Federalism is damaged now – it decks cooperation and endangers public health
Parmet 22 - faculty co-director of Northeastern University's Center for Health Policy and Law (Wendy Parmet, “Fights between U.S. States and the National Government Are Endangering Public Health”, Scientific American, October 19, 2022, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fights-between-u-s-states-and-the-national-government-are-endangering-public-health/)//TMMS
But in today’s public health, political and legal environment, our federalism has become deadly. Rather than permitting the governmental units that can best tackle health problems to do so, federalism invites partisan litigation and thwarts interstate cooperation. As a result, both the states and the federal government are increasingly unable to meet the nation’s health threats, even as those threats become ever more complex and dangerous. This is not the first time our federalism has harmed health. Despite its many benefits, from the Constitution’s founding until the Civil War, federalism served to support slavery. Even after the Civil War and abolition, it perpetuated racial oppression, providing a rationale and legal defense for state laws that enforced segregation and imposed racial discrimination. By so doing, federalism helped to sow and maintain the racial inequities in health that continue to this day.