To the Editor:
It is striking how right-wing groups and politicians are using the pandemic to promote their own narrower interests. The Texas governor uses the health crisis to try to ban abortions, while the Trump administration pushes its anti-immigrant, anti-China agenda.
Groups demanding that states reopen tout their “right” to carry assault rifles openly, a few members of Congress use the information they need to legislate wisely to cash out in the stock market, and the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, aims to punish Democratic-leaning states by withholding funds for treating patients.
For these people, there is no bigger picture, no we’re-all-in-this-together, no shame.
Daniel Grant
Amherst, Mass.
To the Editor:
If there’s anything more despicable than war profiteering, it’s profiteering from a pandemic while thousands are dying horrible deaths. We need the government to coordinate a response to Covid-19 based on medical science, focused on concern for the welfare of the people. On Wednesday, however, The Times reported two stories of shameless profiteering by Trump administration cronies.
Meanwhile, Jared Kushner’s volunteers in Mr. Trump’s supply-chain task force, bypassing competent Federal Emergency Management Agency procurement specialists, are prioritizing purchases based on a V.I.P. spreadsheet listing Trump political allies (“FEMA Supply Effort Tangled by Kushner Team,” front page).
Gen. Smedley Butler, who wrote “War Is a Racket,” an exposé about World War I military procurement practices, would recognize this for exactly what it is. With Mr. Trump, everything is a racket.
Richard Latimer
Falmouth, Mass.
The Role of Health Insurers
To the Editor:
Re “Health Insurers as Heroes?” (Op-Ed, May 7):
Amol S. Navathe and Ezekiel J. Emanuel are almost entirely correct on how health insurance providers are responding to the Covid-19 crisis. They proclaim that insurance providers should waive patient costs for testing and treatment, provide payment flexibility on premiums, financially support doctors, provide extra medications to patients, and actively engage members with known health conditions to encourage needed care. Health insurance providers nationwide have proactively taken all those actions and more.
Where the doctors miss the mark is by saying we are profiting from this pandemic. Health insurance is different from auto insurance. Car accidents avoided today will not happen tomorrow. Deferred medical care, however, will need to be delivered. Health insurers must be there to cover all costs, both from Covid-19, which could exceed half a trillion dollars over two years, and when Americans surge back to receive the medical care we have always covered, from elective surgeries to managing chronic conditions like diabetes.
Heroic or not, we stand with Americans and our true health care heroes on the front lines. We will overcome this crisis together.
Matt Eyles
Washington
The writer is president and chief executive of America’s Health Insurance Plans.