Who's In Charge During the Ebola Crisis? 279
Lasrick writes: Epidemics test the leadership skills of politicians and medical infrastructures, which is clear as this article goes through the different ways West African countries have dealt with the Ebola crisis. Now that fears are spreading about a U.S. outbreak (highly unlikely, as this article points out), it may be time to look at the U.S. medical infrastructure, which, of course, in many ways is far superior to those West African countries where the virus has spread. But there is an interesting twist to how disease outbreaks are handled in the U.S.: "The U.S. Constitution—written approximately 100 years before the germ theory of disease was proven by French chemist Louis Pasteur and German physician Robert Koch — places responsibility for public health squarely on the shoulders of local and state political leaders ... one could argue that the United States is hobbled by an outdated constitution in responding to epidemics. State and local jurisdictions vary tremendously in their public health capabilities."
Obvious (Score:3, Funny)
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Guns will spray the virus everywhere. In all directions. Guns are suicide now.
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Cordon the affected areas with nerve gas.
No the constitution is fine.. (Score:3)
"general welfare" as part of the spending power section is all that congress
needs to craft well considered laws.
Federal agencies could be funded to establish top level technical resources.
States could then move forward.
Emergencies open doors as well....
As scary as Ebola is it may not qualify as an emergency we have
common problems from influenza, food poisoning, pneumonia that
kill more...
However congress could declare Ebola in Africa and others problems
as a health risk to the US and fund emergency actions.
My gut reaction is if citizens were to take personal responsibility
and act on all the common influenza, food handling, common cold
basic sanitation programs Ebola would vanish only to be found in
footnotes referencing a small number of individuals and hospitals in
the US. Sadly Africa is still behind the eight ball in this disaster.
Re:No the constitution is fine.. (Score:5, Insightful)
"general welfare" as part of the spending power section is all that congress needs to craft well considered laws.
Not true. The historical record very clearly shows that the "general welfare" clause was a restrictive clause, not a permissive one.
The point is that any Federal law which is otherwise Constitutional also has to be "for the general welfare", as opposed to for the welfare of just one, or a few, or some subgroup of the populace.
The General Welfare clause does NOT grant license for the Federal government to exceed the powers enumerated in the Constitution. Period. It grants no new power at all, in fact. It does the opposite. It restricts all Federal laws to be for the good of everybody. That was its whole purpose.
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Not true. The historical record very clearly shows that the "general welfare" clause was a restrictive clause, not a permissive one.
The meaning of the "general welfare" clause has been controversial since the start of the union [wikipedia.org].
It's kind of amazing how many arguments we have today that have existed from the beginning. The argument over whether privatization is better, or government run is better? I've found in a newspaper an argument over government dug canals in the early 1800s.....saying anything government does is bound to be inefficient.
In another 200 years, we'll probably still be arguing whether we need more regulation or les
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"general welfare" as part of the spending power section is all that congress
needs to craft well considered laws.
Not true. The historical record very clearly shows that the "general welfare" clause was a restrictive clause, not a permissive one.
This is the only sane interpretation; otherwise, the entire Constitution is subsumed by this this one clause and the Constitution then becomes, "Fuck it all, guys, do whatever you want."
Which, of course, is what happened. I dislike having a written constitution for this very reason: it's insulting to my intelligence for the Supremes to take the verbiage of this document and twist it around to rubber stamp whatever the feds have decided to do anyway.
Because the feds cannot be restrained—they are going
We train people for this. ebola.healthcare.gov (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep. Where I work, we train first responders, mayors, governors and all sorts of people regarding their roles in an emergency.
The states have their roles, the cities and county health departments and leadership have theirs, as do the hospitals, etc, and the CDC and others at the federal level.
What we don't need us a mandate that everything has to be done through a federal agency, maybe via ebola.healthcare.gov.
One interesting drill that covers not only infectious disease but also riot is the zombie drill. In the drill, their is a microbe that turns people into zombies. Healthcare workers practice inoculating a lot of people in a hurry, while treating those already infected. City managers and the like practice communications with FEMA,CDC, and other agencies to get the needed information and resources, public information officials stand in front of our TV cameras and practice getting the most important information out in a clear manner, etc. Instructors watch everything via one-way mirrors and record all phone calls, then review the students' performance.
