Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the former health commissioner of Detroit, argued Tuesday that the coronavirus pandemic has laid bare systemic flaws in the United States' for-profit healthcare system that can only be remedied by transitioning to Medicare for All.

"It does point to a bigger structural failure in our healthcare system," El-Sayed, a former Michigan gubernatorial candidate, said of the COVID-19 outbreak in an interview on HillTV. "Our healthcare system right now is a matter of figuring out how to make money off of different kinds of patients."

"Our healthcare system right now is a matter of figuring out how to make money off of different kinds of patients."

—Dr. Abdul El-Sayed

"Whether it's the payers—the insurance companies—or it's the providers—the hospitals—or it's the pharma companies who make drugs, or it's even the medical tech companies who make the devices that we use in healthcare, all of them are focused on a bottom line," said El-Sayed.

"Obviously that kind of system is not geared to handle the kind of mass influx of patients that are going to come with COVID-19," El-Sayed added. "So we have the wrong healthcare system for this."

El-Sayed, who made single-payer healthcare a centerpiece of his 2018 Michigan gubernatorial bid, said a Medicare for All system would enable the U.S. to more efficiently and effectively confront crises like infectious disease pandemics.

"Let this be the moment that we realize that this system is just unsustainable, it is not working," said El-Sayed. "If we were to engage with Medicare for All the way that we ought to be, the way that almost every other high-income country in the world has, we would be in a very different position in terms of our ability to meet this need because the government would be the funder."

Watch the full interview:

On Monday, consumer advocacy group Public Citizen released a fact sheet (pdf) echoing El-Sayed's argument that the coronavirus pandemic demonstrates the urgent need for Medicare for All in the United States.

"The for-profit health care system in the U.S. puts the country at a dangerous disadvantage in managing the COVID-19, also known as novel coronavirus, pandemic," Public Citizen said. "Medicare for All would make responding to COVID-19 easier."

Read the full fact sheet below: