Healthcare Issues

[GoCubsGo]

Blah, Blah, Blah

Ah, the well worded, high minded memo.

You've once again filled our forum with your keen intelligence, penetrating analysis and clear insights with your spot on research and discerning of facts.

Bravo.

No wonder you were such a success.

[Whack9]

And BTW, everybody who has been paying any attention knows that Dogie has actually accomplished nothing but stir chaos. None of their demands has actually been encompassed in legislation. Some of their doings are getting undone in court. But the fact that they along with other Republican-type critters haven't done it doesn't mean they're not trying. It's not playing "chicken-little" to look at what could reasonably occur from things they've said and tried so far.

Only time will tell how effective DOGS may be. However, it has exceeded expectations as far as exposing fraud and waste in our government. One must admit this is what Trump desired.

Reminder: Source for these specific instances, please?

[O Really]

I think people such as supersalesmgr get off on the wrong track blindly accepting false premises, then from there even a logical path leads you to a wrong conclusion. If you start with the (unproven and false) premise the the US has an "open border" invaded daily by murderers, rapists, thieves, and super drug sales people, then it makes sense to take harsh measures to stop it. Then when some harsh measures are proposed - even if they aren't the most rational and effective - followers will follow. If you accept the (unproven and false) premise that all damgummint workers are freeloading goofoffs, then you probably don't see any harm in getting rid of some of them even if the ones you get rid of are actually doing something worthwhile to your own benefit. Something has failed in society, and probably will never be fixed. It's good to be old.

[O Really]

And BTW, everybody who has been paying any attention knows that Dogie has actually accomplished nothing but stir chaos. None of their demands has actually been encompassed in legislation. Some of their doings are getting undone in court. But the fact that they along with other Republican-type critters haven't done it doesn't mean they're not trying. It's not playing "chicken-little" to look at what could reasonably occur from things they've said and tried so far.

Only time will tell how effective DOGS may be. However, it has exceeded expectations as far as exposing fraud and waste in our government. One must admit this is what Trump desired.

Reminder: Source for these specific instances, please?

Yeah, that. And don't forget that Trump regularly (constantly?) uses words like "fraud" "unfair" "disgraceful" "stolen" almost as space-filler. He knows that (his) people will respond to fear-inducing rhetoric. But still, if there is rampant fraud, surely there must be real examples. Like f'rinstance, when incumbernt Florida Repubican senator Rick Scott's hospital was caught. During his tenure as chief executive, the company defrauded Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs. The U.S. Department of Justice won 14 felony convictions against the company, which was fined $1.7 billion in what was at the time the largest healthcare fraud settlement in U.S. history.

There ya' go. I gave you one. Your turn.

[Vrede too]

There ya' go. I gave you one. Your turn.

The ones where people/businesses have been caught and punished, even if RepuQ Scott skated, don't count. Those are examples where the current system of monitoring and enforcement is working, something DOUCHE and sycophants like SoupySales deny.

[Whack9]

And BTW, everybody who has been paying any attention knows that Dogie has actually accomplished nothing but stir chaos. None of their demands has actually been encompassed in legislation. Some of their doings are getting undone in court. But the fact that they along with other Republican-type critters haven't done it doesn't mean they're not trying. It's not playing "chicken-little" to look at what could reasonably occur from things they've said and tried so far.

Only time will tell how effective DOGS may be. However, it has exceeded expectations as far as exposing fraud and waste in our government. One must admit this is what Trump desired.

Reminder: Source for these specific instances, please?

Yeah, that. And don't forget that Trump regularly (constantly?) uses words like "fraud" "unfair" "disgraceful" "stolen" almost as space-filler. He knows that (his) people will respond to fear-inducing rhetoric. But still, if there is rampant fraud, surely there must be real examples. Like f'rinstance, when incumbernt Florida Repubican senator Rick Scott's hospital was caught. During his tenure as chief executive, the company defrauded Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs. The U.S. Department of Justice won 14 felony convictions against the company, which was fined $1.7 billion in what was at the time the largest healthcare fraud settlement in U.S. history.

There ya' go. I gave you one. Your turn.

