Coronavirus is exposing all of the weaknesses in the US health system

The international response to the novel coronavirus has laid this bare: America was less prepared for a pandemic than countries with universal health systems.

There is a real concern that Americans, with a high uninsured rate and high out-of-pocket costs compared to the rest of the world, won’t seek care because of the costs. Before the crisis even began, the United States had fewer doctors and fewer hospital beds per capita than most other developed countries. The rollout of COVID-19 testing has been patchy, reliant on a mix of government and private labs to scale up the capacity to perform the tens of thousands of tests that will be necessary.

“Everyone working in this space would agree that no matter how you measure it, the US is far behind on this,” says Jen Kates, director of global health and HIV policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

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