The Economy Cannot Be More Important Than People’s Lives
Stop pretending that reopening is about mental health
The view that the economy is more important than people’s lives underlies Donald Trump’s every action. Further, it’s what’s behind much of the coronavirus deniers’ implicit argument.
All of the “Covid’s not that bad,” “Covid’s just the flu,” and “Covid’s just panic porn” are all compared to what? The implication is that the cost of trying to combat Covid-19 is just way too high.
The complete but temporary cost of managing Covid?
- A 99-cent mask
- A lot of testing
- Contact tracing workforce
- Avoiding bars, indoor restaurants, and arenas
- Paid family leave
- Unemployment ins
- Symptom checks in airports
- Health care for all
Affordable. Very affordable.
What would paying that cost allow? Most of the economy to be open, including schools. Oh, and it would save lives and reduce hospitalizations. And save our doctors and nurses.
All around the world (Singapore, Vietnam, New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, China, Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, Greece) have shown a simple thing — manage the pandemic, and you can get back to near normal.
As Trump waits for the stock market to believe him that the virus has been defeated here too, he and Mike Pence find new ways to complain about the “cost” of the treatment being worse than the cure.
Pence yesterday shrouded his focus on the cost in fake concern for people’s mental health, suicide, and drug addiction.
How do I know it’s “fake concern”? Because mental health is always the GOP head fake. School shooting: It’s not the guns, it’s mental health. Can’t open the economy: mental health. Great! So let’s fund mental health? Um, no.
Want to guarantee the right to be covered with a mental health issue proscribed in the ACA? Repeal it. Fund Medicaid; the biggest provider of mental health. Yet it doesn’t happen.
But want to persuade the country that you’re not an animal for valuing dollars over people’s lives? It’s because you care about mental health.
Are people stressed and feeling anxious because of the pandemic? Of course. Stressed because their boss is making them work unsafely. Stressed because people aren’t wearing masks and they have a kid at home. Stressed because we have an economy that left people with no savings.
Pandemics are stressful. Want to help that?
- Pass paid family leave
- Don’t play poker with renewing unemployment benefits
- Don’t repeal people’s access to health care and Medicaid, the biggest provider of mental health services
That will go a long way for mental health. (And, fund mental health.)
Also — don’t lie to people. People don’t like it. People would rather adjust to a challenging truth than listen to White House bullshit they don’t believe.
Thirty million people are out of work. More each week. What’s going to get that to stop? There are only a few things that power our economy and drive hiring:
- Consumer spending and confidence
- Business spending
- Exports/trade
- Government spending
Big purchases — airline travel, hotel stays, cars, signing leases, buying equipment — will not happen in a pandemic that’s out of control. If people don’t feel safe, see people dying, and don’t know that cases will be contained, we will continue to have a 70% economy.
Taking a shortcut doesn’t work with a virus. But if you’re unwilling to do the work to make people safe, you have to argue that the price of that safety is too high.
Too high a price to save old people. Too high for the Black and Brown community. Too high for people with chronic conditions. Too high for kids in detention. Too high when a stock market won’t help a president catch a reelection break.
It’s time for the media to make the cost of human life better understood. Time for the media to push our government every waking hour to answer for every life they discount. Time for every mental health lie to be called out and for people to be supported the duration of a pandemic.
The difference between the U.S. and the rest of the world’s response to the pandemic is that while no one has responded perfectly, ours is the only government that has discounted human lives.
