- The uninsured: Nearly 28 million Americans remain uninsured, despite the insurance gains made under the Affordable Care Act. Uninsured people are more likely to rely on the emergency room. During a pandemic, that can overburden ERs and increase the risk of exposure for uninfected patients waiting to receive care, Kates said.
- Costs: Even for patients who have insurance, deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs have been steadily rising."If you're in the hospital for this or needing treatment, you're likely going to rack up a lot of medical bills, particularly if you're uninsured or simply underinsured with high deductibles," Sloan said.
- Surprise bills: A hospital stay often comes with the risk of a big bill no matter what, and emergency rooms are also some of the biggest sources of surprise bills — often for thousands of dollars. This has already happened to at least one family, who got a bill for nearly $4,000 following a mandatory quarantine.
Many white-collar workers can work at home. Most blue-collar workers cannot. Abigail Hess at CNBC:
A recent report from human resource consulting firm Robert Half found that as many as 90% of workers go to work while under the weather, and according to the most recent American Time Use Survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, just 24% of working adults do some or all of their work from home.
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For the many Americans who do not work in high-tech offices, across industries like health care, manufacturing and retail, working from home will not be logistically possible.
“Working from home is certainly a trend among some companies, in the tech industry, even in the higher education industry, but when you think about major employers like Starbucks or McDonald’s, their employees can’t work from home,” says Colvin.
Indeed, a person’s ability to work from home is highly dependent on the line of work they are in. According to the BLS, nearly 38% of workers in “management, business and financial operation occupations” report doing some or all of their work from home, making them the most likely to do so.
However, roughly 22% of sales workers, 16% of construction workers, 11% of office administration workers, 11% of service workers, 10% of installation, maintenance and repair workers, 8% of transportation workers and 6% of production workers do some or all of their work from home.
It is important to note that these industries are often segregated by race and gender, effectively giving certain workers a higher likelihood of being able to work from home than others. For instance, white and Asian workers are more likely to work in a professional management position than black and Latino workers.
