vox--2020-04-27--Why does everyone but me have a sunburst mirror?

Welcome to Noticed , The Goods ’ design trend column .
You know that thing you ’ ve been seeing all over the place ?
Allow us to explain it .
What are they : Small , circular mirrors with rays or rods extending in all directions .
Often affixed to walls as a standalone piece above beds , mantels , or consoles , they ’ re mostly used as purely decorative rather than functional .
Where are they : Anywhere on an otherwise blank wall .
Inside homes across the country , in any particularly glitzy , formal , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ art sections of home stores from Target to West Elm .
Why you ’ re seeing them everywhere right now : You ’ ve probably been seeing them everywhere for your whole life , although whether you ’ ve noticed them or not comes down to how much you care about relatively inoffensive wall decor .
Now that we ’ re all staring at each others ’ homes via Zoom , you might have recently seen a glimmering , spiky thing in the background of a colleague ’ s disembodied head .
That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me , noticing them started with The Real Housewives of New York City .
We were in Carole Radziwill ’ s Soho loft , which included an incredible vintage tiger print couch , a floating staircase , and several small animals , all of whom are named “ Baby.
” More so than any other Housewife ’ s , Carole ’ s apartment was cool , which is why I was horrified to see a certain objet d ’ art on the wall .
It was a mirror , too small to use @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out of it , and I realized then that I had been haunted by these things for my entire life .
In my sister ’ s kitchen , in various demi-celebrities ’ affordable home collections , and on any wall that should have had a painting , or framed photo , or a clock , or something else with even a modicum of personality or meaning , but instead had an ugly fake sun .
It isn ’ t their functionlessness that bothers me — pretty , unnecessary things are the best !
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ so often they seem like a substitute for something interesting .
They ’ re agnostic to taste and style ; you see them just as often in modernist spaces as you do in traditional ones , making them feel like an afterthought , a circle-shaped thing to put in between all the rectangle-shaped things .
They ’ re space fillers .
But , I am told , sunburst mirrors are not boring but classic , not devoid of taste but versatile and able to stand the test of time .
I ’ ll @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s some aesthetic relationship to medieval artists depicting God and the saints with halos , often stylized with golden rays , the origin of sun-shaped mirrors can partially be traced back to the Sun King , Louis XIV .
Louis , who reigned in France from 1643 to 1715 , never had any actual sunburst-shaped mirrors , but the man famously loved both the sun motif and his own reflection , spending the equivalent of millions of dollars on Versailles ’ Hall of Mirrors .
Antiques dealer Louis Bofferding told the Wall @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sunburst mirrors came about as an accidental result of the French Revolution .
“ The revolutionaries stormed , shuttered , even destroyed monasteries , convents and churches .
Among the loot of the rabble were the gilded aureoles of celestial rays that had haloed representations of the Holy Family and saints on altars , ” he said .
“ It didn ’ t take long for enterprising antiques dealers and collectors to buy those vacant sunbursts for a song , slip mirrors into the cavities and launch what would become a vogue in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Church , always a trendsetter . )
The real reason they ’ re in vogue today , however , likely originated in Hollywood Regency , the 1930s style of decorating that combines glitzy opulence and eclecticism — think plush furniture in vibrant jewel tones and sparkling metallic hardware .
Much of this style can be attributed to legendary set designer Tony Duquette , according to Elizabeth Muir , a design specialist at Christie ’ s .
Duquette designed interiors for films like Ziegfeld Follies , the Frank Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine-led Can-Can , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ His rooms are more like stage sets , ” she explains .
“ Duquette used [ sunburst mirrors ] as a theatrical element — it catches your eye.
” In the 1960s , they became ubiquitous for an entirely different reason : our national obsession with NASA and all things out of this world .
“ If you ’ re watching an episode of Mad Men , you might see one of these things — that atomic , Space Age phenomenon , ” explains Danielle Blundell , the home director at Apartment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1950s and ’ 60s often featured starburst motifs , a nod to futurism .
A decade later , designers used natural fibers like rattan to create similar sun-shaped mirrors .
( They fell out of fashion in the ’ 80s — as Blundell explains , “ Forms were a lot more tubular .
I don ’ t think the sun was a huge motif in that time period.
” ) Blundell ’ s theory as to why sunburst mirrors started to come back in the ’ 90s has to do with the witchy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a greater acceptance of New Age beliefs .
“ I had a sunburst mirror growing up in my bathroom , ” she says .
” It was celestial-themed — it was that first little kick of astrology .
I don ’ t think it was really harking back to Louis XIV , I think it was just like , ‘ Wow , stars are cool .
Space is cool.
’ ” The aesthetics of astrology are in vogue now , of course , too .
But Muir suggests our renewed interest in sunburst @ @ @ @ @ @ @ love affair with minimalism .
“ We ’ re moving away from Swedish modernism , ” she says .
“ I see people wanting more materials and really want that focal point again .
It ’ s a return to maximalism.
” And as rattan furniture continues to take over outdoor spaces ( or spaces meant to feel like they ’ re outdoors ) , 1970s-inspired sunburst mirrors are now shoppable at West Elm and Urban Outfitters .
There does seem to be a growing interest in sunburst mirrors — according to Google @ @ @ @ @ @ @ middle of an upswing in searches .
It ’ s possible that it also could relate to the situational effects of quarantine — home redecoration has been a popular way to pass the time , and sunburst mirrors are also very DIY-able , making them a fun project to take up an afternoon .
Muir , like every design and interiors expert I spoke to or read about online , loves sunburst mirrors .
“ I think they ’ re just a great piece to draw attention to a room and to really @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Not only are they laden with art history , but Blundell argues that sunburst mirrors actually do serve a function in a room .
“ It ’ s a harmonious and eye-catching shape , and it ’ s always nice to have a circular or fun shape , because they draw the eye and they help create an eye path around the space .
You ’ re always going to throw light around the space , so it may make it seem like you have more natural light and make your space @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turns out that sunburst mirrors are actually good , and stylish , and useful , and have a history that isn ’ t completely boring .
Some of them are even sort of cute !
But I still think the first thought I will have the next time I see a sunburst mirror ( which will probably not be for many months , as there are none in my apartment ) , is that they exist to be forgotten .
Which isn ’ t a crime , I guess .
In fact , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them so enduring .
“ [ Sunbursts ] are an interesting shape , but they ’ re also familiar .
But that ’ s what the best stuff is a lot of times , ” she says .
“ It ’ s the one thing that my mom and I can agree on .
They ’ re just pretty , you know ?
” Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

Welcome to Noticed, The Goods’ design trend column. You know that thing you’ve been seeing all over the place? Allow us to explain it.
What are they: Small, circular mirrors with rays or rods extending in all directions. Often affixed to walls as a standalone piece above beds, mantels, or consoles, they’re mostly used as purely decorative rather than functional.
Where are they: Anywhere on an otherwise blank wall. Inside homes across the country, in any particularly glitzy, formal, or boho-chic space, and the wall art sections of home stores from Target to West Elm.
