COVID Update September 19: SCOTUS edition.

A massive impact on our ability to fight the pandemic and on those effected by it depends on the Court. 1/

COVID-19 is a brutal virus. It has killed 200,000 people in the U.S. in 7 months.

It also does untold damage to the human body. That we know of blood vessels, limbs, heart, brain, gut, kidney, lungs & immune system can all be damaged. 2/

Because that damage can be immediate, chronic, recurring, or hidden in the body only to show up years later, COVID-19 is the ULTIMATE pre-existing condition. 3/

If Trump wins appoints a Supreme Court Justice and holds on to the White House or the Senate, we will revert back to a pre-ACA world of lengthy applications with a complete medical history & exclusions, denials & policy recissions.

Here's what that means. 4/

If you are one of the 6.75 million & growing who has had a diagnosed case of COVID, you would likely be uninsurable or uninsurable for any event impacting those organ systems. 5/

If you are one of the 20-40 million who has a case that hasn't been diagnosed, if you get a condition in the future, and you can be checked for anti-bodies, the insurance company could cancel your policy & refuse to pay your claims. 6/

Fighting this pandemic (or any other) becomes like tying a hand behind your back. Contact tracing, testing, therapies, and vaccines would all be impacted. 7/

The concept of contact tracing dies with the ACA at risk. No one will want to admit to public health authorities that they had COVID. Or their employers. Or anyone. They will keep it a secret.

This is how it used to be before the ACA. 8/

Payments for diagnostic testing, vaccines, and therapies will decrease detection, increase the spread and increase the death rate.

Without insurance, people put off treatment until much later in the cycle when it is more challenging to treat the virus. 9/

Not having universal coverage puts us all at risk with an infectious disease. Remember, if an infectious disease remains anywhere, it is primed to come back everywhere.

Add discrimination against people with COVID and you have a pandemic that will stay with us in the U.S. 10/

This means keeping your health secretive & avoiding care, while worrying that others have it but won't admit it.

11/

The impact of RBG's loss on the ACA is covered here. Should it go down, it is not easily remedied. Only with a Democratic sweep would it be assured. 12/ https://twitter.com/ASlavitt/status/1307373312738242560?s=20

Trump is a man who doesn't care if people die from COVID (he knew they would and did nothing), doesn't care whether people have unemployment benefits (he did nothing to get a bill passed), and would be completely fine if you had no medical coverage-- now or ever. 13/

He doesn't believe we have an obligation to protect people and as someone who has always been pampered, doesn't know what its like to worry about not being able to get or pay for care.

And with 1000 people/day dying, a few more are hardly noticeable. 14/

Fighting a pandemic means aligning all your forces and resources, something we have clearly failed at to date.

The president enabled the virus to take off, Congress has shirked its responsibility, and now the Court can get in on the act. 15/

Protecting ourselves and each other means taking key precautions:

-physical distancing
-masks
-avoiding/closing hot spots
-voting up & down the ticket to replece the government that doesn't care about us.

/end