2 — Thursday, March 26, 2020
News
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., 

held her third telephone town hall on 

Wednesday to answer questions from 

constituents regarding the most recent 

developments on the coronavirus, 

including the relief package that was 

negotiated by the U.S. Senate earlier 

that day and passed Wednesday 

night, and the resources available to 

constituents in District 12. 

Congress has already passed two 

smaller coronavirus bills to help 

bolster the economy, but the third is a 

nearly $2 trillion package that aims to 

help stabilize the U.S. economy in the 

months to come. 

Dingell talked with constituents 

alongside 
Carolyn 
Wilson, 
chief 

operating officer and executive vice 

president at Beaumont Health, and 

Romy Ancog, the regional export 

finance manager at the Small Business 

Administration in Detroit. 

Dingell opened by emphasizing the 

importance of staying home and how 

everyone is needed to help stop the 

spread of the coronavirus. 

“This is real and diligence on the 

part of everyone is needed right now, 

and this is not a partisan time,” Dingell 

said. “The number one priority besides 

PPE (personal protective equipment) is 

to address this health crisis. It requires 

a Marshall Plan that we have to keep 

our health care infrastructure strong, 

and we are going to have to rebuild it to 

ensure that the resources are there to 

test and treat everyone who needs it.” 

Wilson noted that many cases of 

COVID-19 are mild, and symptoms — 

which can include fever, fatigue and 

dry cough — can often be managed 

without seeking medical care. 

“Most people do very well with their 

management of these symptoms at 

home,” Wilson said. “There is a minority 

of patients who do require intervention 

if those symptoms get moderate or 

severe and we would encourage you if 

you do have mild symptoms to stay at 

home and quarantined as the governor 

has asked us to do.”

Ancog discussed the focus of the 

SBA during this time and encouraged 

small business and nonprofit owners to 

apply for loans. 

“(We are focused on) how it can 

help business owners get through 

this very difficult time,” Ancog said. 

“These loans are available for any small 

business or nonprofit whether it was 

affected directly or indirectly by this 

virus.” 

Dingell also acknowledged the need 

to “flatten the curve,” or slow the 

spread of the virus enough to ensure the 

nation’s hospitals are not overwhelmed. 

“If we’re going to take the peak and 

lower it, we have to get to a hump and 

that means we have to stop going out 

and it’s really hard, but we have to do 

that,” Dingell said. 

“The bill that we hopefully will get 

more details on tonight — Schumer 

called it unemployment on steroids — 

part of it is going to try to fully replace 

wages for four months.” 

SARAH PAYNE
Daily Staff Reporter

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DOMINICK SOKOTOFF/Daily

Representative Debbie Dingell held her third telephone town hall Wednesday evening. This photo was taken when Dingell previously spoke with sup-
porters to kick off the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus at the Pretzel Bell in February.
Dingell provides updates on 
federal response to COVID-19

US representative hosts telephone town hall to discuss efforts to stop 
spread of virus, tells constituents ‘We cannot have a panic right now’

Now, the spread of coronavirus 

and growing concerns about how the 

nation’s hospitals will handle the strain 

have fueled calls for Medicare for All 

among some activists and politicians.

According to El-Sayed, one of the 

primary goals of passing Medicare for 

All is to prevent catastrophes like the 

COVID-19 pandemic from causing 

damage on a national level.

“Our responsibility is to articulate 

the future that is set in the past we 

wish we had,” El-Sayed said. “One 

where we had been able to address 

this, one where we could have been 

able to stop this.”

El-Sayed, an alum of the University 

of 
Michigan 
and 
former 
health 

director of Detroit, is a prominent 

proponent of universal health care, 

has discussed Medicare for All widely 

in various interviews, podcasts and in 

his upcoming book “Healing Politics: A 

Doctor’s Journey into the Heart of Our 

Political Epidemic.” He is a longtime 

proponent of the policy. During his 

2018 
gubernatorial 
campaign, 
he 

proposed 
MichiCare, 
single-payer 

health insurance covering all Michigan 

residents.

On Wednesday, El-Sayed outlined 

the ways in which Medicare for All 

would benefit Americans, pointing 

to the failure of the nation’s current 

health care system to adequately 

respond to the outbreak of coronavirus. 

“Whenever you have a public good, 

if you run the public good poorly, it’s 

poor,” El-Sayed said. ”If you defund 

the public good, it’s bad. I don’t want 

folks to fall for the trick of ‘Oh look, 

they’ve got a public system and look 

how bad it’s failing.’ Well, we’re two 

weeks away from seeing what the 

consequences of our system are, and 

it’s going to be awful. I wish we never 

had to see it, but we’re going to see a lot 

of these images.”

With respect to the COVID-19 

pandemic, El-Sayed criticized the 

current health care system’s handling 

of the situation.

“Our 
current 
pandemic 
is 

substantially worse because there are 

10 percent of people who are, in effect, 

locked out of health care,” El-Sayed 

said. “Coronavirus creates a very non-

specific set of symptoms. You know 

how many other diseases cause a fever 

and a dry cough? Almost everything 

that people suffer from this time of 

year. So if you’re sitting there, and even 

if you have insurance but your health 

care is behind a deductible, you’re 

saying ‘Well look, alright, so I can get 

tests paid for but if I don’t have COVID, 

then I’m not going to get my care paid 

for and I’m going to have to pay for it. 

So maybe I just won’t.’”

See POLICY, Page 3

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