Re:No the constitution is fine.. (Score:5, Interesting)
My gut reaction is if citizens were to take personal responsibility
and act on all the common influenza, food handling, common cold
basic sanitation programs Ebola would vanish only to be found in
footnotes referencing a small number of individuals and hospitals in
the US.
The USA is seeing a resurgence of formerly conquered diseases because of the anti-vaccination movement.
Whooping cough, diphtheria, measles, mumps, and rubella are all making a comeback.
Stopping Ebola in the USA is trivial compared to stopping the repeated outbreaks of diseases we already have vaccines for.
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70% is optimistic, the CDC knows it's higher. That's a sanitized WHO number. That ends with a zero? Unlikely.
In some parts of Africa it's 98%.
That's more than 3X the rate of the Spanish flu of 1918 that killed... a third of the western world or some damn thing.
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That's a sanitized WHO number. That ends with a zero? Unlikely.
Not really that unlikely, especially as fatality rates are often given to the nearest 5%...
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Well, if 3% is 1/3, then you're right.
Otherwise, your estimates for the 1918 flu are a bit off, and I'll assume your other estimates are similarly off....
Who's in charge? (Score:2)
WHO's in charge.
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No but The Doctor, of Doctor Who did previously play a WHO Dr.
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Horton... Because he heard a WHO!
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Third base!
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Hu's on first.
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"Wei" did you say that?
No difference here (Score:3, Insightful)
Just wait until the insurance companies quietly release their 2014 profit reports in another year or two and we see how handsomely we rewarded their top executives for this.
Re:No difference here (Score:5, Insightful)
The 26 year old nurse in TX has probably already had her policy cancelled for a pre-existing condition
Ah, good old "probably". A sure indicator that the poster hasn't bothered to actually research what he's claiming, but rather is just making something up that would support his pet conspiracy theory, if it were true.
Re:No difference here (Score:5, Insightful)
is just making something up that would support his pet conspiracy theory, if it were true.
If you haven't been fucked by your insurance company yet, just wait until you're a bit older. I can guarantee you it will happen, it is only a matter of when and how badly. This is not a conspiracy theory, this is a guarantee. They hold all the cards and they set the rules of the game; you can't win or even hope to break even.
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Re:No difference here (Score:5, Informative)
You do realize that one thing that the ACA (aka Obamacare) does is take the teeth out of pre existing clauses [obamacarefacts.com], do you not? Or are you too busy ranting and raving to actually look at the real world?
Most make it to 65 (Score:2)
Now, if you're one of those Americans without a great job and with a bunch of health problems, yeah, you're in for a world of hurt. But by then you're heavily marginalize
Federal Arbitration Act (Score:5, Interesting)
That's what trial by jury is for.
Nope. SCOTUS says "Can't have; not yours."
http://apps.americanbar.org/litigation/committees/adr/articles/winter2013-032713-federal-arbitration-act.html [americanbar.org]
the U.S. Supreme Court sent a clear message to all state courts that the Federal Arbitration Act precludes any interference with arbitration proceedings based upon valid arbitration agreements, even if those proceedings seek to enforce a contract provision that violates state law
You no longer deserve a day in court even if the health insurance contract is prima-facie illegal. There is good reason that more people with life-threatening illnesses are appealing to the court of public opinion for their fights with the insurance companies...
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Umm, your quote uses the phrase "state law". The ACA, which makes that whole pre-existing condition thing illegal is FEDERAL law.
Might want to check up on Supreme rulings about the primacy of Federal law....
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That's why Samuel Colt gave us repeating side-arms.
Re:No difference here (Score:5, Interesting)
You're insane. The insurance companies are at the end of the line here. Things are going to happen way too fast for insurance companies to change their policies, treatments are going to be medically necessary, the only question is whether the extra costs entailed by the infection precautions are going can be charged back to the patient's insurance (likely with a subsequent hissy fit about actually paying it).
