Early this morning, I woke up with a sore throat and an extra achy body, an unfortunate state that quickly brought on a familiar dread: Do I have Covid? After all, I've been a lot more relaxed when it comes to various measures such as masking and indoor dining.
It turns out I'm fine. But the small panic left came as President Biden announced yesterday that he'll end the country's Covid public health emergency in May, a deadline that will spark a bunch of changes to how many measures, including testing and vaccines, will be paid for going forth. In some ways, that's good news; we as a country are doing pretty well in terms of Covid, and we should return to normal, whatever that means. But Biden's announcement has me wondering some larger questions, particularly what it's meant for a huge swath of the country to experience government-backed health care programs.
I wish I could say that the last three-ish years have changed American attitudes regarding universal healthcare, but my gut is that even something as devastating as Covid won't shift much in that regard. So what will it take for us to see the enormous benefits of a free, universal health care system? Maybe it's exactly what's about to happen: when we have to go back to paying an exorbitant price for things that should be—and can be—free.
The precarity of this country's health care is, of course, disproportionately felt by Americans targeted by harmful policies, like the trans people Madison Pauly writes about in her latest piece on the under-the-radar legal battle protecting health care for trans people. Here, the consequences of what it's like when the government does take action in people's health care, but in the most regressive ways possible, are clear and devastating. All this could be different though, don't you think?
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