Everyday Policy Studies No. en13

True pathology in the US, where COVID-19 infection is the largest in the world―Inadequate medical security system and the severity of economic disparity at the base―

 No other developed country has the structural flaws in its social system exposed to daylight due to the spread of the new coronavirus. According to the statistics of Johns Hopkins University, as of July 7, the number of infected people in the world was 11.626 million, of which the number of infected people in the United States was 2.939 million, accounting for 25% of the world’s total and the world’s most infected. The main reason for this is that the Trump administration was reluctant to set up a virus inspection system and take measures against infectious diseases, has fallen behind even after taking measures. But that is not the only cause. There are two underlying structural problems in the US, inadequate medical security and widening economic disparity since the 1970s.
 In the US, there is no universal medical insurance system like other developed countries and private medical insurance system is common. The only public medical insurance system is Medicare for seniors over 65 and Medicaid for low-income earners. During the Obama administration, people were obliged to join private medical insurance. But now about 29 million uninsured people do not have private medical insurance because the Trump administration abolished its obligation. Many of these people are poor and do not have private medical insurance.
 Even if you have private medical insurance provided by the company, you will face into an uninsured if you are completely fired due to coronavirus effects. As a matter of course, compared to Whites, Hispanics and Blacks, who are relatively low income and uninsured without access to tests and medical care, have more diabetes and heart disease than Whites, and are at higher risk of coronavirus infection and death.
 Let us focus on the economic disparity. Comparing the Gini coefficients of disposable income after government transfer and taxation of households in the five developed countries in 2017, it is 0.390 in US, 0.359 in UK, 0.339 in Japan, 0.289 in Germany, and 0.242 in France. US income disparity is the largest. And comparing the ratio of the population with less 50% of the median disposable income to the total population as the poverty rate, the US is 17.8%, the UK is 11.9%, France is 8.1%. The poverty rate in the US is very high. The seriousness of these economic disparities, combined with the inadequate medical security system, has made the US the world’s largest coronavirus-infected country.

(Author: Masatoshi Katagiri)

This essay is the English version of No. 157, July 21, 2020 on the Japanese website.

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