No one is going to call Aetna and say 'can we treat Ms. Doe for potential Ebola exposure?' - that's not the way the system works. This sort of thing is something insurance companies hate - fast moving problems that can't rationally be refused. And hospitals are already on the hook for uninsured patients due to the EMTALA laws [acep.org].
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And hospitals are already on the hook for uninsured patients due to the EMTALA laws [acep.org].
No, the article said:
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) of 1986 was enacted to prevent hospitals from refusing care to anyone needing urgent care and presenting at a hospital’s emergency room, regardless of insurance status. Unfortunately, EMTALA has sometimes been viewed as a mandate not funded by the federal government, and violations occur without reprisals or corrective actions.
It's even worse in Texas. They refused to implement Obamacare, fought it, and kicked people out of Medicaid. I think MedPage Today's KevinMD had a blog entry by a doctor at one of the charity clinics who said that the hospitals were referring uninsured people to them (after the hospitals kicked them out) even though the clinic didn't even have an x-ray machine.
Texas is a good example of the Republican health care plan -- you get sick, you die. http://online.wsj.com/articles... [wsj.com] Legal Lo
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Texas didn't enact the Affordable Care Act, and they have (I think) the lowest rate of people with health insurance in the country. Adam Smith, in Wealth of Nations, said that it was a government responsibility to provide for health care. Wealth of Nations was published in 1776, so those ideas were around when the Constitution was written. You don't need the germ theory of disease to see that diseases spread. I don't know where free market types get the idea that people who can't pay for health insurance sh
pre-existing condition the jail / prsion will cove (Score:2)
per-existing condition the jail / prison will cover you as they don't have that in there plan.
No, that's not the problem (Score:5, Interesting)
The USA has handled many epidemics in the past. The experience of Western Samoa vs. American Samoa during the Spanish Flu epidemic is an interesting example. [wordpress.com] The TL;DR: version: Western Samoa decided they couldn't stopping the importation of plantation laborers, and as a result 20-25% of the population died. American Samoa self-quarantined, and nobody died.
One of the core problems today is that the CDC has lost focus [usatoday.com], and instead of controlling infectious disease, they spend money things like playground safety, workplace accidents, guns, and birth defects. And then there was the NIH grant to study why gay men are often thin and lesbians are often obese. [newsmax.com]
We don't need to change the Constitution, just the spending and research priorities of a bunch of bureaucracies.
Re:No, that's not the problem (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the core problems today is that the CDC has lost focus [usatoday.com], and instead of controlling infectious disease, they spend money things like playground safety, workplace accidents, guns, and birth defects. And then there was the NIH grant to study why gay men are often thin and lesbians are often obese. [newsmax.com]
This.
CDC needs to get back to its original mandate, which is to study infectious disease. When it got involved in these political issues, it started handling them both badly and dishonestly. And that's very bad, because it ruins their credibility about the things they're supposed to be doing.
We don't need to change the Constitution, just the spending and research priorities of a bunch of bureaucracies.
That too.
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What he said.
(and the other guy)
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Indeed, while *handling* an epidemic locally is a local responsibility, there's nothing stopping federal agencies from setting guidelines and providing information on how best to handle any given situation.
Re:No, that's not the problem (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not a local responsibility any more. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, the states are cutting back. Those state health departments that tracked the contaminated steroid injections from the New England Compounding Center, which killed about 100 people, were in the process of being disbanded. So if it happened again, we'd have people dying of a mysteriously transmitted disease and we wouldn't be able to figure it out.
Realize that when people start getting sick, you don't necessarily know whether an infectious disease is causing it, or whether it's an environmental factor like arsenic in the drinking water.
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Whether or not they're acting on the responsibility, it's still their responsibility... and generally local people are best equipped to take into account local environmental factors. When they abdicate their responsibility, well then you have to decide whether to be a nanny or not.
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Whether or not they're acting on the responsibility, it's still their responsibility... and generally local people are best equipped to take into account local environmental factors. When they abdicate their responsibility, well then you have to decide whether to be a nanny or not.
