The time is now to change health care

Walter Cronkite once said, “America’s health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system.”

How true this is in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The solution is a national, caring health system: universal health care.

According to the World Health Organization, universal health care means all people receive “health services without suffering financial hardship.” Currently, we have a hodgepodge of medical systems — some private, some public — with a smattering of payers, including for-profit players who put profit and growth above quality care. This is inefficient, unjust and a rip-off for many Americans.

More than 40 million Americans have applied for unemployment during the ongoing pandemic. Yet for many Americans, their health care is tied directly to their employment. As the recession continues, health care bills and even bankruptcies will pile up.

As the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported, Ofelia Rousseva, the second person to die of COVID-19 in Allegheny County, did not seek treatment because she was concerned about medical bills (March 26, “Woman Who Died of Virus Refused to Go to a Hospital”). This is a scandal and tragedy in our wealthy nation, especially when you consider health executives like Jeffrey Romoff of UPMC made tens of millions of dollars in the last several years.

Medicare for All is a first step. The time is now. If not now, when? The human cost of our current system is too great. PAUL COOLEY, R.N.

Observatory Hill