Re: “Medi-Cal not the solution to expand healthcare,” Free Lance, March 29.
What have we learned from the pandemic, or are we in another pandemic? The symptoms seem to be having a hunger when we are not hungry. These symptoms are not like body obesity but are more like a mind obesity, also called greed.
This disease ravages our country. Our country is the most unequal in the world. I am thinking of the fractional percent of the super wealthy like Elon Musk compared to the rest of the population.
We learned from the Covid pandemic that the poor suffered the highest percentage of deaths. Their crowded housing conditions like sharing an apartment, house or even a garage resulted in the most Covid deaths.
Because of low wages or lack of jobs or distance from grocery stores, poor diet increased their vulnerability to Covid.
The joyous discovery and availability of the Covid-19 vaccine saved us from a decimated population. Our government made the vaccine free for everyone.
High rates of vaccine participation halted the Covid-19 scourge, but did not knock it out because of lack of full participation which sadly remains and is responsible for vaccine mutations.
The 750,000 health uninsured poor in our state need healthcare like vaccines because when they are healthy we all are healthy.
Wisely, Gov. Newsom extends Medi-Cal benefits to them. Unwisely, Sally Pipes from the Pacific Research Institute suggests a cheaper alternative like private insured short-term plans.
Her own arguments against the governor’s plan infect her. The poor lack funds to buy health insurance. The poor lack transportation to healthcare providers. The poor live in crowded conditions. A shortage of doctors exists to care for all patients.
Prescriptive advice to cure these ills would be to cure the epidemic of those who want to eat when they do not feel hungry—otherwise known as a mind disease.
Overcoming mind obesity, also known as greed, is the vaccine that prevents this epidemic of poor health.
Mary Zanger
Hollister