There are plans in place to cut nearly half of the IRS workforce. If one were serious about rooting out fraud, it seems like those tasked with rooting out such fraud would not be laid off en masse.

https://apnews.com/article/irs-doge-lay ... 3f6a532fa0

Also it seems like it was an equally bad idea to fire Inpector Generals and those tasked with auditing specific departments of the federal government

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-firi ... 0-minutes/

I don't think we have watchdog agencies anymore. The inspector generals are gone. The head of the Office of Government Ethics is gone. I'm gone," Dellinger said. "The independent watchdogs who are working on behalf of the American taxpayers, on behalf of military veterans, they've been pushed out."

...

The 17 inspectors general fired by Mr. Trump just four days into his term were auditors of top departments, including defense, veterans affairs, and labor. The inspector general of the foreign aid agency, U.S. Agency for International Development, Paul Martin was fired two weeks later.

Let's root out fraud by firing those tasked with rooting out fraud.

[GoCubsGo]

Waitasec......oh, nevermind.

Trump Doubles Down on Lie, Says Government Funded ‘Transgender Surgery on Mice’

[O Really]

There ya' go. I gave you one. Your turn.

The ones where people/businesses have been caught and punished, even if RepuQ Scott skated, don't count. Those are examples where the current system of monitoring and enforcement is working, something DOUCHE and sycophants like SoupySales deny.

Understood. I just offered that as an example of actual fraud being found. It would be nice if supes could come up with a comparable in-government example found by the muskrats.

[Vrede too]

https://c.tenor.com/6KxttCYGXTIAAAAC/ta ... -sense.gif

Waitasec......oh, nevermind.

Trump Doubles Down on Lie, Says Government Funded ‘Transgender Surgery on Mice’

... One study mentions “transgenic mice” which is not the same thing as “transgender mice.” Transgenic mice are genetically modified mice that “have had DNA from another source put into their DNA,” according to the National Cancer Institute. These kinds of mice are used to study how certain diseases might affect humans....

Morons.

[Vrede too]

Man lives for 100 days with artificial titanium heart in successful new trial


The BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart has a single moving part – a levitated rotor that’s held in place by magnets.

An Australian man lived for 100 days with an artificial titanium heart while he awaited a donor transplant, the longest period to date of someone with the technology.

The patient, a man in his 40s who declined to be identified, received the implant during surgery at St. Vincent’s Hospital Sydney last November.

In February, he became the first person worldwide to leave hospital with the device, which kept him alive until a heart donor became available earlier this month....

The ability of the device to sustain him for so long is being celebrated as a sign the artificial heart could potentially offer a long-term option for people suffering heart failure....

[Vrede too]

RFK Jr. Says Maybe We Should Just Let The Bird Flu Run Rampant
Kennedy's idea could put humans at grave risk.

... “They should consider maybe the possibility of letting it run through the flocks so that we can identify the birds, and preserve the birds, that are immune to it,” Kennedy said of poultry farmers and federal authorities.

It is the nation’s agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, who has authority over the nation’s poultry management, not Kennedy. But Rollins appears to be in agreement with her counterpart at HHS. As The New York Times noted, she floated the idea of a pilot program that would allow the disease to ravage a flock, while extra layers of protection contained the spread within a certain perimeter. The surviving birds could then be studied.

But there are reasons that scientists recommend immediately culling infected flocks, and letting the virus run rampant could have dire consequences.

The bird flu, H5N1, has a near 100% fatality rate in chickens and turkeys, and has already killed millions of wild birds.

One of the ways it can spread to healthy poultry farms is by a single infected duck visiting a flock and shedding the virus through feces. H5N1 kills relatively quickly, causing respiratory distress, swelling, lack of coordination and other symptoms before death. (Culling is therefore considered more humane.) ...

Brooke Rollins has a BS in Ag, but she immediately went to law school then became a GQP hack. Neither she nor attorney KINO have any professional experience in animals, medicine, epidemiology or anything relevant.

In so many ways PINO may literally ravage America.

[Vrede too]

The ones where people/businesses have been caught and punished, even if RepuQ Scott skated, don't count. Those are examples where the current system of monitoring and enforcement is working, something DOUCHE and sycophants like SoupySales deny.

Understood. I just offered that as an example of actual fraud being found. It would be nice if supes could come up with a comparable in-government example found by the muskrats.

Crickets, surprise surprise.

