She's a breast cancer survivor and has asthma.

Until recently, she was a bartender at this New York City Theatre.

Then Corona Virus arrived in the United States.

Everything's changed.

I lost my job.

I lost my health insurance.

That's because Susan's health insurance was linked to her job.

Half of the country relies on this kind of insurance that sponsored by an employer.

And as US unemployment figures climbed to historic high because of the pandemic, millions like Susan are also losing their health coverage, taking people already facing losing their job, already facing the disaster of losing their health and potential other life and facing 1/3 disaster.

Now they have no way to pay for it.

So how did we get here?

To a system that relies heavily unemployment for access to health care?

It's actually a historical accident.

Before the 20th century, there wasn't much need for health insurance because while there wasn't much health care to buy, health care was virtually unregulated and health insurance non existent.

Physicians practiced and treated patients in their homes, and the few hospitals that existed provided minimal therapeutic care, with millions of workers going off to fight in World War Two.

The US face to severe labour shortage in the 19 forties, so businesses wanted to raise wages to attract labor.

But economists had one big concern.

The federal government was trying to prevent wages and prices from inflating and going through the roof, so they told him lawyers that they were wait and price controls on President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 92 50 establishing the Office of Economic Stabilization.

If you needed more workers for your factory because of defense production, let's say the only thing you could do is offer more benefits.

He had to offer them something like health insurance as an extra perk.

So that's what companies did.

When the government ruled in 1943 that insurance paid by an employer was not taxable.

It became even more favorable among workers after the war continued to be really popular because there were a bunch of people had no health insurance, and then, if you got a job, your employer will pay your house insurance.

By 1950 more than 70 million Americans had employer sponsored health insurance.

Today it's more than 156 million, including the spouses and Children of some workers, which means that the health coverage of entire families is at risk.

When workers get axed, bad things start to happen to people who can't pay their medical bills that get in a bankruptcy that get wages, varnish that lean against their home.

So what other options do Americans have?

Us Does not have a national health insurance system.

We have a patchwork of different types of insurance policies, and that includes employment based.

Then we have public sources of coverage.

Public sources of coverage are based on eligibility that can come in the form of Medicaid for Children and low income families for Medicare for people older than 65.

If you don't meet either of these requirements, have no insurance through an employer and cat before your own insurance while you're out of luck.

Like Susan and millions of working class families, it's a scary thing because I'm at high risk for having a recurring case of cancer.

The fact that my follow up appointments for my cancer treatment are now potentially gone because I don't have a job is insane.

It doesn't make sense.

Uninsured people have a lot of trouble getting medical care in the United States, the system is organized around a business model it if you don't have any money to pay, its very hard to get a doctor to see you.

President Barack Obama tried to close that gap in 2010.

With the Affordable care act we have, it actually did the where the percentage of uninsured people in the United States.

But that number is going up again, which is not very reassuring during a pandemic where only getting tested for Kobe 19 it's free.

But treatment for the virus isn't going forward into this world where we're surrounded by viruses and you don't have insurance and you don't have money, you don't have health care.

It's life, or that's just cliche, but just very true.