Protecting the lives and health of citizens ought to be the most basic duty of any government. But the Trump administration, abnormal and toxic, is evidently determined to inflict illness and death on as many Americans as possible.
Consider what President Donald Trump and his minions have done over the past few days (not to mention the past several months). Owing to their feckless insistence on reopening the economy, the coronavirus has again surged across the country, from Florida to Texas to California, infecting tens of thousands — many of whom will soon need care in overburdened hospitals. Yet the federal government has simultaneously announced a drastic cutback in testing funds. They’re suppressing the numbers rather than the disease.
Pretending that the virus is receding, as Vice President Mike Pence instructed Republican governors to do, isn’t destructive enough for them, however. In addition to ensuring that more and more Americans become sick and cannot be tested or traced, Trump’s policy aims to deprive them of health insurance at a time of grave peril. This week, the president sent his government lawyers to the Supreme Court for another attempt to kill the Affordable Care Act, just when Americans are losing their jobs and the health insurance upon which they and their families depend. Continue reading.