COVID-19 has put America to the test. No other event in recent memory has tried our health care system or our social safety net so thoroughly. Our response as a country to COVID-19 has, like a mirror under fluorescent lights, shown us so many of America’s flaws.
The 2020 pandemic has emphasized the shortcomings of a system that leaves too many Americans behind. We have had to face the ways that American individualism keeps some from following basic CDC guidelines in the name of “freedom.” It is this convoluted definition of freedom that keeps us from developing the other social safety nets that progressives push for. We remain the only developed nation without a cohesive universal health care system, one of the few that doesn’t offer paid parental leave, and we have among the highest levels of student loan debt in the world. In our strive for freedom, we’ve developed a system that keeps millions in financial cages. America can’t implement on progressive policies, because too many Americans can’t see that these social safety nets — just like masks and social distancing — benefit everyone.
Dr. Samantha Montano is a “disasterologist” from southern Maine. She studies emergency management and disaster relief and I wanted her opinion on what could have helped America’s response to this pandemic.
“There’s multiple problems going on, which means there needs to be multiple fixes but an overarching problem that we have is communication,” she said.
According to Montano, effective communication is, unsurprisingly, key to effective emergency response plans. One of the key reasons Maine has managed to maintain relatively low numbers has been cohesive messaging from our leaders from the start. If this had happened nationwide, she said, this pandemic would have been very different. If we could approach other social issues with the same cohesiveness, perhaps we could provide health care to every Mainer, or eliminate student loan debt across the state.
According to Montano, “The overarching difference between the U.S. and some of these other countries that have approached things better is, at its roots, the individualism in the United States. The idea that it’s my freedom and my right not to wear a mask.”
The reason America’s coronavirus relief steps have failed is the same reason so many Americans are uninsured, or underinsured. In reality, social safety nets that help some inevitably help society as a whole. It is beneficial to me if the people handling my food, or caring for the children in my neighborhood, have access to health care.
America’s collective idea that everyone is responsible for their own success, that everyone needs to take care of themselves, prevents us from taking steps that would benefit all of us — but that doesn’t mean we can’t address those failures on the state level.
In a recent interview with Beacon, incoming Maine House Speaker Ryan Fecteau said, “I think the inherent qualities that we see in Maine people is that when people are facing tough times, we step up to the plate, we help them.”
As the 130th Maine Legislature gets to work, Mainers need to make it clear to our state representatives that we need them to step up to the plate, and that we see the benefit of social safety nets for struggling Mainers.
It’s time we shed this “every man for himself” mentality, and recognize that keeping everyone safe, healthy and prosperous is pivotal to building a strong and equitable country. My neighbor earning a livable wage and having access to health care benefits all of us, as does my neighbor wearing a mask during a pandemic.
The only way out of this pandemic, and so many other social crises that Maine and the rest of the country are currently facing, is for us to come together and build a system of safety nets that works for all of us.
Photo: Cliff Hawkins, Getty Images
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