Some parts of public health can be handled locally, and some parts of public health can only be handled on a national or international level. They can't figure out the pattern of an epidemic based on local occurrences alone. They have to look at the national or international patterns, and they need national and international expertise. When doctors have people dying in one city, and another city, of something new, they can't figure out what it is until they collect all the reports together on a national lev
Another Advantage for State Level Control (Score:2)
Without a top-down bureaucracy calling the shops, states can try 50 different methods to control the pandemic, and compare results to see who has the best one. They're not stuck mindlessly doing what Washington has dictated, even if it's wrong.
The CDC is swearing up and down Ebola can be transmitted by airborne infection, but what if they're wrong about this strain?
The federal government is much more likely than the states to continue a wrong course of action long after it's been proven a bad idea than the
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One state doing the wrong thing + free travel = nation-wide epidemic. That seems pretty obvious. If the chance for one state to get it wrong is just 2%, then the chance of a nationwide epidemic is 1-(1-0.02)^50 = 64%.
And as usual, the thinker who came up with the parent post couldn't get their nonsense argument even grammatically correct ("Ebola can be transmitted by airborne infection...")
Another Advantage for State Level Control (Score:2)
Without a top-down bureaucracy calling the shops, states can try 50 different methods to control the pandemic, and compare results to see who has the best one. They're not stuck mindlessly doing what Washington has dictated, even if it's wrong.
The CDC is swearing up and down Ebola can be transmitted by airborne infection, but what if they're wrong about this strain?
The federal government is much more likely than the states to continue a wrong course of action long after it's been proven a bad idea than the
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Given obesity is the biggest public health crisis facing the U.S.A. that the Center for Disease Control (and many people consider it a disease) is spending a small amount of money looking into unexplained differing rates of obesity in different sections of the population is surely a sensible and prudent decision.
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Why is this a problem? Research should always be done, however ridiculous your hypothesis may be. The freedom to do such insane research is what has made USA the leader of all sciences.
Of course research is generally good, but priorities must be decided. Right now, I suspect people would rather that money had been spent researching Ebola.
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And then there was the NIH grant to study why gay men are often thin and lesbians are often obese.
Why is this a problem? Research should always be done, however ridiculous your hypothesis may be. The freedom to do such insane research is what has made USA the leader of all sciences.
Useless research on my fucking dime should absolutely not be done, let alone to the exclusion of useful research.
Re:No, that's not the problem (Score:4, Informative)
And then there was the NIH grant to study why gay men are often thin and lesbians are often obese.
Why is this a problem? Research should always be done, however ridiculous your hypothesis may be. The freedom to do such insane research is what has made USA the leader of all sciences.
You mean "insane-appearing research." Some of the most important medical research looked insane, especially to the uninformed. Medical insurance is like going to the racetrack, with very good odds.
For example, a marine scientist studying sea sponges discovered Adriamycin, which was one of the first drugs that cured cancer, and formed the basis of all of our cancer drugs.
Of course these right-wing Congressmen would have a field day with that. Our government money going to study Spongebob.
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Nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. :-D
Re:No, that's not the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Since there are about 4-5,000 workplace fatalities a year, virtually all of them preventable, that's a good return for the money. [...] So if CDC doesn't do this stuff, nobody will.
Then what is OSHA for?
Duh- Ebola! (Score:2)
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Who is in charge (Score:2)
Well its either the World Health Organization or Peter Capaldi.
Not Just Ebola (Score:2, Interesting)
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Yeah you know what's _really_ outmoded?
Control groups as a means of teasing causation out of correlation.
I mean, just think what would happen if *shudder* there were 50 different governments each controlling their own borders, testing out different social theories?
People with bad social theories might leave you and those that agree with your good social theory to benefit only yourselves, while they would go off and form another experimental group providing additional human ecology data for the social sc
Re:Not Just Ebola (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, the US Constitution was written explicitly to prevent tyranny. When you start bumping up against its limits and grouching that you need more power, and this damned document won't let you, this means you're on the wrong side.
When the editorial pages of the New York Times express admiration for tyrants abroad and your fundraisers openly state that the executive needs more power (what, being the President of the United States isn't enough power, WTF) then you have a problem and you need to go through and re-think your entire worldview, starting from base principles. Either that, or We The People need to introduce you dictatorial fuckheads to hemp rope and cottonwood trees.
