Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear intends to ‘put dollars’ into ensuring all of the state’s African-American residents have healthcare, citing ‘inequalities’ in Covid-19 treatment – which was fully funded by the federal government.
“I believe health care is a basic human right,” Beshear, a Democrat, said on Monday at a press conference in Frankfort. While he campaigned on providing it to everyone, “as I’ve been trying to hear from those who have been giving voice on in inequality …it’s time to give prioritization in black and African-American communities, so we are going to do that.”
“We are gonna begin an effort to cover 100 percent of our individuals in our black and African-American communities,” Beshear said. “We’re gonna be putting dollars behind it.”
It’s unclear exactly what the timeline will be and how it will work. But here are his words:
“My commitment today is we are going to begin an effort to cover 100% of our individuals in our Black and African American communities. Everybody. We are going to put dollars behind it"
Every black Kentuckian should be “signed up for some form of coverage,” Beshear said. He wasn’t sure how exactly that might be accomplished, adding that he aims to extend Medicare or Medicaid – federal programs for seniors and the poor – to those without private health insurance.
While socialized health care is not a novel position for a Democrat – Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders ran for the party’s presidential nomination on the same platform – Beshear is the first to turn the idea of universal healthcare into what amounts to a racial preference policy.
As protests over the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota spread across the US and turned violent, celebrities and corporations raced to demonstrate their social justice credentials by donating to Black Lives Matter and other groups.
Uber went a step further and last week waived delivery fees for “black-owned restaurants” in the US and Canada. Uber’s pledge to also promote these businesses in its app has raised questions of whether such obvious racial preference is allowed under US civil rights laws.
At least in regard to Covid-19, however, the insurance status of any American – including Kentuckians of any race – has been entirely irrelevant, since the Trump administration announced in early April that providers treating anyone infected by the coronavirus would be reimbursed by the federal government at Medicare rates, prompting critics to hail what they described as “Medicare for all.”
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