Ramae Hamrin was a high school math teacher in rural northern Minnesota, in a small town with a Paul Bunyan statue and snow on the ground by October.
Hamrin, 50, instructed low-income students in calculus. It was not an easy job, but it provided health insurance for her and her three children. When it came to voting, like many Americans, she was put off by the two-party system. She voted third-party and often libertarian.
Then, Hamrin slipped, fell and broke her hip. She went to hospital, doctors discovered a 9-centimetre (3.5-inch) lesion on her femur, and within weeks was diagnosed with cancer: multiple myeloma. Within two years, she was unable to work, permanently disabled by the ravages of cancer treatment.
“Before I got diagnosed, I would have never thought about healthcare or drug prices,” as a voting issue, said Hamrin. “Now, really that’s my only issue.”
This year, she said, she is voting one way: “strictly Democratic”.
With the US election just over a week away, Hamrin is one of millions of Americans who’s been heading to the polls this fall with healthcare and drug prices as their top voting issue.
The United States’ massive, largely private and very expensive health industry has ranked as a top voter concern for years, and helped drive Democrats to victory in the midterm elections of 2018, when the party took control of the House of Representatives.
But over the last six months of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 220,000 Americans, Covid-19 eclipsed healthcare as the top issue of the election, though health voters like Hamrin argue the two are inseparable. Her daughter, an accomplished cross-country runner in college, was diagnosed with Covid-19 and now needs an inhaler.
“I do trust the Democrats more than I trust the Republicans to get anything done on this issue,” said Hamrin. Although, she added: “It’s hard to know who to trust these days.”
Although healthcare reform elicits concern across parties, it’s one in which Democrats hold a huge advantage. Biden has a 20-point lead over Trump on issues ranging from how to lower Americans’ health costs and to how to protect people from loathed insurance industry practices.
“Covid has made us all healthcare voters,” said David Mitchell, founder of Patients for Affordable Drugs, one of a handful of advocacy groups which does not take money from pharmaceutical companies.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