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then you have a problem and you need to go through and re-think your entire worldview, starting from base principles. Either that, or We The People need to introduce you dictatorial fuckheads to hemp rope and cottonwood trees.
You never recited the Pledge of Allegiance, did you?
A bit early (Score:5, Insightful)
There has been one case of Ebola transmitted in the U.S. Isn't it a wee bit early to be writing an epitaph for the Constitution? Especially since none of that crap was part of TFA?
TFA's commentary on patient zero being sent home with a bottle of antibiotics (for a virus, of course) was spot on though. That's what happens when you insist on running healthcare as a business.
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TFA's commentary on patient zero being sent home with a bottle of antibiotics (for a virus, of course) was spot on though. That's what happens when you insist on running healthcare as a business.
The suspicion is that either the ER Doctor(s?) ignored the nurse's notes,
or the hospital's electronic health record (EHR) software didn't let the Doctor see the nurse's notes.
http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2014/10/6/dallas-hospital-issues-correction-says-no-flaw-in-ehr-system [ihealthbeat.org]
I first heard about this from an ER doc who was explaining that pretty much every hospital updated their intake protocol overnight to ask about foreign travel and contact with individuals who have traveled.
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The article you pointed to said the Hospital retracted it's claims about the EHR system.
That still doesn't explain sending him home with antibiotics for what looked like a viral infection, even if they thought it was a run of the mill flu. It also doesn't explain the DOCTOR not talking with the patient.
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Antibiotics to deal with secondary infections resulting from a viral illness aren't exactly unusual. Nor are they necessarily medically wrong.
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TFA's commentary on patient zero being sent home with a bottle of antibiotics (for a virus, of course) was spot on though. That's what happens when you insist on running healthcare as a business.
The suspicion is that either the ER Doctor(s?) ignored the nurse's notes,
or the hospital's electronic health record (EHR) software didn't let the Doctor see the nurse's notes.
I spent 15 years designing/implementing hospital information systems and later HIEs. In every instance I can think of where a doc was denied access to a portion of the chart, we gave implementers the option of enabling a "break glass" button that would let them see the entire unredacted record in case of an emergency. Using the button would trigger an administrative alert to prevent abuse or routine use. A competently designed system should never get ion the way of the delivery of urgent care.
Courts, medical teams, camps are ready (Score:2)
Got that negative pressure or half-facepiece respirator ready, full facepiece or hood or helmet per medial team member?
Or is the just in time supply track on the way with more expensive kit?
How many negative-pressure airborne infection isolation rooms are ready per city, state?
With all that potential for aerosolising fluids the infection-control teams really have to start thinking fast per city.
Home stay with a box of food and expert medical care visit per home per ci
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Best thing to do is figure out this riddle.
http://www.documentation.ird.f... [documentation.ird.fr]
It's something they eat. And it gives them ZEBOV fighting super powers. What could it be?
Responsibility on who? (Score:2)
"The U.S. Constitution—written approximately 100 years before the germ theory of disease was proven by French chemist Louis Pasteur and German physician Robert Koch — places responsibility for public health squarely on the shoulders of local and state political leaders"
Tell that to our President and the Congressional representatives that enacted the ACA. And the Supreme Court that then remade it into a tax.
It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
Department of Emergency Preparedness (Score:2)
Director: Xavier Onassis.
Republicans flip-flop, demand new "czar" (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, several Republican members of Congress [dailykos.com] demand that the President immediately designate an "Ebola Czar". The hypocrisy is extreme. On Oct 4, 2014, Rep. Kingston told the Washington Examiner [washingtonexaminer.com]: "Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., said Saturday that while he "hate[s] to invoke the term 'czar,'" President Obama needs one to combat the spread of the deadly Ebola virus."
Meanwhile, Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) issued a statement (flash required) on Oct 3, 2014 that criticized the President:
To be clear, when Kingston, Burr (and Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, and others) urges fast action to put someone in charge, he can't mean confirming someone through the Senate, which takes months or even more than a year.