Why you’re seeing them everywhere right now: You’ve probably been seeing them everywhere for your whole life, although whether you’ve noticed them or not comes down to how much you care about relatively inoffensive wall decor. Now that we’re all staring at each others’ homes via Zoom, you might have recently seen a glimmering, spiky thing in the background of a colleague’s disembodied head. That’s a sunburst mirror!
For me, noticing them started with The Real Housewives of New York City. We were in Carole Radziwill’s Soho loft, which included an incredible vintage tiger print couch, a floating staircase, and several small animals, all of whom are named “Baby.” More so than any other Housewife’s, Carole’s apartment was cool, which is why I was horrified to see a certain objet d’art on the wall.
It was a mirror, too small to use, with a zillion metal poles coming out of it, and I realized then that I had been haunted by these things for my entire life. In my sister’s kitchen, in various demi-celebrities’ affordable home collections, and on any wall that should have had a painting, or a framed photo, or a clock, or something else with even a modicum of personality or meaning, but instead had an ugly fake sun.
It isn’t their functionlessness that bothers me — pretty, unnecessary things are the best! — it’s the fact that so often they seem like a substitute for something interesting. They’re agnostic to taste and style; you see them just as often in modernist spaces as you do in traditional ones, making them feel like an afterthought, a circle-shaped thing to put in between all the rectangle-shaped things. They’re space fillers.
But, I am told, sunburst mirrors are not boring but classic, not devoid of taste but versatile and able to stand the test of time. I’ll let smarter people explain.
While there’s some aesthetic relationship to medieval artists depicting God and the saints with halos, often stylized with golden rays, the origin of sun-shaped mirrors can partially be traced back to the Sun King, Louis XIV. Louis, who reigned in France from 1643 to 1715, never had any actual sunburst-shaped mirrors, but the man famously loved both the sun motif and his own reflection, spending the equivalent of millions of dollars on Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors.
Antiques dealer Louis Bofferding told the Wall Street Journal in 2010 that he suspected sunburst mirrors came about as an accidental result of the French Revolution. “The revolutionaries stormed, shuttered, even destroyed monasteries, convents and churches. Among the loot of the rabble were the gilded aureoles of celestial rays that had haloed representations of the Holy Family and saints on altars,” he said. “It didn’t take long for enterprising antiques dealers and collectors to buy those vacant sunbursts for a song, slip mirrors into the cavities and launch what would become a vogue in the 20th century.” (The Catholic Church, always a trendsetter.)
The real reason they’re in vogue today, however, likely originated in Hollywood Regency, the 1930s style of decorating that combines glitzy opulence and eclecticism — think plush furniture in vibrant jewel tones and sparkling metallic hardware. Much of this style can be attributed to legendary set designer Tony Duquette, according to Elizabeth Muir, a design specialist at Christie’s. Duquette designed interiors for films like Ziegfeld Follies, the Frank Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine-led Can-Can, and the original Camelot on Broadway. “His rooms are more like stage sets,” she explains. “Duquette used [sunburst mirrors] as a theatrical element — it catches your eye.”
In the 1960s, they became ubiquitous for an entirely different reason: our national obsession with NASA and all things out of this world. “If you’re watching an episode of Mad Men, you might see one of these things — that atomic, Space Age phenomenon,” explains Danielle Blundell, the home director at Apartment Therapy. Even graphic design from the 1950s and ’60s often featured starburst motifs, a nod to futurism. A decade later, designers used natural fibers like rattan to create similar sun-shaped mirrors. (They fell out of fashion in the ’80s — as Blundell explains, “Forms were a lot more tubular. I don’t think the sun was a huge motif in that time period.”)
Blundell’s theory as to why sunburst mirrors started to come back in the ’90s has to do with the witchy aesthetic of the time that coincided with a greater acceptance of New Age beliefs. “I had a sunburst mirror growing up in my bathroom,” she says. ”It was celestial-themed — it was that first little kick of astrology. I don’t think it was really harking back to Louis XIV, I think it was just like, ‘Wow, stars are cool. Space is cool.’”
The aesthetics of astrology are in vogue now, of course, too. But Muir suggests our renewed interest in sunburst shapes is a backlash to our decade-long love affair with minimalism. “We’re moving away from Swedish modernism,” she says. “I see people wanting more materials and really want that focal point again. It’s a return to maximalism.” And as rattan furniture continues to take over outdoor spaces (or spaces meant to feel like they’re outdoors), 1970s-inspired sunburst mirrors are now shoppable at West Elm and Urban Outfitters.
There does seem to be a growing interest in sunburst mirrors — according to Google Trends, we’re in the middle of an upswing in searches. It’s possible that it also could relate to the situational effects of quarantine — home redecoration has been a popular way to pass the time, and sunburst mirrors are also very DIY-able, making them a fun project to take up an afternoon.
Muir, like every design and interiors expert I spoke to or read about online, loves sunburst mirrors. “I think they’re just a great piece to draw attention to a room and to really make a room,” she says.
Not only are they laden with art history, but Blundell argues that sunburst mirrors actually do serve a function in a room. “It’s a harmonious and eye-catching shape, and it’s always nice to have a circular or fun shape, because they draw the eye and they help create an eye path around the space. You’re always going to throw light around the space, so it may make it seem like you have more natural light and make your space feel a little bit bigger.”
It turns out that sunburst mirrors are actually good, and stylish, and useful, and have a history that isn’t completely boring. Some of them are even sort of cute! But I still think the first thought I will have the next time I see a sunburst mirror (which will probably not be for many months, as there are none in my apartment), is that they exist to be forgotten. Which isn’t a crime, I guess.
In fact, that’s what Blundell says makes them so enduring. “[Sunbursts] are an interesting shape, but they’re also familiar. But that’s what the best stuff is a lot of times,” she says. “It’s the one thing that my mom and I can agree on. They’re just pretty, you know?”


vox--2020-04-27--Coronavirus has created a crisis for primary care doctors and their patients

The coronavirus pandemic is creating yet another kind of health care crisis : America ’ s primary care practices are struggling financially as patient visits plummet , and patients themselves are missing out on vital routine care .
Doctors and other health care providers have seen a precipitous drop in the routine visits they depend on for revenue , and experts fear many offices will have to close .
Meanwhile , patients with chronic conditions are facing hardships because they can ’ t see their regular physician to get routine care .
“ That really creates a problem for those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ says Dania Palanker , an assistant research professor for the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown ’ s Health Policy Institute .
“ Is maintaining your health … urgent care ?
Not something we usually put in the box of ‘ urgent , ’ but if we don ’ t take care of it , it ’ s going to get urgent or emergent.
” Palanker knows this because she is a patient herself .
I talked to her while she was driving to Philadelphia from the Washington , DC , area @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her chronic pain caused by a rare autoimmune disorder .
Her regular clinic had stopped all outpatient services because of Covid-19 .
For Palanker , and many other patients like her , her chronic condition is not something that can be put off .
“ I feel very intense pain pretty much everywhere in my body , ” she says .
“ Yeah , it ’ s not life or death , but it ’ s not just quality of life .
