Thread: Early in the pandemic, after midnight on a day in April, Congressman Joaquin Castro of all people connected me with a woman living in North Omaha who was struggling to breathe at home and unable to find a hospital to test her for COVID.

The woman's sister had been a @Castro4Congress volunteer in TX. Through the grapevine, eventually the Congressman reached me. I immediately started calling and texting doctors and hospital directors I know and found one place for her to get tested/treated--IF she had insurance.

Although she was struggling for oxygen, the woman ended up deciding not to go to the hospital because she couldn't afford treatment. I did everything I could to connect her to financial aid and resources, I was very forceful, I offered to drive her myself and go with her.

I took every route I knew to take, and she refused to seek care because of her fear of the cost. I don't know now what happened to her. But she and I both knew that the kind of care that, say, Chris Christie is getting today, was just not available to her.

The cost of healthcare in this country and the deep wealth gap reflected in our unequal access to treatment has been laid bare by this pandemic. Coronavirus has worsened all of the existing financial hardships that already kept people from seeking medical care.

Every politician says "It's time to pull together," but at some point "pulling together" stops becoming a matter of neighborly will and starts becoming a matter of policy.

*WE* can pull together to a certain extent. But government needs to pull together for *US,* too.

In this pandemic, our rugged, obstinate individualism is killing us. The vast, systemic inequalities that were growing pre-COVID are now determining who lives or dies.

It’s past time for the United States to provide universal healthcare for all.