Final related note: The position of US Surgeon General has limited powers and would not be the supreme leader on Ebola. Still, it would not hurt to have someone in the job, and that person can play a key role communicating with the public. However, the US has no confirmed, permanent Surgeon General because the NRA is blocking the Senate confirmation of President Obama's nominee, Dr. Vivek Murthy. He is an MD and an MBA. He practices and teaches at Brigham and Women's Hospital and teaches at Harvard Medical School. He cofounded a clinical trials company, and an HIV education organization. But he supports an assault weapons ban and tweeted that he thinks guns are a health care issue. So the NRA's opposition means his nomination will never come to a vote. It is dead. Even if one disagrees with Dr. Murthy's position on guns, he has no power over guns whatsoever, and it's reasonable that a President get his people if they are more or less qualified and mainstream (not hacks or crazy radicals). Republicans are right to seek smaller government in some places. But to just throw the monkey wrench in the gears of government for political gain is not constructive. It's just politics.
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It wasn't the same thing.
Most of the appointments Bush made were confirmed by the Senate. Almost all of Obama's were not. There is nothing hypocritical in urging the President to put someone in charge as long as he works with the Senate.
Shilling for Socialism (Score:5, Interesting)
from the commentary linked in the summary:
"Single-payer." Like the VA. Because unaccountable, lying government officials and patients dying while on fake waiting lists are exactly what we need during an ebola epidemic.
And Obamacare. Because of Obamacare I can not afford medical care. My premiums are about 3x before Obamacare. My deductible is $5,000.00. I am taxed $300.00/month on my health insurance because I am employed at a small company which can not purchase the plan directly from an insurer. (Obamacare revokes the tax exemption for employer-subsidized health insurance.) I am buying the least-expensive plan mandated by Obamacare to avoid the penalty and paying about $1,300.00 per month in insurance and taxes. I had a shoulder injury, went to an in-network doctor and had to pay for the entire visit, treatment and the physical therapy myself.
To summarize, now, because of Obamacare, I am required by law to pay $1,300.00 per month for health insurance and taxes at a minimum and on top of that I have to pay for my own medical expenses. Because of Obamacare, unless I am absolutely certain that I am dying I will not be going anywhere near a health care provider. By both making the patients poorer with higher insurance premiums and by raising the cost of treatment with higher deductibles Obamacare has created a massive financial disincentive to seeing medical care during an epidemic. And then also there is the decreased access to health care because of shrinking provide networks.
In addition to advocating for evidently broken and corrupt systems, the author wants to re-write the Constitution. You know, that document which guarantees citizens rights. What could possibly go wrong?
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To summarize, now, because of Obamacare, I am required by law to pay $1,300.00 per month for health insurance and taxes at a minimum and on top of that I have to pay for my own medical expenses. Because of Obamacare, unless I am absolutely certain that I am dying I will not be going anywhere near a health care provider. By both making the patients poorer with higher insurance premiums and by raising the cost of treatment with higher deductibles Obamacare has created a massive financial disincentive to seeing medical care during an epidemic. And then also there is the decreased access to health care because of shrinking provide networks.
You say this as though it's something other than exactly what the lobbyists who wrote the law intended. They get more of your money, and they pay for less care. It's a win-win from their perspective.
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You say this as though it's something other than exactly what the lobbyists who wrote the law intended. They get more of your money, and they pay for less care. It's a win-win from their perspective.
And billions are going to insurance companies [yahoo.com]
Shilling for Socialism (Score:2, Interesting)
Someone is taking you for a ride. That's not even approaching what I'm paying, $600/month, and this is for a plan *far* from being the least-expensive plan for mandated coverage: %100 coverage ( $0 deductible for in-plan doctors ), and an expenditure account. I'd suggest trying to find out who's lying to you. The average price of a "bronze" plan across states for someone in their 40's is like, $350/mo.. and a platinum plan is like, $500. If your premiums really are that high, the "lying" may be somewhere le
Shilling for Socialism (Score:5, Informative)
from the commentary linked in the summary:
"Single-payer." Like the VA. Because unaccountable, lying government officials and patients dying while on fake waiting lists are exactly what we need during an ebola epidemic.
