Declaring the Pandemic Over Will Hurt Families

Editor’s note: The editorial below originally appeared in El Tribuno del Pueblo, bilingual sister publication to the People’s Tribune. Visit El Tribuno’s website at tribunodelpueblo.org.

Though the Covid-19 pandemic is not over, many behave as though it is. This includes elected officials, much of the public, and even many health officials, as the CDC has assured us things are getting better. President Biden has extended the declaration of a public health emergency until May 11. This was done because of the appearance of highly transmissible Covid variants, rising Covid hospitalizations and deaths, and the onslaught of the “tripled emic” of Covid, influenza, and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus).

What is most worrisome about President Biden’s announcement is its decoupling from measures that ensure millions of Americans access to health insurance such as Medicaid. As part of the relief package in the CARES Act of March 2020, up to 90 million people enrolled in Medicaid. This directly benefited the record numbers of suddenly unemployed Americans who lost their health insurance almost overnight, joined the ranks of those who have never had health insurance, and of those living in states that never allowed Medicaid in the first place. Even before the pandemic, the medical debt had been the main cause of personal bankruptcy and food and housing insecurity.

Now states are beginning the process of removing people from Medicaid. In addition to that, millions will lose monthly benefits of enhanced food stamp benefits beginning at the end of February of this year. All of this is happening despite strong evidence accumulated during the pandemic that having access to health care and food security benefits the most vulnerable and saves lives. Some states have been extending Medicaid for mothers for up to a year and a half because doing so reduces maternal and infant mortality. Fruit and vegetable access during the pandemic further improved child health and reduced hospitalizations.

We might ask why this change of policy. Is it that the government can no longer afford to protect and care for the American people? There are two facts that show this is not the case. First, the group that benefited the most from government largesse were the billionaires. Three out of four billionaires in the U.S. had increases in their net worths. Sixteen are worth twice what they were before the pandemic. A significant portion of government relief funds went to large companies. All of this occurred while most Americans suffered want and insecurity, amidst massive layoffs and business closures.

Second, an editorial from the British Medical Journal has shown that providing a basic level of economic security (called universal basic income) has significant health benefits. Providing a basic income in eight African countries and six Latin American countries showed substantial reductions in short-term poverty and improvements in physical health, mental health, and nutrition.

Rising inequality and drastic changes in the labor market forced governments to investigate economic initiatives, such as basic income programs, even before the pandemic. Women and children have been the biggest casualties of the deepening divide between wealth and poverty. The effort to address the inequalities was accelerated by the destruction wreaked by Covid-19 on the world’s health and economies.

In this light, we can assess what is happening in the United States. The stimulus checks many Americans received, liberalization of health coverage with expanded access to Medicaid, and other measures of the CARES Act were in fact a form of universal basic income. However, we can see that in the design and implementation, the wealthy were the primary intended beneficiaries.

Whether initially intended as a “trickle-down” stimulation of the economy, it is clear that now that the spigot is being turned off for working-class Americans, the government is serving the corporations and the wealthy at our expense. It is not a question of there not being enough money. It is a question of will, and whom the government serves.