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This Pandemic Would’ve Looked So Much Different Under Medicare For All
Abdul El-Sayed’s new book ‘Healing Politics’ makes the case for a different approach to public health
At a fraught time for both politics and public health, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed has a uniquely insightful view from the intersection of the two. His resume includes but is not limited to: epidemiologist, Detroit health commissioner, Michigan gubernatorial candidate with endorsements from Bernie Sanders and AOC, and podcast host. And now, author of the book Healing Politics: A Doctor’s Journey Into the Heart of Our Political Epidemic.
We caught up with El-Sayed about how our political system has failed to prepare us for the Covid-19 pandemic, and where we go from here.
GEN: To oversimplify, you got into politics and wrote this book because you had a professional view into how messed up the public health was in this country, and you wanted to fix it. How has the American response to Covid-19 confirmed or contested your understanding of those structural failings?
El-Sayed: The reality of public health is that it’s a lot more about preventing than it is about responding. So the fact that we’re even in a position of responding speaks to the foundational failure of our system. Not to take anything away from leaders on the front lines who are actively responding to the pandemic — they’re doing their best at the state and local level. I think the federal response has been less deft.
It speaks to the fact that as a country, we have disinvested in basic public infrastructure like public health departments. They’ve seen their funding drop by about 45% on average over the last 15 years. Disinvestment in the CDC and disinvestment in our global public health apparatus has left us vulnerable to this. Not just the pandemic itself but also the profound vulnerability of people to this pandemic. People are forced now between staying home from their $11.00/hour job to save lives or go out to work so that they can put a meal on the table for their family and save their livelihood.
What should we have done differently? What would better funding have paid for?