I have read studies published by the VA on the outcomes of people treated at different VA hospitals for conditions like prostate cancer colorectal cancer, and I've talked to VA doctors. The VA has some of the best outcomes in the world. They did some of the major studies in cardiology to find out what works and what doesn't work, and every cardiologist in the world follows the recommendations of the VA studies. If I had cancer or a heart attack, I would be confident in any major VA hospital. (Although like all health care providers, they do have problems in rural areas.)
The reason they had that problem with waiting list fraud (which is unexcusable) is that their managers gave them politically-mandated targets for appointments, without giving them the money that they needed to hire more doctors to meet those targets. (Would you have predicted any problems with that?) That's what corporate-style management by financial incentives gets you. Now they're giving them more money to hire doctors.
But it doesn't affect their main purpose, which is to save the lives and health of veterans, many of whom have service-related injuries. In rehabilitation medicine, they've been doing a great job since at least WWII. I know a lot of veterans in their 70s and 80s who go to the VA and are very happy with it. You're seeing a doctor who is on salary and trying to treat you with the best possible medicine, not a doctor who gets 10 minutes to see you and gets paid for the procedures he does on you, even if they do more harm than good.
And Obamacare. Because of Obamacare I can not afford medical care. My premiums are about 3x before Obamacare. My deductible is $5,000.00. I am taxed $300.00/month on my health insurance because I am employed at a small company which can not purchase the plan directly from an insurer. (Obamacare revokes the tax exemption for employer-subsidized health insurance.) I am buying the least-expensive plan mandated by Obamacare to avoid the penalty and paying about $1,300.00 per month in insurance and taxes. I had a shoulder injury, went to an in-network doctor and had to pay for the entire visit, treatment and the physical therapy myself.
To summarize, now, because of Obamacare, I am required by law to pay $1,300.00 per month for health insurance and taxes at a minimum and on top of that I have to pay for my own medical expenses. Because of Obamacare, unless I am absolutely certain that I am dying I will not be going anywhere near a health care provider. By both making the patients poorer with higher insurance premiums and by raising the cost of treatment with higher deductibles Obamacare has created a massive financial disincentive to seeing medical care during an epidemic. And then also there is the decreased access to health care because of shrinking provide networks.
In addition to advocating for evidently broken and corrupt systems, the author wants to re-write the Constitution. You know, that document which guarantees citizens rights. What could possibly go wrong?
I am no fan of Obama or Obamacare, which was designed on a Republican model (Romneycare) and on a proposal put out by the Heritage Foundation, which now denies it.
And how do you like those free-market insurance company bureaucracies? Good thing you don't have to deal with government bureaucracies like Medicare.
The big problem with Obamacare is that, instead of expanding Medicare, as the progressives wanted, it gives the insurance companies about 30% of your health care premium, and that's the main reason why i
Folks I know on VA (Score:3)
And what world do you live in where Obamacare is single payer? It isn't even close. It's an awful compromise created when the insurance companies spent half a billion dollars in _one_ year flooding every possible media channel with stories of death panels for Grandma
Bull (Score:3)
We've had many epidemics in the US. We've had scarlet fever, tuberculosis, cholera, typhus, polio, dengue, malaria, leprosy, influenza named after various places and creatures... the list is endless.
The problem is the CDC lost focus. With a relative lack of communicable diseases for going on five decades, like all bureaucracies with not enough to do they started expanding their portfolio to include lots of things you wouldn't think belong under "disease control" and took their eye off the ball. Now that we have a bona fide health threat all they know how to do is hold press conferences telling us not to worry.
The one thing the CDC doesn't need is more power and money. They already have broad emergency powers, and if they have enough money to do gun control studies and lesbian weight gain studies they already have too much money.
As a side note, the director would be a lot easier to support if he wasn't obviously lying when he says there's nothing to worry about. We're not children, buddy, so don't treat us like children. Obviously this strain of Ebola is quite a bit more contagious than earlier strains, and it falls in about the middle of the lethality range normal for that disease (20%-80%). We should be restricting travel from affected countries, and anyone coming in from those countries should be quarantined for 21 days.
