U.S. ranks low among rich nations on several measures of well-being, so we were already weak when COVID-19 hit — and are slow to recover from it.

Four months after the November 2016 election, it was clear what Trump and Congress’s Republicans would do.  Here is what I had written in March 2017 to expose the “Make America Great” baloney:

The new administration and Congress want to weaken or abolish many laws and regulations that have been protecting the environment. This would cause more pollution. A polluted nation is not “great.” A polluted nation is dirty, and it makes people sick.
If we want our nation to be “great,” we must demand that governments at all levels – federal, state and local – take strong actions to protect and sustain a clean and healthy environment.

 

Now I’m posting it to this blog — and adding the links below — because the Coronavirus pandemic found the U.S. population already weak from health problems and other systemic problems. Other rich nations recognize health care as a human right, and they had healthier populations to start with.

Trump has been making it worse. Coronavirus attacks our respiratory system. Trump and his EPA are deliberately causing more air pollution to hurt people’s breathing. Trump and Congress’s Republicans have been cutting people’s nutrition and health care. Trump is actively suing to get the Supreme Court to abolish the Affordable Care Act. So besides preventing meaningful preparation, prevention and policies about the pandemic, Trump has also dug our nation deeper in a hole of chronic sickness.

I searched the web for relevant info and found a few sources of information about the underlying, background realities of the U.S.’s poor rankings on well-being that made our nation less able to cope:

https://dc37blog.wordpress.com/2018/02/22/among-the-richest-nations-the-united-states-is-one-of-the-poorest/

https://www.nextavenue.org/u-s-health-system-ranks-last/

https://californiahealthline.org/morning-breakout/us-ranks-below-other-nations-for-many-health-indicators-report-finds/

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/01/wef-davos-inequality/513185/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About GlenAnderson 1499 Articles
Since the late 1960s Glen Anderson has devoted his life to working as a volunteer for peace, nonviolence, social justice, and progressive political issues. He has worked through many existing organizations and started several. Over the years he has worked especially for such wide-ranging goals as making peace with Vietnam, eliminating nuclear weapons, converting from a military economy to a peacetime economy, abolishing the death penalty, promoting nonviolence at all levels throughout society, and helping people organize and strategize for grassroots movements to solve many kinds of problems. He writes, speaks, and conducts training workshops on a wide variety of topics. Since 1987 he has produced and hosted a one-hour cable TV interview program on many kinds of issues. Since 2017 he has blogged at https://parallaxperspectives.org He lives in Lacey near Olympia WA. You can reach him at (360) 491-9093 glen@parallaxperspectives.org