In the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic, when hospitals should be increasing pay for health care workers and hiring more doctors, nurses and support personnel, doctors, nurses and others are taking pay cuts and being furloughed or even laid off. Why is this happening now?

Many hospitals and health care providers in the United States are currently in the red, projecting unprecedented budgetary shortfalls. Reductions in elective surgeries and other routine appointments are cited as a major reason for financial difficulties, as people heed the call to stay out of the emergency room unless truly sick, and postpone routine and elective care. This has dried up a crucial revenue stream.

The list of hospitals furloughing workers grows every day. Pay cuts and reductions in hours are being instituted across the board in many hospitals and clinics to compensate for revenue losses. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 43,000 health care jobs were lost across the United States last month. As a result, health sector workers face increasing economic precarity, with looming threats of pay reductions, furloughs and layoffs.

Jane*, a Minnesota-based healthcare worker, told Liberation News that although her job and pay have remained intact so far, the news of healthcare layoffs and pay cuts around the state is contributing to a feeling of “unease at the workplace.” This anxiety worsens an already high-stress workplace environment during the pandemic.

Supporting both medical and non-medical health care sector workers should be common sense, especially during a global pandemic. Every hospital worker — from a frontline doctor treating COVID-19 patients to a janitor who disinfects and cleans facilities — deserves economic security as they fortify the country’s health care system against the virus.

When workers suffer, patients do too. Furloughs directly reduce the responsiveness of the health care system to the virus. According to Jane, as mid-level providers like physician’s assistants, nurses and support staff are furloughed, “doctors will find themselves with a higher workload and patients will see longer waiting times.” Meanwhile, medical facilities in some metro areas are rapidly approaching capacity. Many hospitals still face shortages of personal protective equipment and masks. All of this reduces the ability of the health care system to respond to COVID-19. Patients with the virus and patients with other ailments will be less likely to receive timely and effective treatment.

These reductions in system effectiveness will not be felt equally across the country. Hospitals in low-income urban areas and rural areas were cash-strapped prior to the outbreak of COVID-19. The current medical financial crisis will further exacerbate class disparities in health infrastructure as hospitals in poor areas cut back more than those in wealthy areas.

This perfect storm highlights the inability of U.S. capitalism to provide a robust healthcare system. While frontline workers lose out, hospital executives keep their lavish salaries and bonuses. Take for example the world-famous Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The Mayo Clinic was one of the first providers in Minnesota to cancel all elective surgeries in the wake of the global pandemic. While Mayo has yet to lay off any nurses or physicians, the lack of revenue from elective surgeries caused Mayo executives to institute a hiring freeze and furlough many non-medical workers. Additionally, Mayo executives are taking a 20 percent pay cut while mandating pay cuts of 10 percent for doctors and 7 percent for other employees remaining on company payroll.

The seemingly progressive nature of these pay cuts obscures massive inequality within the Mayo Clinic itself. In 2018, multiple Mayo executives made seven-figure salaries. Current CEO Gianrico Farugia and former CEO John Noseworthy made $1.91 million and $3.45 million respectively . Their pay has likely increased since then. Under capitalism, hospital executives claim to contribute to fiscal responsibility by taking pay cuts, but as Mayo’s example shows, a pay cut for a multimillionaire CEO is not the same as a pay cut for a nurse, secretary or doctor. Indeed, across the country, executive pay in the hospital sector has grown faster than pay for frontline workers, contributing to an already exorbitant gap.

Ironically, Mayo is registered as a not-for-profit medical center. This points to a deeper problem: under capitalism, the distinction between for-profit and not-for-profit is often blurred to the point of meaninglessness. The U.S. hospital sector epitomizes this contradiction. Put simply, hospital executives are capitalists who present their pay cuts as noble acts of altruism despite making millions more than their frontline employees.

The mainstream media attributes the current financial dilemma in the U.S. hospital sector to reductions in routine procedures. In reality though, this crisis is a direct product of the greed of executives such as Farugia and Noseworthy. Hospital executives could choose to spend their enormous salaries and bonuses on a scaled-up response to COVID-19. They could raise the pay of the frontline workers who are treating sick patients or keeping facilities operational. They could easily ensure the job security of every single health care employee. Instead, they choose to line their own pockets at the expense of workers, patients and public health. Such is the nature of the capitalist health care sector.

As Medicare For All continues to grow in popularity across the country, we must remember that the working class deserves more than Medicare For All. As this current moment demonstrates, the capitalist rot in the U.S. health system extends beyond the insurance sector. A truly socialist medical system requires the complete removal of the profit motive. This can only occur with the elimination of for-profit hospitals. The workers who have always kept hospitals operational would do a better job running the U.S. health care system without capitalists like Farugia and Noteworthy hoarding resources.

The COVID-19 pandemic shows that now more than ever, we need a universal health care system run by workers themselves. The People’s Program to Fight the Virus and the Program of the Party for Socialism and Liberation demand the socialization of the public health sector to ensure that it supports the working class. No more profiteering off of the human right to health care.

* The worker’s name has been changed to protect her identity.