When Will Essential Mean Essential?
At a minimum, our essential workers deserve healthcare equivalent to our lawmakers.
First of all, we must recognize and say an overwhelming and sincerest of “thank yous” to those individuals that continue to have to go into work, tend for the sick during a pandemic, help run our subways, stock our grocery shelves, keep our city safe, deliver our mail and packages, and figure out ways to teach our children from afar. Our thoughts, prayers, positive energy, and anything else we can send is with all of them.
We have reached a level of crisis, panic, and anxiety in this country that I have never witnessed in my 39 years on earth and we have shut down my home of New York City in a way that I never imagined without the United States being in a physical war. However, those deemed essential to keep our economy and society healthy and functioning have yet to be deemed essential in the eyes of our government.
“Those deemed essential…have yet to be deemed essential in the eyes of our government.”
Thank yous, food donations, shout outs on social media, post-pandemic recognitions, and coordinated standing ovations all help lift morale, but soon (relative to history’s timeline) most of this will subside. The wealthy will flock back from vacation homes, subways will fill up, hospitals won’t be as overwhelmed, and most of the people in this country will go back to hanging out with friends and attending large events. However, the people who are literally holding this country together in a time when others are sheltered inside, will be forgotten and will return to the same job they always have, “essentially” being underpaid and undervalued in terms of benefits and security.
The majority of our own House of Representatives would not travel back to Washington to vote on a $2 Trillion rescue package because it was deemed a health risk. However, these elected officials are unwilling to share their inexpensive and platinum-level benefits and security with those they deem “essential.” In the recent stimulus bill, multiple steps will be taken to give businesses financial relief and some more supplies may be provided, however, nothing was done to ensure our essential workers are taken care of over the long term. At a minimum, these essential workers should share the same health benefits and securities that those dictating their “essentiality” are afforded. To do otherwise would be hypocritical.
At a minimum, essential workers should share the same health benefits and securities as those dictating their “essentiality.”
I have always been an advocate for the underrepresented and those with less of a voice. It is the lens from which I view the majority of experience in this world and it has informed the vast majority of the major decisions I have made in my adult life. I believe access to quality healthcare should be a free right to exist in this world no matter what family you are born into. I realize that this cannot happen overnight. However, three recent personal events stand out that have added to my discontent and agitation around this growing hypocrisy with respect to essential workers.
First, a few weeks before the crisis hit NYC, I had to make a trip to the Emergency Room for my own health. I am a lifetime educator and most recently a public school principal. Compared to many in this country, I have strong health benefits. My sister, who is a RN and currently on the front lines of the COVID crisis in NYC, came to the hospital to support me and provide some medical guidance as I navigated the ER. Once I was in a bed, a nurse approached me to ask for my insurance card and a credit/debit card. Upon hearing about my $100 co-pay, my sister told me that her ER visits cost double mine and she pays a greater percentage of her paycheck towards health care benefits. Every day she works, my sister enters a hospital ravaged by COVID-19, providing care for citizens of this country at its greatest time of medical need in the last Century and her own healthcare plan is twice as expensive as mine (even at the hospital she works in). In this pandemic, she is essential; yet in times of health and prosperity, we refuse to provide her with the benefits that would undoubtedly deem her as such.
My sister’s (nurse) ER visits cost twice as much as mine, even at the hospital she works in.
The second “event” is more of an observation around the food industry and food distribution in our country. Whether it is visiting the grocery store, having groceries delivered, or the few times we have ordered food in support of our local small restaurants, we come into contact with the people who are keeping society fed and food accessible (with convenience) during what is turning into an unthinkable pandemic. The clerks, the butchers, the stockers, the delivery men/women, the Amazon shoppers shopping for others at home all get paid a lower wage and are provided with less health care benefits than they should (especially in NYC), yet they are essential and must be at work to help keep the city running. More importantly, they need to be able to keep their job to be able to provide for their families. Each day they are interacting with the masses and putting themselves at risk of catching the virus and bringing it home to their loved ones. However, health benefits are not guaranteed in all of these jobs, let alone on par with our politicians in Washington. If these workers are deemed “essential” in some or our most dire moments, then they should be taken care of as such in every form of the word; in times of great need and in times of prosperity.
Each day, they are interacting with the masses and putting themselves at risk of catching the virus and bringing it home to their loved ones.
Lastly, as a Principal of a school, I have watched my staff, students, and community spring into action to make sure that our scholars have access to meaningful remote learning opportunities, are fed, and feel connected and supported while ordered to remain at home. All this while still caring for their own loved ones at home; some of whom are affected with COVID. Time and time again, when things get rough, teachers, guidance counselors, teaching assistants, custodians, cafeteria workers, administrative assistants/secretaries, and administrators step up. Education is a labor of love. The vast majority of people chose this path because they believe in our youth and the capacity they possess to help make our world a better place after we are gone. In New York, the education labor force is unionized and is able to be compensated well (relative to other educators) and receive health benefits. However, there are many places that will be affected by COVID where education and educators are undervalued in every sense of the word. As a nation, if we truly believed in our children’s future, if we truly believed education was the passport to the future, we would supply our educators (at a minimum) with the compensation and benefits on par with our lawmakers to make sure that the work for the future of all of our children was deemed essential at all times.
If we truly believed in our children’s future, we would supply our educators with benefits on par with our lawmakers.
There is no better time than crisis to boil things down to basics and see what matters most. What are our essential needs and what are not? Families all around the New York City Metro area (and now the country) are living the effects of COVID-19 and realizing that those functions that simply keep us alive and our minds healthy are more important than anything else. People have to buy food, essential workers have to travel to work, kids need to be engaged during uncertain times, and all citizens deserve a right to essential and meaningful healthcare.
It is time we immediately provide our essential workers with the respect and dignity they deserve; the same health benefits our lawmakers possess.
In order to provide the essential needs of this country, it depends on people. Real people, breathing real air, and requiring the same basic needs as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, or any other insanely wealthy individual in this country. COVID-19 has forced us (and our lawmakers) to examine who is essential and who is not in a time of mass crisis. At a minimum, it is time we immediately end the hypocrisy and provide our essential workers with the respect and dignity they deserve; the same health benefits our lawmakers possess. It is the hard work and decency of the American public who are helping us stay afloat…no one else. If we can afford astronomical bailouts when essential, we can afford ongoing care of our own essential workers now and after this pandemic subsides. #essentialmeansessential
