The coronavirus pandemic continues to spread in the United States, and those who pay the most are the workers. This is what happened to Danni Askini, who began to show symptoms of the disease and quickly went to the hospital. At first, she was diagnosed with pneumonia and sent home, but her condition only got worse, so she finally tested positive for the coronavirus. She was kept under treatment until she recovered. She was discharged and her last test was negative. When she left the hospital, she was given the bill for her medical treatment: $34,927.43. "I personally don't know anyone who has that amount of money," said this worker, shocked for having to pay such a large sum of money, as she lacks health insurance.
She is just one of the many workers in the United States that suffer an economic blow when they are sick or injured; this affects especially the unemployed, immigrants, informal workers, temporary ones, etc. Without health insurance, medical bills are extremely expensive to pay. Only a minority have health insurance with sufficient coverage to afford such expenses.
In the United States, while the 8 blocks of Wall Street are home to 1% of parasites that have accumulated 50% of the world's wealth, workers cannot have medical care. Even before the coronavirus pandemic broke out, they couldn't go to the hospital or a doctor's visit for illnesses or symptoms they suffered because it was too expensive. Hospitals, clinics, health insurance, pharmacies, laboratories, etc. are a big business in the USA that leaves them millions on millions of dollars at the expense of workers' health.
While there is not even a penny for the workers or to improve their health, the federal reserve has already issued 1.5 trillion dollars to save US companies and banks in the face of the stock market crisis and on Friday it set out to issue 2 trillion more. At the same time, Trump announced subsidies to companies that cannot continue to make fortunes, such as the big casinos and tourism companies in Las Vegas or Miami. Four days ago he also began to subsidize in-job coronavirus testing and in the case that the workers test positive, the government would pay for the their license. In other words, a subsidy to companies so that they do not pay the wages and the laboratories and hospitals continue to charge for the tests.
Among other anti-worker measures taken by Trump in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, he declared a "national state of emergency," for which he has deployed local police and in large cities also the national guard as "peacekeepers". He banned all political and union meetings, strike actions, marches, protests, etc. If someone walks in the street, he can be arrested, interrogated and even detained if these "forces of peace" consider it necessary. However, there has been no strict quarantine, so workers must continue to attend their jobs even at the risk of contagion. And if they do contract the disease, we have already seen what a business this will mean to the health companies. It's no accident that in the press conference where Trump announced these measures he was surrounded by the US health tycoons.
In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, the employers are not giving up a single penny of their profits, even if it costs the lives of thousands and thousands of workers, and the U.S. is perhaps one of the most clear-cut cases of this.
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