Conservatives Who Fear an Epidemic Crossing the Border Should Stop Blocking America’s First Line of Defense: Access to Healthcare

Via: The Advisory Board Company

In July, Rep. Phil Gingrey, a Georgia tea partyist, claimed in a letter to his constituents that amid the “crisis at our southern border,” there are “reports of illegal migrants carrying deadly diseases such as … Ebola virus.” Even the widely discredited fact-checker Politifact labeled Gingrey’s dire assertion a “Pants on Fire” lie. Gingrey, who also happens to be a physician, should know better — and probably does.

Despite having been labeled a lie, Gingrey’s assertion set the right-wing propaganda machine in movtion. Fox News ran with a story headlined, “Ebola Outbreak Fuels Concerns over Health Risks along US-Mexico Border.” Breitbart.com, the website started by the late racist and notorious news-faker Andrew Breitbart, warned that “experts” claim “Ebola Could Cross Unsecured Border.” The birther site World Net Daily asked, “Could Ebola Sneak Across U.S. Border?” The lawsuit-happy Clinton-haters at Judicial Watch expanded the threat level beyond Ebola, warning that, “Illegal Alien Minors Spreading TB, Dengue, Swine Flu.”

The threat of an epidemic in the United States is not unrealistic, nor is it new. The world has been one chicken sneeze away from a global pandemic for decades, even centuries. If the worst were to occur — if the GOP’s fears were realized — it would hit the United States where it is most vulnerable, in its first line of defense: Its healthcare system.

Survival rates among those who contract Ebola and similar diseases largely depend on the pre-infection health status of the victims. Healthy people tend to survive, while the unhealthy do not. Because of this, these diseases are more common in areas with poor quality healthcare.

In fact, if the worst happened and, say, ISIS terrorists were to smuggle Ebola across the southern border, Ground Zero for the epidemic would likely be Texas, the only Mexican border state that has denied access to affordable healthcare to its most vulnerable workers. If the epidemic were to spread, states where low-wage, self-employed and undocumented workers, for example, have been denied coverage under the Affordable Care Act would be theoretically be more vulnerable than states where workers at this level are less likely to have illnesses that are undiagnosed and untreated. It goes without saying that all these states are controlled by Republicans.

Conservative ideology insists that access to healthcare is a privilege not a right, and that poor people — the “takers” — deserve their lot in life. However, Americans in the sensible center, who have generally been receptive to the right’s opposition to healthcare reform, may rethink their position if they come to believe the threat of an epidemic is real. After all, who are the low-wage and undocumented workers who have no access to healthcare? They are Walmart clerks, fast-food workers, nannies, busboys, car-park valets and others who because of their jobs have physical contact with the middle and upper classes. Without adequate healthcare, these people could become major sources of infection, as could their children, who go to school with children who, like all children, are more vulnerable to infection than adults even if they have excellent healthcare.

From the start, Republicans have made reforming healthcare a toxic political debate. The fact is, reforming the system is far more important than the mere politics. On one level, universal healthcare is now, and always has been, a national security issue.

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