There ’ s pain that impedes on your quality of life @ @ @ @ @ @ @ your life.
” “ I ’ m not able to play with my daughter in the way that I would like to .
I don ’ t have the energy and I ’ m usually in too much pain to run around.
” Palanker was able to travel to Philadelphia for the treatment , but plenty of other people don ’ t have that flexibility .
This likely won ’ t be a short-lived crisis , either .
Primary care visits have dropped by nearly 50 percent during the Covid-19 pandemic in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ study from Harvard researchers ; some specialists have seen even steeper declines .
Independent physician practices might soon have no choice but to close or allow themselves to be bought out by insurance companies or a larger health system .
“ I think many primary care practices are in critical condition because I don ’ t think they can survive much longer in the business model they ’ re currently in , ” Bob Doherty , senior vice president of governmental affairs and public policy for the American College of Physicians , told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Congress have provided some relief , but it might not be enough .
“ The real worry is [ if ] eight weeks from now , hundreds of primary care physicians are shuttering their practices , ” Doherty said .
Covid-19 has exposed many weaknesses in American life , including the vulnerabilities of the US health care system .
In a nation that already trailed other rich countries in access to health care , America ’ s primary care is imperiled by this pandemic — now and in the future .
Doctor visits @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dr. Bill Fox has been part of a small independent primary care practice in Charlottesville , Virginia , for nearly 20 years .
He says he ’ s never experienced anything like he and his two partners are seeing now .
Their office is seeing half as many patients as they usually would , and the vast majority of their appointments are now being done by phone or video call .
Revenues are way down .
“ This is a completely unprecedented event I don ’ t think any of us could have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ I think even for those people who understood that pandemics could occur , I don ’ t think anyone gave thought to what that would mean to being a physician in a small independent practice.
” New data shows Fox and his colleagues are not alone .
Researchers from Harvard University collaborated with Phreesia , a health care technology firm that works with more than 50,000 providers nationwide on patient registration and other administrative tasks , to measure the size of the coronavirus impact .
Their findings , published by the Commonwealth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Overall outpatient visits plummeted nearly 60 percent from the first week of March to the last .
The numbers have stayed low through mid-April .
“ Within my lifetime , I have not seen anything of this magnitude , ” Ateev Mehrotra , a professor at Harvard Medical School who led the study , told me .
He also said that “ our real concern is those patients who might have deferred a visit and they ’ re going to have a flare-up of their chronic illness.
” In a worst-case scenario , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ home — a person with heart failure , for example — who might not have if they ’ d been able to see their regular doctor .
This will add to the death toll of Covid-19 , but it will be hard to fully measure .
According to the study , some specialties have been hit harder than others .
People have almost entirely stopped going to ophthalmologists for eye checkups and treatments ( visits are down 79 percent ) .
Dermatology ( down 73 percent ) , urology ( 63 percent ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ visits are also experiencing some of the sharpest declines .
So are pediatric practices , where visits are down more than 60 percent .
But it ’ s all relative .
The ostensibly less affected fields have still endured dramatic drops in their business .
Adult primary care visits have fallen by 49 percent .
OB-GYN clinics are seeing half as many patients as usual .
Even oncologists , who treat cancer patients , have seen their business cut almost in half during the coronavirus outbreak .
Increased telehealth visits have offset some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ losses .
Medicare and private insurers have increased eligibility and reimbursement for those virtual visits , to both allow patients to consult with their physicians and help doctors recoup some of their losses from in-person visits .
But even this surge in phone and video consultations , which accounted for a small percentage of all visits in early March and are up to nearly 30 percent of all visits now , has made only a small dent in the losses doctors are experiencing .
Doctors can only do so much over telehealth , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in-person consultation .
And physicians often won ’ t accept new patients over phone or video calls .
Palanker says she worries about people recently diagnosed with diabetes or heart disease who won ’ t be able to get that critical first appointment with a new doctor .
“ You can ’ t delay those appointments for a few months , ” she says .
Independent practices are the most at risk of closing or being bought out The threat to independent practices is a matter of simple economics : They do not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reserve funds to fall back on that hospitals and large systems do .
It ’ s the same reason that solitary rural hospitals are more threatened during the coronavirus crisis than academic institutions or systems composed of several facilities .
America ’ s doctors have gradually been shifting from independent practitioners to employees of larger health systems , often owned by hospitals , over the decades .
In 2018 , the number of doctors who were employed by a health system narrowly surpassed , for the first time , those who owned their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long-running trend .
Experts expect the toll of the coronavirus pandemic to cause even more consolidation .
The only other option might be to go out of business .
“ What happens to the structure of primary care ?
I fear you could end up with a very different-looking structure , with many [ practices ] shuttered .
Many of them could be bought by insurance companies , ” said Andy Slavitt , who oversaw Medicare and Medicaid during the Obama administration .
“ I could see a real decimating of independent primary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” The funding provided by the CARES Act will help , but it only goes so far .
Doherty told me the first payout from the emergency fund set up by that legislation probably covers a couple of weeks of lost revenue for most practices .
Federal assistance could run out before business returns to normal .
“ I could see a real decimating of independent primary care , and specialists impacted as well ” Fox , the Charlottesville physician , told me that if he and his partners continue to see the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right now , they could probably pay most of their overhead but wouldn ’ t be able to afford to pay themselves a salary .
The Paycheck Protection Program should help them for a couple of months .
But beyond that , the future is uncertain .
Fox said he and his partners haven ’ t started planning for what they ’ ll do if they can ’ t afford to keep the practice open , but with all of them in the middle of their careers , retiring isn ’ t an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ find a way to work .
“ Physicians who go into independent practice and stay there for as long as we have believe in the ethos of independent practice , ” he said .
“ But we all recognize in the back of our minds , there ’ s a possibility we might not make it through this disruption to our practice.
” Telehealth visits are expected to stay up , but Doherty worries patients will be reluctant to visit a doctor ’ s office anytime soon unless absolutely necessary .
“ Under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bringing back the volume of in-person visits anytime soon , ” he says .
“ It just becomes a simple question of math .
They ’ ve got ta pay payrolls , and they don ’ t have the revenue to support it.
” That leaves closures , retirement , or mergers as options .
Palanker told me her greatest fear for herself is that her neurologist , whom she ’ s seen for nearly a decade , will decide to retire because of the economic shock of the pandemic .
“ He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right now , ” she said .
“ I keep waiting for that email that he ’ s retiring.
” US health care access could get even worse With every doctor ’ s office that closes , or every physician who gets bought out by a bigger company , health care access in the US will only get worse .
America already has fewer doctors and nurses per capita than other wealthy countries .
And those losses are likely to be disproportionately felt in rural America ( 80 percent of which was already @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to 2019 federal estimates ) and by black or Latino patients , who have historically had less access to primary care than white Americans .
Even if physicians survive by joining a larger system , that might not mitigate all the damage to health care access .
Doctors could be asked to move as a result of their mergers , Palanker told me , drawing them farther away from their patients .
“ The aftershocks on primary care will be huge .
