Roughly 3.5 million Americans likely lost their health insurance just in the past two weeks, according to an analysis of state and federal data from the Economic Policy Institute. That’s over one-third of the people who have filed unemployment claims.
Why it matters: The coronavirus pandemic is wiping away people’s jobs and health insurance at the same time people are at risk of contracting a deadly disease, and in the process is exposing the flaws of tying health coverage to employment. Medicaid will pick up a lot of these people.