Coronavirus: why we need Medicare for All

If you have healthcare through your employer, that's wonderful. Granted, it's a tax on the institution you work for, and lots of people don't have healthcare through their employers, and lots of people aren't employed, and lots of people who are employed have miserable healthcare coverage through their employers, and lots of people have good healthcare through their employers but still detest their insurance companies and all the hassles of dealing with them, and lots of people hate their employers but stay at jobs that make them miserable because otherwise they'd lose their health insurance -- but hey. At least YOU have healthcare through your employer. That's all that matters, right?

I should hope not! The reality just described should be more than enough to convince people who are even the least bit fair-minded and concerned for the well-being of their fellow citizens that we need some system for universal, guaranteed healthcare coverage in the United States.

But if scaremongering is what it takes, may I ask you to consider the ways in which arch-societal health issues such as the Coronavirus should make it obvious that America is in one of the weakest possible positions imaginable to protect the health of its people, and that the current system essentially invites crisis. You don't need to be a left-winger to want to avoid crisis. You just have to be sane, and it also helps to not be evil.

1. The cashier at the grocery store has a cold. But she comes to work because she has no paid sick leave. She scans your groceries and hands you the receipt. These are the conditions under which the Coronavirus spreads. 
2. Your child goes to daycare and there's another child there that has a cold. His or her mother wanted to keep the child home, but she doesn't have paid sick leave and she can't afford to miss work. These are the conditions under which the Coronavirus spreads.
3. Your cousin's manager at work will write her up if she take too many bathroom breaks. Today she sneezed into her hands, but she can't risk taking a two-minute break to wash them, because she's been cited twice before and the third citation would mean she would lose her job. And then she would lose her health insurance. You're seeing your cousin this Sunday for a family lunch. These are the conditions under which the Coronavirus spreads.
4. The man in front of you in line at the post office is unemployed. He has the flu but won't go to the doctor because he can't afford it. He hands you the pen from off the counter so you can fill in a form. These are the conditions under which the Coronavirus spreads.
5. The woman in front of you in line for the ATM is employed, but her health insurance provides such paltry and expensive coverage that she won't go to the doctor for the fever she's been running. She uses the touchscreen to decline a receipt for her transaction. Less than a half minute later, you're using the same touchscreen to enter your PIN. These are the conditions under which the Coronavirus spreads.
6. There's a Coronavirus vaccine, but the Trump administration won't mandate that it be manufactured and distributed under terms that would keep everyone safe -- which is to say, keeping the price as low as possible (which likely should be $0) and setting up widespread and easily accessible vaccination points for all communities. Instead, the government sends conflicting information and mixed signals about what the official response is, and there are huge gaps in access to the vaccination. On his website and on his radio show, Alex Jones runs stories saying that Democrats want to use the vaccine as part of a nefarious effort to sterilize all American men, stating that Democrats are so worried about the climate change hoax that they believe a 100% drop in reproduction is the only way to lower so-called carbon emissions. These are the conditions under which the Coronavirus spreads. 

You get the point. If self-identified centrists, moderates, independents and swing voters in America want a military to protect them overseas, they should also be able to be convinced that the U.S. government has a responsibility to guarantee the basic access to basic healthcare for all members of society. Any Democrat or leftist who is not urgently making that case is implicitly ceding the fight to people who hate government so much that they would let it drown in the bathtub while crises abound that the private sector, left to its own devices, couldn't handle in a million years.