Unequal health care

Re: Biden to reopen 'Obamacare' markets for COVID-19 relief.

When my parents immigrated to the United States in 1993, they were told that the primary tenets of this country are "liberty and justice for all." I grew up taking that phrase as truth. Now, in 2021, I'm seeing Americans lose their jobs after contracting COVID and with it, their health insurance. I'm seeing over half of the American population go without proper health care, even under the ACA. Many of them are immigrants and people of color who are essential workers, like my family. Where is the "liberty and justice" for us?

In 1869, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that "separate facilities are inherently unequal." Yet, in 2021, the American health care system still separates private and public insurance and hospitals under the Affordable Care Act. Politicians have the audacity to imply that our current system is somehow equal.

What exactly is equal about hospitals in low-income, minority areas having to compete for proper funding? What's equal about insurance companies choosing what medical procedures are "necessary?" Currently, physicians can determine the quality of care they give you based on what type of insurance you have, the color of your skin and your proficiency in English. You can't easily change physicians due to restrictive insurance provider networks. This system has never been equal.

Some Americans feel hopeful for the Biden administration, and the president's executive order regarding the ACA. As a young woman of color, all I feel is frustrated. The president's inaction on universal health care, coupled with Democratic legislators' failing to co-sponsor a Medicare for All bill, is tone-deaf to the people of color who are dying in this country. We glorify this administration as some miracle, when we should be taking for what it is: the bare minimum. We need liberty, justice, and Medicare for All, now.

Nidhi Shastri

Hoffman Estates