It seems we’ve all got an opinion about how global, national and local leaders are handing the coronavirus pandemic. In this show, Powers skips over all of that and talks about how COVID-19 is changing the way we look at different aspects of the health care system. She discusses nurses, doctors, epidemiologists and hospitals. Most provocatively, Powers addresses the issue of rationing and offers up an idea about how to control Medicare spending through a self-rationing system.
Key Citations

* Rates of prescription drug use by age: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
* COVID-19 fatality estimates: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Emerging Infectious Diseases

Transcript
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Welcome to The Powers Report Podcast. I am your host, Janis Powers. The show brings you candid, unique and data-driven perspectives on the health care industry. I believe that any solution that is going to positively impact the American health care system has to satisfy two major criteria: financial viability and behavioral incentive alignment. In other words, access to high quality care can only be achieved if we can afford it, and if we behave in ways that optimize our health. Please subscribe to our show on iTunes or on your preferred podcasting platform and connect with us on social media. Again, this is Janis Powers, and welcome to The Powers Report Podcast.
Maybe by the time you listen to this, the panic over COVID-19 will have passed. Maybe there will be a vaccine or a cure. Or maybe the flu season will be over, and we’ll just be managing the disease by nipping it in the bud with much improved testing capabilities. As we record this show, I think a lot of us are feeling coronavirus fatigue as well as a big fat dose of cabin fever. So let it be known: this podcast isn’t about making predictions about how many people will die, or talking up potential cures, or critiquing our leaders for not doing a better job, or comparing the American response with other nations, or anything like that.
Instead, I want to talk about what the virus tells us about the American health care system. There’s a lot to learn.
Probably most importantly, we’re going to get a renewed respect for the health care worker, especially the nurses and other support staff. The people doing, literally, the dirty work. They’re not just diagnosing, but more critically, they’re taking care of the patients. These are the health care practitioners at the highest level of risk because they are in continuous person-to-patient exposure.
The virus isn’t changing our minds about what we think of nurses. It’s fortifying our opinion about an already well-respected profession. For years, Gallup has been polling people, asking them if they trust individuals with different occupations. When it comes to rating people on honesty and ethical standards, nurses have reached the top spot for 17 consecutive years. 84% of Americans rated nurses “very high” or “high” when it came to these criteria. Last on the list … members of Congress. They scored a pathetic 8% confidence rating. Clergy was at 37%, which was better than lawyers. They were at 19%.
So I think the nurses are going to come out of the COVID-19 crisis with enhanced status. Savvy nursing organizations are likely to use this unpaid societal debt as a means to better negotiate terms of employment. And I’m not just talking better pay and better benefits. I’m talking robust health and/or life insurance policies. If (and dare I say when) something like this happens again, nurses and their families need to be protected. We give veterans lifetime health insurance (OK … it’s not the best,