I ’ m terrified what we ’ ll see is left @ @ @ @ @ @ @ says .
“ I fear a lot of provider deserts are going to be worsened.
” And then there is the problem of prices .
Health care concentration of any kind , whether hospitals merging with one another or primary care and specialty practices merging into hospital systems , has been found to drive up health care costs .
Brent Fulton , an adjunct professor at the University of California Berkeley , summarized the existing research in Health Affairs in 2017 : Already , doctors in the US are far more likely to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( 33 percent ) than physicians in other wealthy countries ( the average was 13 percent across 10 other wealthy nations , per a 2016 Commonwealth Fund survey ) .
One in three Americans said last year they had skipped medical treatment because of the cost .
Now millions more Americans are uninsured because they lost their jobs during the coronavirus recession , and , when the dust settles , the physician market will probably be more concentrated .
That will drive medical prices , and therefore insurance premiums , even higher .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ shift more of those excess costs to their customers .
It will be that much harder for many Americans to access and afford health care .
The US could have made policy changes that would have prevented such a deleterious impact on doctors just because in-person visits are down .
Right now , many primary care doctors are paid on a fee-for-service basis , which means they bill insurers and patients for every visit and service .
So when those numbers drop off , so does revenue .
There are other ways to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ use global budgeting , which sets the income for hospitals and doctors at the beginning of the year based on the services they are expected to provide .
There are other variations , but the core principle — doctors can expect a set amount of income and don ’ t have to tally up visits and services to make their revenue goals — is largely the same .
But , as Doherty put it , changing how American doctors get paid would be “ a very long bridge to get across.
” A @ @ @ @ @ @ @ such fundamental changes to US health care — but the odds are against it .
The history of US health reform is generally one of more marginal changes , with many of the more ambitious plans falling short .
Instead , Doherty is worrying about two or three months from now , when doctors might decide they have no choice but to shut down their practice .
His thoughts drifted to chronic care patients like Palanker , who depend on having easy access to their doctor to manage their conditions .
“ Who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
” Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

The coronavirus pandemic is creating yet another kind of health care crisis: America’s primary care practices are struggling financially as patient visits plummet, and patients themselves are missing out on vital routine care.
Doctors and other health care providers have seen a precipitous drop in the routine visits they depend on for revenue, and experts fear many offices will have to close. Meanwhile, patients with chronic conditions are facing hardships because they can’t see their regular physician to get routine care.
“That really creates a problem for those of us with chronic illnesses,” says Dania Palanker, an assistant research professor for the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown’s Health Policy Institute. “Is maintaining your health … urgent care? Not something we usually put in the box of ‘urgent,’ but if we don’t take care of it, it’s going to get urgent or emergent.”
Palanker knows this because she is a patient herself. I talked to her while she was driving to Philadelphia from the Washington, DC, area to get a nerve block treatment for her chronic pain caused by a rare autoimmune disorder. Her regular clinic had stopped all outpatient services because of Covid-19.
For Palanker, and many other patients like her, her chronic condition is not something that can be put off. “I feel very intense pain pretty much everywhere in my body,” she says. “Yeah, it’s not life or death, but it’s not just quality of life. There’s pain that impedes on your quality of life and there’s pain that impedes your life.”
“I’m not able to play with my daughter in the way that I would like to. I don’t have the energy and I’m usually in too much pain to run around.”
Palanker was able to travel to Philadelphia for the treatment, but plenty of other people don’t have that flexibility. This likely won’t be a short-lived crisis, either. Primary care visits have dropped by nearly 50 percent during the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States, according to a new study from Harvard researchers; some specialists have seen even steeper declines. Independent physician practices might soon have no choice but to close or allow themselves to be bought out by insurance companies or a larger health system.
“I think many primary care practices are in critical condition because I don’t think they can survive much longer in the business model they’re currently in,” Bob Doherty, senior vice president of governmental affairs and public policy for the American College of Physicians, told me.
The stimulus bills passed by Congress have provided some relief, but it might not be enough. “The real worry is [if] eight weeks from now, hundreds of primary care physicians are shuttering their practices,” Doherty said.
Covid-19 has exposed many weaknesses in American life, including the vulnerabilities of the US health care system. In a nation that already trailed other rich countries in access to health care, America’s primary care is imperiled by this pandemic — now and in the future.
Doctor visits have fallen steeply during the coronavirus pandemic
Dr. Bill Fox has been part of a small independent primary care practice in Charlottesville, Virginia, for nearly 20 years. He says he’s never experienced anything like he and his two partners are seeing now.
Their office is seeing half as many patients as they usually would, and the vast majority of their appointments are now being done by phone or video call. Revenues are way down.
“This is a completely unprecedented event I don’t think any of us could have imagined,” Fox told me. “I think even for those people who understood that pandemics could occur, I don’t think anyone gave thought to what that would mean to being a physician in a small independent practice.”
New data shows Fox and his colleagues are not alone. Researchers from Harvard University collaborated with Phreesia, a health care technology firm that works with more than 50,000 providers nationwide on patient registration and other administrative tasks, to measure the size of the coronavirus impact.
Their findings, published by the Commonwealth Fund, suggest an unparalleled crisis: Overall outpatient visits plummeted nearly 60 percent from the first week of March to the last. The numbers have stayed low through mid-April.
“Within my lifetime, I have not seen anything of this magnitude,” Ateev Mehrotra, a professor at Harvard Medical School who led the study, told me.
He also said that “our real concern is those patients who might have deferred a visit and they’re going to have a flare-up of their chronic illness.” In a worst-case scenario, that could lead to patients dying at home — a person with heart failure, for example — who might not have if they’d been able to see their regular doctor. This will add to the death toll of Covid-19, but it will be hard to fully measure.
According to the study, some specialties have been hit harder than others. People have almost entirely stopped going to ophthalmologists for eye checkups and treatments (visits are down 79 percent). Dermatology (down 73 percent), urology (63 percent), and cardiology (61 percent) visits are also experiencing some of the sharpest declines. So are pediatric practices, where visits are down more than 60 percent.
But it’s all relative. The ostensibly less affected fields have still endured dramatic drops in their business. Adult primary care visits have fallen by 49 percent. OB-GYN clinics are seeing half as many patients as usual. Even oncologists, who treat cancer patients, have seen their business cut almost in half during the coronavirus outbreak.
Increased telehealth visits have offset some, but not most, of those losses. Medicare and private insurers have increased eligibility and reimbursement for those virtual visits, to both allow patients to consult with their physicians and help doctors recoup some of their losses from in-person visits. But even this surge in phone and video consultations, which accounted for a small percentage of all visits in early March and are up to nearly 30 percent of all visits now, has made only a small dent in the losses doctors are experiencing.
Doctors can only do so much over telehealth, too. Certain prescriptions can require an in-person consultation. And physicians often won’t accept new patients over phone or video calls.
Palanker says she worries about people recently diagnosed with diabetes or heart disease who won’t be able to get that critical first appointment with a new doctor. “You can’t delay those appointments for a few months,” she says.