Here's an example where no actual fraud has been found:

DOGE Goons Tried to Fire Emergency ICU Doctors at NIH Hospital
BULL IN A CHINA SHOP
Elon Musk’s cost-cutting agency tried to eliminate key medical personnel at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists warn the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is playing “Russian roulette” with patients’ lives after the agency tried to fire ICU doctors at its hospital.

The New York Times reported Monday that DOGE planned to fire medical personnel in the intensive care unit at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, which doubles as an active hospital and research site. The cuts would have included members of the “code blue team” that responds when a patient goes into cardiac arrest.

The reduction in staff would have forced the clinic to “literally have to airlift patients out,” a senior physician told the Times.

More than a thousand demonstrators protested the cuts earlier this month, which prompted DOGE to reverse course. In addition to calling off the firing of medical personnel, the NIH also brought back recently-axed laboratory technicians and blood bank workers.

Opps, so professional and competent.

Others at the NIH have not been so lucky.

Some senior NIH scientists, whose contracts were typically renewed automatically, are now “being put on leave without pay when their contracts run out,” the Times reports.

Who needs medical science, anyhow? We have KINO.

... Since Elon Musk unleashed his DOGE goons on the federal government, more than 62,000 federal workers have been let go, Newsweek reported earlier this month, though court orders have put many layoffs and buyout offers on hold.

Opps, so legal and constitutional.

Reports of the “chaos” DOGE has unleashed at NIH are just the tip of the iceberg, according to one NIH staffer who spoke to the Times.

“Whatever people are reading in newspapers,” they said, “it’s 10 times worse.”

[Vrede too]

We're all going to die!

Top vaccine official forced out of FDA

The head of the US Food and Drug Administration department responsible for assuring the safety and effectiveness of vaccines has resigned, according to a resignation letter obtained by CNN.

Dr. Peter Marks, director of the agency’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, was given the choice to resign or be fired. Marks’ resignation takes effect April 5.

“It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” Marks wrote in his letter, referring to US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

In an email, an HHS official told CNN, “If Peter Marks does not want to get behind restoring science to its golden standard and promoting radical transparency, then he has no place at FDA under the strong leadership of Secretary Kennedy.”

... Marks was instrumental in carrying out Operation Warp Speed, the federal government’s Covid-19 vaccine development program. He has overseen the approval of more recent vaccines, including the first influenza vaccine for self- or caregiver-administration, providing a new option for protection against seasonal flu....

Hero Dolt .45's hero, irony.

[Vrede too]

I think people such as supersalesmgr get off on the wrong track blindly accepting false premises, then from there even a logical path leads you to a wrong conclusion.... Something has failed in society, and probably will never be fixed. It's good to be old.

They're fed on a daily or even hourly basis.

Young men are 'playing videogames all day' instead of getting jobs because they can mooch off of free healthcare, claims congressman

Medicaid is a US health insurance program for people with low incomes. It's funded by states and the federal government, and like most government programs that help people in some way, it's one of the Trump administration's targets for cuts.

Why? Videogames, of course.

More specifically, part of the plan is to implement work requirements for Medicaid eligibility—this is currently only a feature of the program in Georgia—and to justify adding this administrative hurdle for patients and states, Republicans are claiming that access to taxpayer-funded healthcare is causing young men to waste all their time playing videogames instead of working.

"No one has talked about cutting one benefit in Medicaid to anyone who's duly owed—what we've talked about is returning work requirements, so, for example, you don't have able-bodied young men on a program that's designed for single mothers and the elderly and disabled. They're draining resources from people,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson last week.

"So if you clean that up and shore it up, you save a lot of money, and you return the dignity of work to young men who need to be out working instead of playing videogames all day."

The picture Johnson paints of Medicaid enrollees stealing from mothers and disabled people so they can sit around playing Call of Duty may be an effective emotional appeal—the call to return "dignity" to American men is a nice touch—but it makes little sense on its face.

In February, healthcare researcher KFF reported that the majority of people who use Medicaid do work. 64% of Medicaid recipients under the age of 65 work full or part-time, according to the organization's analysis, and most of those who are not working have an illness or disability, are caregivers, or are in school.

Opps. Plus, young men are not significant consumers of healthcare unless something tragic happens. Young men famously believe they're immune from tragedy. They don't think of Medicaid as liberating.

And if being able to see a doctor while unemployed makes people lazy, I'm not sure why US politicians spend so much time fretting over China's growing economy, because its universal healthcare program covers over 95% of its population.

