", but they don't acknowledge that this is impossible for the millions of Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck and can't afford to take time off work. If this pandemic teaches us anything, its that the structure of our healthcare system, and American society in general, is in need of a complete overhaul.

It's in societies best interest to know that everyone has access to proper healthcare, but in the United States there are about 26 million individuals who completely lack health insurance, and there are about 60 million more who are underinsured, meaning they pay insanely high copays and deductibles with little to no benefits. The result of this is that the majority of Americans have been unable, and will be unable to get testing, or receive proper treatment for coronavirus.

Earlier this week the Trump Administration declared that the federal government would be forcing health insurance companies to eliminate copays for coronavirus testing, but due to the fact that the United States has been insanely underprepared for this crisis, testing for coronavirus in the U.S. is only just beginning to start, and there has been a severe shortage of testing kits nationwide.

According to the Miami Herald a man was charged $3,270 for getting tested for coronavirus at a local hospital. The New York Times also spoke to a man who faced almost $4,000 in medical bills after he and is daughter were discharged from quarantine after they returned home from China. At a time when the majority of Americans can't even afford a $400 emergency, these costs on their own are simply impossible for poor and working class Americans to deal with.

Unfortunately, the costs for poor and working class Americans during this pandemic don't just include healthcare. While it may be easy for those who are wealthier to practice "social distancing" due to the fact that they have the disposable income to take off from work, or have jobs where they're able to work from home, the majority of Americans who are working paycheck to paycheck, struggling to afford healthcare and housing don't have that luxury. In fact, for the 44% of American workers who rely on the gig economy for their income, like Uber drivers and dog walkers, the fact that the business class will be isolating themselves at home will have a profoundly negative impact on their bank accounts.  

Now more than ever, its obvious why we need Medicare for All. Under Bernie Sanders plan, Medicare's eligibility age would simply be dropped from 65 to zero, thereby granting healthcare coverage to all Americans from birth as a human right. This wouldn't alter our current system of healthcare providers such as private and nonprofit doctors offices and hospitals, it would simply change who you make payments to, due to the fact that the United States government would be the "Single-Payer". Medicare for All would cost $33 Trillion over the next 10 years, while our current corrupt for-profit healthcare system will cost the American public more than $49 Trillion over the same period. 

Poor and working class Americans deserve to have that luxury just as much as their wealthier counterparts, which is why we not only need to establish single-payer healthcare in the United States, but also a Universal Basic Income, and a Universal Homes Guarantee.

While moderates may screech in fear at the cost of those proposals, they seem to totally fine with the fact that the Federal Reserve dumped $1.5 Trillion into the stock market earlier this week in an effort to help Wall St. deal with the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. This trillion dollar investment didn't even result in the Dow rising for an entire hour, so those in power essentially just lit $1.5 Trillion on fire. This is yet another example of how the bipartisan ruling class is more interested in catering to the interests of their wealthy donors on Wall St. than advocating for the interests of poor and working class Americans that need their help.

To put that $1.5 Trillion in perspective, according to a 2012 report by the New York Times it would cost just $20 Billion annually to totally eradicate homelessness in the United Staes, where we have at least half a million people sleeping on the streets every night, many of them veterans of the Empire's war for profit. 

There's no doubt that implementing a Universal Basic Income would be more expensive, with some reports indicating that it could cost around $3 Trillion per year, but if the United States government was able to commit to bailing out Wall St. with $16.8 Trillion after the 2008 financial crisis, and they're able to bail out the banks yet again with $1.5 Trillion just this week, why can't they make these investments in programs like universal single-payer healthcare, UBI, or universal housing that directly help poor and working class Americans struggling the most in this crisis?

Moderates will say they're concerned about the costs of investing in programs to help improve quality of life for poor and working class Americans, but they're never concerned about the costs of bailing out Wall St, giving tax breaks and subsidies to corporations, and funding endless wars. The United States is the richest country in the world, we have the ability to afford anything the ruling class thinks is important, unfortunately, they've prioritized the importance of their wealthy donors way above those of the poor and working class Americans who need them most.

The reality of our situation is that the federal government of the United States has the ability to, in a sense, use the Federal Reserve to create more money in order to fund whatever the bipartisan ruling class sees fit. Contrary to a currency user like an individual, corporation, and state or local government which needs to raise the necessary revenue or borrow money in order to spend, a currency issuer such as the federal government of the United States has the ability to create and spend money before there is any revenue to be made by taxing it back out. 

According to Lauren Ashcraft, a Democratic Socialist running for Congress in New York's 12th congressional district, "The obvious conclusion to this understanding of the operational reality of Federal finance is that we need not "find" the money to pay for our social objectives dollar per dollar, something that those in the establishment have already understood when it comes to the priorities of powerful interests."