Independent practices are the most at risk of closing or being bought out
The threat to independent practices is a matter of simple economics: They do not have the same amount of capital or reserve funds to fall back on that hospitals and large systems do. It’s the same reason that solitary rural hospitals are more threatened during the coronavirus crisis than academic institutions or systems composed of several facilities.
America’s doctors have gradually been shifting from independent practitioners to employees of larger health systems, often owned by hospitals, over the decades. In 2018, the number of doctors who were employed by a health system narrowly surpassed, for the first time, those who owned their own practice, the culmination of that long-running trend.
Experts expect the toll of the coronavirus pandemic to cause even more consolidation. The only other option might be to go out of business.
“What happens to the structure of primary care? I fear you could end up with a very different-looking structure, with many [practices] shuttered. Many of them could be bought by insurance companies,” said Andy Slavitt, who oversaw Medicare and Medicaid during the Obama administration. “I could see a real decimating of independent primary care, and specialists impacted as well.”
The funding provided by the CARES Act will help, but it only goes so far. Doherty told me the first payout from the emergency fund set up by that legislation probably covers a couple of weeks of lost revenue for most practices. Federal assistance could run out before business returns to normal.
“I could see a real decimating of independent primary care, and specialists impacted as well”
Fox, the Charlottesville physician, told me that if he and his partners continue to see the volume of patients they’re seeing right now, they could probably pay most of their overhead but wouldn’t be able to afford to pay themselves a salary.
The Paycheck Protection Program should help them for a couple of months. But beyond that, the future is uncertain. Fox said he and his partners haven’t started planning for what they’ll do if they can’t afford to keep the practice open, but with all of them in the middle of their careers, retiring isn’t an option. They’ll have to find a way to work.
“Physicians who go into independent practice and stay there for as long as we have believe in the ethos of independent practice,” he said. “But we all recognize in the back of our minds, there’s a possibility we might not make it through this disruption to our practice.”
Telehealth visits are expected to stay up, but Doherty worries patients will be reluctant to visit a doctor’s office anytime soon unless absolutely necessary.
“Under almost any circumstances, practices are not bringing back the volume of in-person visits anytime soon,” he says. “It just becomes a simple question of math. They’ve gotta pay payrolls, and they don’t have the revenue to support it.”
That leaves closures, retirement, or mergers as options. Palanker told me her greatest fear for herself is that her neurologist, whom she’s seen for nearly a decade, will decide to retire because of the economic shock of the pandemic.
“He’s gotta be hemorrhaging money right now,” she said. “I keep waiting for that email that he’s retiring.”
US health care access could get even worse
With every doctor’s office that closes, or every physician who gets bought out by a bigger company, health care access in the US will only get worse. America already has fewer doctors and nurses per capita than other wealthy countries.
And those losses are likely to be disproportionately felt in rural America (80 percent of which was already found to be medically underserved, according to 2019 federal estimates) and by black or Latino patients, who have historically had less access to primary care than white Americans.
Even if physicians survive by joining a larger system, that might not mitigate all the damage to health care access. Doctors could be asked to move as a result of their mergers, Palanker told me, drawing them farther away from their patients.
“The aftershocks on primary care will be huge. I’m terrified what we’ll see is left of our independent practices,” she says. “I fear a lot of provider deserts are going to be worsened.”
And then there is the problem of prices.
Health care concentration of any kind, whether hospitals merging with one another or primary care and specialty practices merging into hospital systems, has been found to drive up health care costs.
Brent Fulton, an adjunct professor at the University of California Berkeley, summarized the existing research in Health Affairs in 2017:
Overall, these studies have found that higher concentration was associated with higher physician prices across a range of services, including three types of commonly billed office visits, office visits across ten prominent specialties, orthopedics, cardiology and orthopedics, and common outpatient procedures.
Already, doctors in the US are far more likely to say their patients have cost-related access problems (33 percent) than physicians in other wealthy countries (the average was 13 percent across 10 other wealthy nations, per a 2016 Commonwealth Fund survey). One in three Americans said last year they had skipped medical treatment because of the cost.
Now millions more Americans are uninsured because they lost their jobs during the coronavirus recession, and, when the dust settles, the physician market will probably be more concentrated. That will drive medical prices, and therefore insurance premiums, even higher. Out-of-pocket costs could rise, as insurers shift more of those excess costs to their customers. It will be that much harder for many Americans to access and afford health care.
The US could have made policy changes that would have prevented such a deleterious impact on doctors just because in-person visits are down. Right now, many primary care doctors are paid on a fee-for-service basis, which means they bill insurers and patients for every visit and service. So when those numbers drop off, so does revenue.
There are other ways to pay doctors. Many other developed countries use global budgeting, which sets the income for hospitals and doctors at the beginning of the year based on the services they are expected to provide. There are other variations, but the core principle — doctors can expect a set amount of income and don’t have to tally up visits and services to make their revenue goals — is largely the same.
But, as Doherty put it, changing how American doctors get paid would be “a very long bridge to get across.” A crisis like the coronavirus could lead to such fundamental changes to US health care — but the odds are against it. The history of US health reform is generally one of more marginal changes, with many of the more ambitious plans falling short.
Instead, Doherty is worrying about two or three months from now, when doctors might decide they have no choice but to shut down their practice. His thoughts drifted to chronic care patients like Palanker, who depend on having easy access to their doctor to manage their conditions.
“Who’s going to provide that care?”


vox--2020-04-27--How the pandemic turned Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer into an unlikely firebrand

Gretchen Whitmer has been called a lot of things in the last few weeks .
The Michigan governor is a “ rising star for Democrats , ” according to the Washington Post , and a potential vice-presidential pick for presumptive nominee Joe Biden .
According to President Donald Trump , though , she ’ s “ the woman in Michigan ” or “ Gretchen ‘ Half ’ Whitmer.
” And if you ask right-wing protesters , she ’ s a tyrant trampling on Michiganders ’ rights during the coronavirus pandemic .
The thing is , though , Whitmer has never @ @ @ @ @ @ @ native ran for governor in 2018 on a platform of fixing the state ’ s roads and cleaning up its water , and while she ’ s taken progressive stances on some issues , she ’ s typically portrayed as a centrist by opponents and supporters alike .
So how did Whitmer become the subject of nationwide controversy ?
It started with Michigan ’ s coronavirus crisis — the state is among the hardest hit , with nearly 34,000 cases and more than 2,800 deaths as of April 22 .
In March , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ failing to help Michigan and other states get tests and protective equipment — and Trump responded by insulting her .
Soon Michigan became one of the most visible sites of conservative protests against social distancing rules — protests encouraged by Trump ’ s tweets .
Amid all this ( and perhaps to some degree because of it ) , Whitmer is reportedly being considered as a possible VP candidate this November .
And she ’ s become one of the most visible Democratic faces in the fight against coronavirus , leading a group @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more aid to states and writing a New York Times op-ed about the need for social distancing measures despite the economic toll they take .
Whitmer insists she ’ s not seeking the national spotlight .
