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Who's In Charge During the Ebola Crisis?
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 one could argue that the United States is hobbled by an outdated constitution in responding to epidemics.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."
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. 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, 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.
We don't need to change the Constitution, just the spending and research priorities of a bunch of bureaucracies.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Not just ebola, but one could argue that the United States is hobbled by an outdated constitution in responding to a wide variety of modern day issues. For example, airports and borders, traveller's rights, electronic surveillance, intellectual property rights, and a host of other issues.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
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
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...
Now, several Republican members of Congress demand that the President immediately designate an "Ebola Czar". The hypocrisy is extreme. On Oct 4, 2014, Rep. Kingston told the Washington Examiner: "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.
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.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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?
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
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.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
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 less obvious. Research to see if your state did something stupid with the implementations that screwed it's citizens, and direct complaints there.
"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" I'm not even sure what this is saying. This was removed for all businesses, not just small businesses. All employees are now taxed on the income that used to be "pre-tax" income used to buy health insurance. If a business is somehow hiding the cost of health insurance for it's employees and not reporting it as income, that's illegal AKAIK.
In any case, trying to wrap that into the "cost of your insurance" as an extra $300/mo seems pretty disingenuous to me.
Isn't it funny how right wing blowhards have all had their premiums and deductibles triple while statistically health care costs are rising at their slowest pace in decades?
"I'm just a constitution lovin' Obama-hatin patriot who believes in freedumb.
My premiums went up 500% to $2000 per month and my deductible went from rose to $6,000
I used to go to the doctor but since Obamacare my physician has started making advances at my wife while administering my prostate exam."
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 should be left to suffer; maybe from Milton Friedman or Ayn Rand. Or Thomas Malthus.
The article http://thebulletin.org/who%E2%... said
If the first question asked in most American emergency rooms concerns insurance status, the uninsured and illegal aliens will likely continue to delay seeking treatment....
Policy makers should understand that having a large fraction of the US population uninsured poses a national security threat during deadly epidemics such as Ebola. If changing to a single-payer national system is, for political reasons, out of the question, then, at the very least, the Affordable Care Act must be fully implemented in all states. In addition, as it now stands, the CDC must wait until a state invites it to conduct epidemiologic investigations, and national disease surveillance depends on states voluntarily submitting data. This is a ridiculous and dangerous state of medical affairs.