Paid sick leave in Miami-Dade could help contain spread of the coronavirus | Opinion
It shouldn’t take a public-health crisis to force our country to get serious about policies that are desperately needed to improve the lives of working families. But that’s exactly what has happened in recent days, as the threat of coronavirus intensifies in the United States and around the world.
As the numbers of those infected and killed by COVID-19 continue to grow, the conversation has turned toward all possible solutions to contain the virus’s spread.
“We are ignoring one obvious way to fight the coronavirus,” writes the New York Times. “Paid sick leave could slow the spread of the disease and its impact on the economy.”
In the Washington Post: “As the threat of the coronavirus grows, public health experts are concerned about it being spread by sickened food service workers who prepare, serve and deliver a significant share of the meals consumers eat each day.”
Perhaps for the first time in America, there is a growing consensus that paid sick-leave policies are urgently needed — to allow people to better care for themselves and their families, and to significantly control the rate of workplace transmission.
Unlike most other developed countries, the United States does not require employers to provide paid sick leave. But a recent study found that adopting such laws on a state level reduced cases of the flu by 11 percent within just a year.
Expanding paid sick leave to more families is a moral and economic imperative. The sad truth is that it’s taken an emerging global pandemic to drive the point home.
When we have sound public policy that protects the health of all our families, we are better prepared as a country and a community to face unexpected public-health threats.
We have the opportunity to take meaningful steps to address this need at the local level — by providing paid sick leave to employees of Miami-Dade County contractors. This includes the workers who prepare food in Miami International Airport, handling meals consumed by travelers and visitors who come to South Florida from across the globe. It’s the workers who provide security in our government buildings, interacting with thousands of members of the public every day.
Legislation I am sponsoring before the County Commission to provide sick leave will be heard in committee again April 22 at 9:30 am, giving us an opportunity to address questions on how this policy can be best implemented in our community.
The threat of COVID-19 also has exposed the ongoing failure to provide affordable healthcare to all American families. Several stories already have surfaced about people who feared they might be infected seeking testing, only to be told their insurance doesn’t cover such procedures and they owe thousands of dollars in medical bills.
In Florida, one man was hit with a $3,000+ bill after going through his insurance to seek testing for coronavirus.
No Floridian should be denied the ability to be tested for the virus because of gaps in an insurance plan or lack of coverage. In the short term, we need to minimize or eliminate financial burdens for any individual requiring testing.
But coronavirus didn’t create these problems. Last year, 36 million Americans skipped a recommended test or treatment because of costs. Half of all Americans report they have delayed seeking care because they couldn’t afford it. And 87 million remain uninsured or underinsured.
We shouldn’t need a crisis to convince many policymakers and leaders that we are failing as a society to protect the health and wellbeing of American families.
But now we are faced with one, and it’s not going away. We need to fight to expand paid sick leave and access to affordable healthcare — improving the lives of so many families in the best of times, and protecting our country and economy from threats in the worst of times.
Daniella Levine Cava represents District 8 on the Miami-Dade County Commssion.