“ I was thrust into this moment because of this pandemic , ” she told Vox .
“ I ’ m going to take every opportunity I can to help people understand how serious this moment is , so we can save lives.
” But whatever her intention , the national spotlight has found her , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ watching to see how she handles the current crisis — and President Trump .
During the pandemic , Whitmer has emerged as a foil for Trump Whitmer ’ s nationwide profile started rising before the current crisis hit .
In February , she delivered the Democratic response to Trump ’ s State of the Union address , shouting out the work of Democratic governors around the country to expand health care and boost working people ’ s pay .
“ I ’ d need a lot more than 10 minutes to respond to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she told Americans .
“ So instead of talking about what he is saying , I ’ m going to highlight what Democrats are doing.
” Getting picked to deliver the State of the Union response is typically a sign of party favor , and Whitmer “ occupies an important position ” in Democratic politics right now , Tracy Sefl , a Democratic strategist , told Vox .
Michigan is key for Democrats because of its electoral votes and the way it ’ s been hit by recent economic crises — and because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , there ’ s an increased admiration within the party for the leadership experience that comes with being governor , Sefl said .
“ I was thrust into this moment because of this pandemic .
I ’ m going to take every opportunity I can to help people understand how serious this moment is , so we can save lives ” “ Governors are executives , ” she explained .
“ That ’ s a distinguishing characteristic from being one of a hundred senators or one of hundreds of members of Congress.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ US , governors became more visible than ever .
With the Trump administration slow to act and inconsistent in its messaging , it ’ s often been up to state governments to decide how best to keep their residents safe .
Michigan emerged early as a hotspot of the virus , becoming the fourth hardest-hit state in the country by the end of March .
And on March 20 , Whitmer expressed a frustration shared by many governors when she said , in a CNN interview , that she had sought help from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protective equipment and had not received it .
“ I don ’ t want to be in a sparring match with the federal government , ” she said .
“ But we are behind the eight ball because they didn ’ t do proper planning.
” Trump seemed to take that as an invitation to , well , a sparring match .
He complained about Whitmer on Fox News , saying , “ I don ’ t know if she knows what ’ s going on , but all she does is sit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And on March 27 , he said in a White House briefing that he had told Vice President Mike Pence , who ’ s in charge of the federal coronavirus response , not to call “ the woman in Michigan.
” “ If they don ’ t treat you right , I don ’ t call , ” he said .
The same day , he called her “ Gretchen ‘ Half ’ Whitmer ” on Twitter and said she “ likes blaming everyone for her own ineptitude.
” Meanwhile , Michigan continued @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus cases and deaths .
And on April 9 , Whitmer extended the state ’ s stay-at-home order and added additional restrictions , including requiring large stores to close sections devoted to gardening supplies , paint , and furniture .
This requirement , in particular , incensed some conservatives , who viewed it as arbitrary when other goods , like lottery tickets , could still be purchased in the state , Vox ’ s Jane Coaston and Aaron Rupar reported .
“ I can ’ t go to the hardware store and buy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a gallon of paint so that I can find myself doing a home project so I don ’ t go absolutely insane being locked at home , ” Matt Seely , spokesperson for the Michigan Conservative Coalition , told Vox .
“ I mean , none of that makes any sense.
” On April 15 , about 3,000 protesters , led by the coalition , descended on Lansing , Michigan , to oppose Whitmer ’ s order in what they called “ Operation Gridlock.
” While protesters were told to stay in their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ close together , breaking social distancing guidelines .
“ People coming together , congregating without masks , within six feet of one another , and then going back out to other parts of the state is exactly what threatens to continue the spread of Covid-19 , ” Whitmer told Vox .
“ I know every one of us wants to reengage our economy when it ’ s safe to do so , and each time this happens , it makes it less likely that we can take those additional steps.
” Trump , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ LIBERATE MICHIGAN ” on April 17 .
He also called for the “ liberation ” of Minnesota and Virginia , states with Democratic governors that had been the site of protests .
The protesters seem to represent a small minority of Michiganders , and Americans as a whole .
As of April 15 , 81 percent of Americans wanted to maintain social distancing for as long as necessary to curb the spread of coronavirus , according to a Politico/Morning Consult poll .
As Whitmer put it , “ People understand the severity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been highly visible , in part because of Trump ’ s encouragement .
And now , Whitmer has emerged , in some ways , as Trump ’ s antithesis — the sober , reasonable voice advocating social distancing while Trump sows chaos and talks about injecting disinfectants .
Whitmer also stands out on the national scene for another reason .
She ’ s “ a woman governor with a very hard-hit state , ” Sefl said .
“ That alone makes her stand apart from the coverage.
” Her gender has certainly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — it ’ s hard to imagine him talking about “ the man in Michigan.
” It ’ s also influenced the tenor of the Michigan protests .
Demonstrators in Lansing carried signs comparing Whitmer to “ a tyrannical queen and an overbearing mother , ” according to MLive , and some chanted “ lock her up !
” in a callback to the perennial Trump-rally attack on Hillary Clinton .
Press coverage of Whitmer has also taken on a gendered tone .
The governor “ might seem like a pushover , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ April 9 .
“ With the suburban-mom hairstyle , the high-pitched giggle , the nasally accent straight out of ‘ Fargo ’ central casting , she looks like the type of person—OK , the type of woman—that Donald Trump would chew up and spit out.
” It ’ s not clear that Trump is better at “ chewing up ” women than men — in fact , his record with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggests that at times , he ’ s afraid of women in power .
But it ’ s certainly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden ’ s ticket in November , she ’ ll be a target of sexism from the president and likely from his supporters as well .
When asked if she ’ s been treated differently because she ’ s a woman , Whitmer just laughed — for a long time .
“ The reality of being female on the political stage in the United States of America is , of course , we confront that , ” she said finally .
“ I don ’ t focus on it because I ’ ve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yes , of course , it ’ s there.
” She could have a national future — but she ’ s still battling the crisis at home Given her very public back-and-forth with Trump , it ’ s perhaps no surprise that Whitmer has been getting more attention as a possible running mate for Biden in recent weeks .
The former vice president hosted her on his podcast on April 6 , calling her “ one of the most talented people in the country.
” She ’ s also made made frequent appearances @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ She ’ s become somewhat familiar in the political spotlight , she ’ s embracing that role , ” Sefl said .
When it comes to the vice-presidential race , Whitmer told Vox that “ I have an incredible amount of respect for Joe Biden ” and that it ’ s an honor “ to be included in the names of candidates that I know they ’ re thinking about.
” But she says the goal of her public appearances is to educate the public about the virus and get aid for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ things .
When she gives interviews , she said , “ it ’ s because I want people to know what ’ s happening here so that I can get some help.
” Still , the vice-presidential race is , of course , connected to Whitmer ’ s performance in Michigan .
Perhaps this year more than ever , what happens in the run-up to the nomination will matter a lot , Sefl pointed out .
Because of the pandemic , there may not be a Democratic convention .
And Trump may not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be absent those traditional opportunities to view and judge a candidate , ” Sefl said .
