The United States has the dubious distinction of having the highest number of Covid-19 deaths in the world. While the Trump Administration’s handling of the pandemic is widely understood to have been a major factor in this, there is more to the story than meets the eye. The private health care system itself is ill designed for the challenge. This is the conclusion of Dr. Vicente Navarro, professor in the School of Public Health of The Johns Hopkins University.
For four decades Navaro has been a prolific critic of health under capitalism. He has authored 24 books, among them Dangerous to Your Health, Neoliberalism, Globalization and Inequalities: Consequences for Health and Quality of Life, and most recently Why the United States Does Not Have a National Health Program. The long standing failings of the system he has been pointing to have now been brought into full view by the pandemic.