Post COVID-19 Healthcare, Education, and Retirement New Paradigms

COVID-19 has revealed many gaps in our society. One of the gaps, healthcare inequality is of particular importance to me and my daily work at the clinic. The good news – there are good and reasonable solutions, if we care to fix it and resist ideological thinking.

Just to start, I question why companies ended up responsible for providing healthcare insurance to their employees. And, this is for personal healthcare insurance, not just work-related care insurance. Although it seems sensible for employers to provide work-related care insurance because the injury or illness is caused by or at work, it does not seem logical to have employers cover care for personal, non-work-related conditions.

Conversely, the governments (at local and federal levels) do have a strong interest and responsibility to keep all the citizens well and healthy, so they can be productive parts of the society in working, community involvement, and paying taxes. The governments should rightfully and wisely invest in human capital by paying for the care but they don’t necessarily have to directly provide citizen/resident healthcare; governments can and should partner with private hospitals and clinics, which, I think, is a more robust model than a single national public healthcare system.

Education and skill building however, I think, are employers’ responsibility and interest that they have for their employees. Skillful and knowledgeable workers are a valuable asset for companies. Thus, companies should rightfully and wisely invest in the education and skill training of their employees – so they have high quality workers who best can contribute in the growth and profit-making of the companies.

Removing or reducing the burden of healthcare and education costs and expenses, the responsibility of retirement security can then be more appropriately returned back to the individuals, their family members, and with some help in additional contributions from the companies. The governments, then, would only take on the limited role of a safety net provider but not guaranteeing all citizens their retirement support.