For Whitmer , that means “ the persona that she ’ s really solidifying right now will become that much more important.
” It ’ s not just about persona — it ’ s also about what she actually does .
Michiganders have generally approved of Whitmer ’ s handling of the crisis , but the state has also seen enormous racial disparities in the impact of the virus , with black residents getting sick and dying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Whitmer has established a task force to address those disparities , led by Lt. Gov .
Garlin Gilchrist II .
And some have praised the governor ’ s efforts to help the communities hardest hit by the virus , like a moratorium on evictions and an extension of SNAP benefits .
“ Those are really important policy measures that the state and the governor have taken to mitigate the impact of Covid on black families and all of those who are impacted economically , ” Afton Branche , strategic projects manager with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Poverty Solutions , told Vox .
But the disparities in Covid-19 deaths also point to systemic problems in Michigan that some say the governor has been slow to tackle .
One is a lack of access to clean water .
Tens of thousands of people in Detroit have had their water shut off in recent years , thanks to high poverty and a lack of programs to make the utility affordable , Justin Onwenu , a Detroit-based environmental justice organizer for the Sierra Club , told Vox .
Activists were telling the Detroit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that lack of water was a public health hazard , but their requests were denied , Onwenu said .
Then when Covid-19 started , families across the city had no water to wash their hands .
The governor announced a statewide moratorium on shutoffs on March 28 .
“ This is a critical step both for the health of families living without a reliable water source , and for slowing the spread of the Coronavirus , ” she said in a statement at the time .
“ We continue to work to provide @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or income level — the tools they need to keep themselves and their communities protected.
” But the moratorium came “ after weeks and weeks and years and years of pressure , ” Onwenu said .
Since the crisis hit , “ Gov .
Whitmer has been getting a lot of attention , but things are not going well when you look at the racial data , ” he said .
“ I ’ m a little bit frustrated that the conversation is all around the optics of how things are being handled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are a lot of systemic things that have gone unaddressed for far too long.
” Whitmer is pledging to address some of those systemic issues with the task force .
“ We have to acknowledge the disparities in outcomes that have long plagued the United States of America and the individual states but that now more than ever are front and center , ” she told Vox .
“ It ’ s got to drive a lot of the work that happens not just in this moment but well beyond it , because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inequities that have been generational and historical in this country.
” Whitmer ’ s ability to take on those inequities in her state will determine how effective she is in responding to the current crisis — and could have implications for the kind of running mate , and the kind of vice president , she would be .
So could the way she continues to respond to Trump .
But Whitmer says she ’ s not thinking about the national stage yet : “ Right now 100 percent of every waking moment is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ got to do to help Michiganders get through Covid-19.
” Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

Gretchen Whitmer has been called a lot of things in the last few weeks.
The Michigan governor is a “rising star for Democrats,” according to the Washington Post, and a potential vice-presidential pick for presumptive nominee Joe Biden. According to President Donald Trump, though, she’s “the woman in Michigan” or “Gretchen ‘Half’ Whitmer.” And if you ask right-wing protesters, she’s a tyrant trampling on Michiganders’ rights during the coronavirus pandemic.
The thing is, though, Whitmer has never been a political firebrand. The Lansing native ran for governor in 2018 on a platform of fixing the state’s roads and cleaning up its water, and while she’s taken progressive stances on some issues, she’s typically portrayed as a centrist by opponents and supporters alike.
So how did Whitmer become the subject of nationwide controversy? It started with Michigan’s coronavirus crisis — the state is among the hardest hit, with nearly 34,000 cases and more than 2,800 deaths as of April 22. In March, Whitmer called out the Trump administration for failing to help Michigan and other states get tests and protective equipment — and Trump responded by insulting her. Soon Michigan became one of the most visible sites of conservative protests against social distancing rules — protests encouraged by Trump’s tweets.
Amid all this (and perhaps to some degree because of it), Whitmer is reportedly being considered as a possible VP candidate this November. And she’s become one of the most visible Democratic faces in the fight against coronavirus, leading a group of governors in calling on Trump for more aid to states and writing a New York Times op-ed about the need for social distancing measures despite the economic toll they take.
Whitmer insists she’s not seeking the national spotlight. “I was thrust into this moment because of this pandemic,” she told Vox. “I’m going to take every opportunity I can to help people understand how serious this moment is, so we can save lives.”
But whatever her intention, the national spotlight has found her, and now Americans across the political spectrum are watching to see how she handles the current crisis — and President Trump.
During the pandemic, Whitmer has emerged as a foil for Trump
Whitmer’s nationwide profile started rising before the current crisis hit. In February, she delivered the Democratic response to Trump’s State of the Union address, shouting out the work of Democratic governors around the country to expand health care and boost working people’s pay. “I’d need a lot more than 10 minutes to respond to what the president just said,” she told Americans. “So instead of talking about what he is saying, I’m going to highlight what Democrats are doing.”
Getting picked to deliver the State of the Union response is typically a sign of party favor, and Whitmer “occupies an important position” in Democratic politics right now, Tracy Sefl, a Democratic strategist, told Vox. Michigan is key for Democrats because of its electoral votes and the way it’s been hit by recent economic crises — and because Trump won there in 2016. Meanwhile, there’s an increased admiration within the party for the leadership experience that comes with being governor, Sefl said.
“I was thrust into this moment because of this pandemic. I’m going to take every opportunity I can to help people understand how serious this moment is, so we can save lives”
“Governors are executives,” she explained. “That’s a distinguishing characteristic from being one of a hundred senators or one of hundreds of members of Congress.”
And when the coronavirus pandemic hit the US, governors became more visible than ever. With the Trump administration slow to act and inconsistent in its messaging, it’s often been up to state governments to decide how best to keep their residents safe.
Michigan emerged early as a hotspot of the virus, becoming the fourth hardest-hit state in the country by the end of March. And on March 20, Whitmer expressed a frustration shared by many governors when she said, in a CNN interview, that she had sought help from the Trump administration in getting tests and protective equipment and had not received it.
“I don’t want to be in a sparring match with the federal government,” she said. “But we are behind the eight ball because they didn’t do proper planning.”
Trump seemed to take that as an invitation to, well, a sparring match. He complained about Whitmer on Fox News, saying, “I don’t know if she knows what’s going on, but all she does is sit there and blame the federal government.” And on March 27, he said in a White House briefing that he had told Vice President Mike Pence, who’s in charge of the federal coronavirus response, not to call “the woman in Michigan.”
“If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call,” he said. The same day, he called her “Gretchen ‘Half’ Whitmer” on Twitter and said she “likes blaming everyone for her own ineptitude.”
I love Michigan, one of the reasons we are doing such a GREAT job for them during this horrible Pandemic. Yet your Governor, Gretchen “Half” Whitmer is way in over her head, she doesn’t have a clue. Likes blaming everyone for her own ineptitude! #MAGA — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2020
Meanwhile, Michigan continued to grapple with a growing number of coronavirus cases and deaths. And on April 9, Whitmer extended the state’s stay-at-home order and added additional restrictions, including requiring large stores to close sections devoted to gardening supplies, paint, and furniture.