Comment removed (Score:3)
States (Score:3)
>"one could argue that the United States is hobbled by an outdated constitution in responding to epidemics. State and local jurisdictions vary tremendously in their public health capabilities."
One could also argue that this is EXACTLY the way it is supposed to be. USA States are SUPPOSED to have control over most of what happens in their area and not be puppets to a huge, inefficient, out-of-touch, expensive, slow, borderline fascist, federal government overloard.
Who's In Charge During the Ebola Crisis? (Score:2)
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Dammit, beat me to it. Further, Haig is dead, which makes him immune to Ebola.
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Ebola is in charge - nobody controls Ebola right now.
The only way to come to terms with the disease is isolation. It is the black plague of our time.
Involving politicians into this means that there will be petty bickering all the time while the disease spreads.
Re:General Alexander Haig is in charge (Score:5, Insightful)
Essentially, the OP is militating for a centralized dictator to deal with the emergency. "You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." Thus spake Rahm Emanuel. The tradition extends from Sulla to Napoleon to every petty Don, triad leader, or military dictator of our own era.
In fact, when stuff gets real, there will be no lack of opportunists seizing all infrastructurally available power to respond to the crisis. The best process known for dealing with the pre-crisis stage is the democratic process. It is sub-optimal for any given threat, but has the merit of being a tolerable living condition which is capable of responding to the broad range of threats which arise in the ordinary course of events.
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The R-naught of two only applies in the terra typica where roads don't exist. We knoe know it's on the skin and can live for hours on say, a touch screen. Like apartment buildings have. Like the one I'm in. Where health care workers live. Across the road from a suspect Ebola Zaise case in Ontario whowalked in from Sierre Leone and DID NOT BRING ME A KILLIFISH.
I'm gonna pretend I"m in charges cause I think I figured this out. Do you lke puzzles? Let's find out:
http://www.documentation.ird.f... [documentation.ird.fr]
What do fruit b
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Is sleep deprivation an early stage symptom?
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My best shot at a response is: probably no one is going to drop infectious ebola waste on Louisianans as punishment for being racists.
Probably?
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Did the guy who entered the White House recently and spit on all the furniture have Ebola! Uh Oh! For the Democratic High Command! Dead bodies. Yea! Good for us. Citizens of the U.S.A.
Only if the president then chairs a join session of Congress and sneezes on everyone.
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16 people outside of Africa, every continent except antarctica. at least 2 are unreported as well as of monday midnight.
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yeah, well, i won't give the penguins at the bronx zoo long to live.
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Focus all the worlds efforts on the people there
Yep, the world has no shortage of people wanting to take a one-way trip to ebolaland.
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You' ll be modded down, but it really is this fucking simple.
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Where is "there"? The whole of Africa?
Are you proposing that you can create an impermeable land and sea border for the whole of Africa? A border that can be maintained in the face of the breakdown of multiple societies due to the combination of Ebola, other current and very severe problems in these countries eg Boko Haram, malaria, etc, and the economic embargo you're effectively imposing through the border?
Yeah, well, let us know how that works out for ya.
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Nailed it.
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No. It's a virus so old it predate all dinosaurs. It mutated to encode for a molecule that messes up humans in fairly recent times, sometimes in the past million or two years in a certain place for a certain reason. It's old old old.
You don't need to weaponize Ebola, nature did that for you.
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No. It's a virus so old it predate all dinosaurs. It mutated
Doesn't every living thing (including the dinosaurs) predate the dinosaurs once you take mutation into account?
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Somebody on Fox is *asking* for Fema camps now.
I am not making this up.
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They say now it's on the skin and fluids don't matter, also it lived for several hours. Bleach kills it.
Now about all those touch screens in lobbies and elevators and...
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"Damn liberals, wanting waste money on Ebola research that only black people get."
I don't think you understand public health policy. And this is your job? Wow.
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I know schizophrenia when I see it.
You need to get some help buddy. People will want to talk to you again if you do it. When you're tired of this, go.