What It Costs Us

Morning Dispatch

They look so happy about it.

Recently Kamala Harris proposed expanding Medicare to cover the often-crushing burden of long-term home health care. The Washington Post editorial board is deeply concerned about where the money to cover this new program will come from:

Harris wants Medicare to cover home care. How will she pay for that? Home health care is a cost burden on families. Harris’s plan could be a cost burden on taxpayers.

Here’s a question I never hear the corporate media ask: What is the cost of not addressing an issue that affects millions of Americans? In the wake of two devastating hurricanes, Helene and Milton, that’s a question we should be asking in context of climate change: What is the cost of failing to address the increasingly dangerous combination of increasing air temperatures, warming waters, and rising sea levels in terms of loss of human life, destruction of property, and the quality of our existence?

Insurers are pulling out of areas that are at greater risk of damage because of storms like Helene and Milton. What will the burden to tax payers be if people can no longer get property insurance?

Republicans have tried a hundred times (!) to repeal the Affordable Care Act. What if they succeed? That is, what would it cost us if we don’t provide Americans with health insurance? Uninsured people don’t have access to primary care physicians. By the time they seek treatment, they’re often much sicker than they would have been if they had access to preventive care; sometimes they end up going to the emergency room. If they can’t afford to pay those bills, those costs get passed on to the American taxpayer.

Donald Trump, who’s rampage against immigrants has reached a fever pitch, has promised "the largest domestic deportation operation in American history." Leaving aside the moral horror explicit in that proposal, I have yet to see sustained analyses of the ruinous costs of even attempting such an effort. Much the same can be said of tax cuts for the rich, taking healthcare away from tens of millions of people, and failing to address a catastrophic situation that puts all of us increasingly at risk.

We so often worry about the cost of programs that help Americans while failing to factor in the potential gains in terms of opportunities, health, and productivity. It shouldn’t always be—and isn’t always—about money.

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To anybody who was in the path of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, I hope you are safe.