This requirement, in particular, incensed some conservatives, who viewed it as arbitrary when other goods, like lottery tickets, could still be purchased in the state, Vox’s Jane Coaston and Aaron Rupar reported. “I can’t go to the hardware store and buy grass seed for my lawn, buy a gallon of paint so that I can find myself doing a home project so I don’t go absolutely insane being locked at home,” Matt Seely, spokesperson for the Michigan Conservative Coalition, told Vox. “I mean, none of that makes any sense.”
On April 15, about 3,000 protesters, led by the coalition, descended on Lansing, Michigan, to oppose Whitmer’s order in what they called “Operation Gridlock.” While protesters were told to stay in their cars, some got out and stood close together, breaking social distancing guidelines.
“People coming together, congregating without masks, within six feet of one another, and then going back out to other parts of the state is exactly what threatens to continue the spread of Covid-19,” Whitmer told Vox. “I know every one of us wants to reengage our economy when it’s safe to do so, and each time this happens, it makes it less likely that we can take those additional steps.”
Trump, however, praised the protesters, tweeting “LIBERATE MICHIGAN” on April 17. He also called for the “liberation” of Minnesota and Virginia, states with Democratic governors that had been the site of protests.
The protesters seem to represent a small minority of Michiganders, and Americans as a whole. As of April 15, 81 percent of Americans wanted to maintain social distancing for as long as necessary to curb the spread of coronavirus, according to a Politico/Morning Consult poll. As Whitmer put it, “People understand the severity of the issue.”
But the protests have been highly visible, in part because of Trump’s encouragement. And now, Whitmer has emerged, in some ways, as Trump’s antithesis — the sober, reasonable voice advocating social distancing while Trump sows chaos and talks about injecting disinfectants.
Whitmer also stands out on the national scene for another reason. She’s “a woman governor with a very hard-hit state,” Sefl said. “That alone makes her stand apart from the coverage.”
Her gender has certainly colored Trump’s response to her — it’s hard to imagine him talking about “the man in Michigan.” It’s also influenced the tenor of the Michigan protests. Demonstrators in Lansing carried signs comparing Whitmer to “a tyrannical queen and an overbearing mother,” according to MLive, and some chanted “lock her up!” in a callback to the perennial Trump-rally attack on Hillary Clinton.
Press coverage of Whitmer has also taken on a gendered tone. The governor “might seem like a pushover,” Tim Alberta wrote at Politico magazine on April 9. “With the suburban-mom hairstyle, the high-pitched giggle, the nasally accent straight out of ‘Fargo’ central casting, she looks like the type of person—OK, the type of woman—that Donald Trump would chew up and spit out.”
It’s not clear that Trump is better at “chewing up” women than men — in fact, his record with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggests that at times, he’s afraid of women in power. But it’s certainly true that, if Whitmer does join Biden’s ticket in November, she’ll be a target of sexism from the president and likely from his supporters as well.
When asked if she’s been treated differently because she’s a woman, Whitmer just laughed — for a long time. “The reality of being female on the political stage in the United States of America is, of course, we confront that,” she said finally. “I don’t focus on it because I’ve got a job to do, but yes, of course, it’s there.”
She could have a national future — but she’s still battling the crisis at home
Given her very public back-and-forth with Trump, it’s perhaps no surprise that Whitmer has been getting more attention as a possible running mate for Biden in recent weeks. The former vice president hosted her on his podcast on April 6, calling her “one of the most talented people in the country.” She’s also made made frequent appearances on television and in the press. “She’s become somewhat familiar in the political spotlight, she’s embracing that role,” Sefl said.
When it comes to the vice-presidential race, Whitmer told Vox that “I have an incredible amount of respect for Joe Biden” and that it’s an honor “to be included in the names of candidates that I know they’re thinking about.”
But she says the goal of her public appearances is to educate the public about the virus and get aid for her state, not audition for bigger things. When she gives interviews, she said, “it’s because I want people to know what’s happening here so that I can get some help.”
Still, the vice-presidential race is, of course, connected to Whitmer’s performance in Michigan. Perhaps this year more than ever, what happens in the run-up to the nomination will matter a lot, Sefl pointed out. Because of the pandemic, there may not be a Democratic convention. And Trump may not agree to debates.
“We might be absent those traditional opportunities to view and judge a candidate,” Sefl said. For Whitmer, that means “the persona that she’s really solidifying right now will become that much more important.”
It’s not just about persona — it’s also about what she actually does. Michiganders have generally approved of Whitmer’s handling of the crisis, but the state has also seen enormous racial disparities in the impact of the virus, with black residents getting sick and dying at much higher rates than white Michiganders.
Whitmer has established a task force to address those disparities, led by Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II. And some have praised the governor’s efforts to help the communities hardest hit by the virus, like a moratorium on evictions and an extension of SNAP benefits. “Those are really important policy measures that the state and the governor have taken to mitigate the impact of Covid on black families and all of those who are impacted economically,” Afton Branche, strategic projects manager with the Detroit Partnership on Economic Mobility at Poverty Solutions, told Vox.
But the disparities in Covid-19 deaths also point to systemic problems in Michigan that some say the governor has been slow to tackle. One is a lack of access to clean water. Tens of thousands of people in Detroit have had their water shut off in recent years, thanks to high poverty and a lack of programs to make the utility affordable, Justin Onwenu, a Detroit-based environmental justice organizer for the Sierra Club, told Vox.
Activists were telling the Detroit and state governments before the Covid-19 crisis that lack of water was a public health hazard, but their requests were denied, Onwenu said. Then when Covid-19 started, families across the city had no water to wash their hands.
The governor announced a statewide moratorium on shutoffs on March 28. “This is a critical step both for the health of families living without a reliable water source, and for slowing the spread of the Coronavirus,” she said in a statement at the time. “We continue to work to provide all Michiganders — regardless of their geography or income level — the tools they need to keep themselves and their communities protected.”
But the moratorium came “after weeks and weeks and years and years of pressure,” Onwenu said.
Since the crisis hit, “Gov. Whitmer has been getting a lot of attention, but things are not going well when you look at the racial data,” he said. “I’m a little bit frustrated that the conversation is all around the optics of how things are being handled, and I definitely think that there are a lot of systemic things that have gone unaddressed for far too long.”
Whitmer is pledging to address some of those systemic issues with the task force. “We have to acknowledge the disparities in outcomes that have long plagued the United States of America and the individual states but that now more than ever are front and center,” she told Vox. “It’s got to drive a lot of the work that happens not just in this moment but well beyond it, because this is holding up a mirror to inequities that have been generational and historical in this country.”
Whitmer’s ability to take on those inequities in her state will determine how effective she is in responding to the current crisis — and could have implications for the kind of running mate, and the kind of vice president, she would be. So could the way she continues to respond to Trump.
But Whitmer says she’s not thinking about the national stage yet: “Right now 100 percent of every waking moment is focused on doing what I’ve got to do to help Michiganders get through Covid-19.”