How Gerrymandering Is Making the Coronavirus Crisis Worse

Ady Barkan and Sam Berger write that partisan gerrymandering exacerbates the coronavirus crisis, arguing that ending gerrymandering will make government more responsive to people's needs.

We have an ongoing public health and economic crisis. To date, more than 130,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, and tens of millions are out of work, meaning that people are losing their health care coverage when they need it most. One of the overlooked culprits that has magnified the impact of these crises: partisan gerrymandering.

In May, the Kaiser Family Foundation estimated that 26.8 million Americans would lose their health insurance due to recent job losses, and that, by next January, 1.9 million of those Americans will lack health insurance because they live in a state that has failed to expand Medicaid. The Urban Institute estimates that 40 percent of the people in those states who lose their employer-based health insurance will be uninsured. All of these estimates assume that unemployment does not continue to climb.

The above excerpt was originally published in Newsweek. Click here to view the full article.

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