Mumia: Real threat not Ebola, but capitalist health care

Mumia Abu-Jamal argues that the Real threat not Ebola, but capitalist health care.

This is not about the Ebola crisis, it is about the US health care crisis, made possible by a flawed business model that prioritises profit above all other things: even life itself.

Consider this: when [Thomas Eric] Duncan first entered Texas Presbyterian Hospital, he was interviewed by a screener, prescribed antibiotics, and sent home.

The screener was, more likely than not, not a medically-trained health care professional but a receptionist, perhaps armed with a checklist to cover. Chances are, she was perhaps the lowest-paid staff, until one considers the janitorial workers.

This business model, one followed by most institutions in the US, is now exposed as ineffective, dangerous and the least health-conscious.

That was a business decision, driven by the bottom line, of money — not life.

Emphasis Mine

The US has been lucky so far in that Ebola does not seem to have entered the population at large. As Mumia points out, this luck will not last given that the US health system is driven by profit alone.

Even this scare will not change the stance of the US health providers. Nor can the government force them to change. The bitter resistance to Obamacare is testament to the political power of the US health system.

But an Ebola outbreak is a disaster waiting to happen in the US. The lack of free, universal health-care means that the poor and undocumented will become the most affected because they are effectively denied access to health-care. Thus, Ebola will probably become established in the under-class.

This will lead to more discrimination and harassment of the poor and undocumented as Xenophobia runs amok in the ensuring panic. There will be little challenge to the US health care system despite its obvious failings.