The US is an odd duck when it comes to providing healthcare services for its people, as some effort at universal healthcare is available in dozens of countries around the world. China has it. US neighbors Canada, Mexico, and Cuba have it. The countries of Europe have it. Russia has it. The US does not....

Speaker Johnson the johnson FAILS, again.

[1 CAT FAN]

I think people such as supersalesmgr get off on the wrong track blindly accepting false premises, then from there even a logical path leads you to a wrong conclusion. If you start with the (unproven and false) premise the the US has an "open border" invaded daily by murderers, rapists, thieves, and super drug sales people, then it makes sense to take harsh measures to stop it. Then when some harsh measures are proposed - even if they aren't the most rational and effective - followers will follow. If you accept the (unproven and false) premise that all damgummint workers are freeloading goofoffs, then you probably don't see any harm in getting rid of some of them even if the ones you get rid of are actually doing something worthwhile to your own benefit. Something has failed in society, and probably will never be fixed. It's good to be old.

When the real estate agent sold you a home inside your gated community, did you sign the contract willingly?

[Vrede too]

It's always the same states: Best schools, Most educated, Best economies, Best environmental regulation, Lowest infant mortality, Longest lifespan. Now:

New Report Reveals the 10 States that Vaccinate the Most
In order to see where people get the most vaccines, a recent study examined the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 16 key metrics.

... Over the last few years, trust in vaccines has dropped. In 2021, 77% of people trusted vaccines, but by 2023, that number fell to 71%. At the same time, the number of people who think vaccines are unsafe went up from 9% to 16%.

This is worse than Mexico and most Latin American nations. So, the next time you hear that "they" are bringing disease here, you can tell them how FoS they are. In reality, Americans are the disease-ridden threat to Latin America.

... According to a recent report, these places are working hard to spread the word and make sure more people get vaccinated, keeping their communities healthy.

(each state has a couple of paragraphs of elaboration)

1. Rhode Island
2. Massachusetts
3. Maine
4. Washington
5. Maryland
6. Vermont
7. Minnesota
8. New Hampshire
9. Washington, D.C.
10. Connecticut

Source report

25 Illinois
28 South Carolina
31 Tennessee
32 North Carolina
33 California
35 Hawaii
37 Montana
43 New Jersey
46 Florida
51, as always Mississippi

[O Really]

Interesting that California is so low. Dunno about LA or San Francisco, but vax rates in San Diego County are well above the state and national average. Maybe Central Valley and northern counties are holding it down. I read that flu vaccine in SD County is down this year by 100K or so, but still higher than average at high-50's percent. At one time, though undoubtedly not anymore, covid vaccinations were in the 90's in the county. Also, did most of the states rescind the mandatory vaccination series that used to be required by schools? Seems the childhood rate should be at least 90-something. Lady O and I are doing our best to hold up the average. We've had multiple covid, flu, pneumonia, RSV, shingles, tetanus, republican, hepatitis - strangely enough we haven't become autistic no grown a third eye yet.

[Vrede too]

Interesting that California is so low. Dunno about LA or San Francisco, but vax rates in San Diego County are well above the state and national average. Maybe Central Valley and northern counties are holding it down. I read that flu vaccine in SD County is down this year by 100K or so, but still higher than average at high-50's percent. At one time, though undoubtedly not anymore, covid vaccinations were in the 90's in the county. Also, did most of the states rescind the mandatory vaccination series that used to be required by schools? Seems the childhood rate should be at least 90-something. Lady O and I are doing our best to hold up the average. We've had multiple covid, flu, pneumonia, RSV, shingles, tetanus, republican, hepatitis - strangely enough we haven't become autistic no grown a third eye yet.

Public schools still require the basic vax sched, but between the growth in home schooling, xtian madrassas and other private schools, and generous religious exemptions in red states, the childhood vax rate is way lower than it should be.

[O Really]

I've got an idea. If you want a religious vax exemption for your kid fine, but we're not letting him into school and we're going to charge you for the cost of services we would have provided.

[Vrede too]

I've got an idea. If you want a religious vax exemption for your kid fine, but we're not letting him into school

Agreed.

and we're going to charge you for the cost of services we would have provided.

No admission AND a bill, how do you justify that? After all, the parents are presumably still paying their taxes.