Why we need a New Deal for public health

Decades of neoliberal policies gutting sick pay and rights for workers are the reason why we need a New Deal for public health, according to Amy Kapczynski, professor at Yale Law School. Kapczynski argues that the disastrous effects of the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S. are the end results of neoliberalism: "Deregulation, the starving of the state, the expansion of the profit motive to more and more parts of society" — including a healthcare system that is "driven by a profit logic." One of the key pillars of a New Deal for public health would be Medicare for All, so that working people can "access care in this country without concern that they're going to go bankrupt," says Kapczynski. Beyond that, "we need more powerful workers, we need more sick pay, we need an expansion of the welfare state to keep people in a position where they can do not just the productive work of our society — but the reproductive work [of] caring for one another."

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