Counting on Life
At a campaign rally on September 21st the President of the United States declared that COVID-19, the novel coronavirus that has claimed over a 1,000,000 lives world-wide and 225,000 lives in the USA, “affected almost nobody.”
How is it possible that numbers of this size could be referred to as “almost nobody”? For four years we’ve observed this administration’s lack of empathy and concern for its citizens. “Almost nobody” can now be added to the list of racist comments made by this President, second only to his consistent cry for “law and order”, a phrase with roots calling for violence against people of color demonstrating for their rights.
The United States has a shameful history in recognizing the worth and value of every individual. Despite a constitution that declares all men equal with an unalienable right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” we are still debating if Black lives even matter. Matter is the minimum and we must agree on this before we can even begin to talk about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
We are facing a virus whose impact is shining a light on the crisis of health disparities for our Black neighbors. When the President says, “almost nobody” he is degrading the value of Black lives yet again. It is as if the Three-Fifths compromise was brought back to life. In 1787 at the Constitutional Convention it was decided that enslaved persons would only count as 3/5 of a person when measuring a state’s population. The President seems to have revived this rule when describing the number of people impacted by COVID.
Instead of devaluing lives, we must turn our attention to addressing the health disparities that for so long have gone unaddressed. It is our moral and ethical obligation to do so. The Centers for Disease Control has made it clear that Black and African American people contract the coronavirus at a rate that is 2.6 times that of whites, for Latinx and Hispanic persons that rate is 2.8 times higher. Black and African American people are 4.7 times likelier to require hospitalization and 2.1 times more likely to die of Corona virus, the rates are similar for Latinx and Hispanic persons. Let there be no room for doubt, “almost nobody” is an undeniable statement on this administration’s view of the value of Black and brown lives.
We must support the Biden/Harris ticket and their sound plan to increase health equity. The COVID crisis has led to massive unemployment. The coupling of employment and health insurance, an antiquated system put in place as a result of World War II, means that twelve million people have lost their health coverage as a result of COVID related job loss (CNBC). This has had a disproportionate impact on people of color and women. The Biden platform details a plan to expand the Affordable Care Act to include a government option, ensuring that more people have access to affordable health care coverage. Biden’s plan will eliminate the income cap on the tax credit ensuring that no family, buying on the open marketplace, will have to spend more than 8.5% of income on health care coverage. 16% of Black and African American people have been denied access to Medicaid coverage because of they reside in one of 14 states that has refused to accept the expansion of Medicaid created by the Affordable Care Act. Joe Biden’s plan will offer premium free coverage to individuals negatively impacted by their state’s inaction. Furthermore, the Biden plan will create greater access to care by doubling the dollars invested in community health centers whose patient populations are comprised of 59% persons of color. Biden will build on the success in California to reduce the maternal mortality rate for Black women, a rate that nationally is 3 to 4 times higher than the rate for white women and has been directly attributed to the marginalization of Black women.
On November 3 we have the opportunity to love our neighbor as ourselves, to say in the most meaningful of ways that Black lives indeed matter. Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr once said, “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.” We need healthcare and a health system that works for all Americans so that the “pursuit of life” is in reach for all.