Tech Companies and Public Health Care in the Ruins of COVID

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has proven the cruelty of the U.S. market-driven health care system that disproportionately affects the poor. It illuminates how much a well-funded public health care system is vital for the survival of all. However, amidst the ruins of the pandemic and economic crisis, digital capitalism is driving a new round of capitalist restructuring with the health care sector at the center of capital’s new digitization push. Tech companies are at the forefront of this capitalist endeavor. Long before the outbreak, these companies and others have been cultivating the health sector into their profit-making enterprise. The pandemic has further opened the door. This article demonstrates how tech companies are weaving themselves into the medical-industrial complex built over the last several decades. By exploiting the pandemic, they are quickly grasping an opportunity to occupy the public health system.