US election special #4 - Why does the United States not have universal healthcare?
With over 8.5 million cases, and nearly 225,000 deaths, the coronavirus pandemic has exposed the cruel dysfunctionality of the US healthcare system. Even before the coronavirus, 87 million US citizens were either underinsured, or had no health insurance whatsoever. 30,000 Americans lost their lives every year because they lacked access to a doctor. Whilst $11,000 are spent per person on maintaining the system of private insurance, more than half a million families declare bankruptcy each year due to medically related debt. So how did we get to this point? Why, in the richest country on the planet, is the healthcare system so woefully defective? In this fourth installment of ourVoices's special series on the US election, Aaron White and Freddie Stuart explore the history of federal healthcare reform, and place the resurgent movement for Medicare for All in the context of decades of struggle for universal coverage.