Tag Archives: health care

Government Controls

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Here’s the latest version of the Biden-Harris administration’s attempt to expand government control over our economy, this time using Medicare drug pricing as their venue. This example also is the latest inclusion in the Progressive-Democratic Party’s reconciliation bill.

The Health and Human Services Secretary will “negotiate” 10 to 20 of the drugs that Medicare spends most on, starting in 2025. Drug makers will get socked with a 95% excise tax on gross sales if they don’t agree to the government’s price.

This is a textbook example of the fascism version of socialism. Companies are free to produce and sell whatever they want, so long as it fits within Government requirements directing what is produced, the volume of production, and the prices to be charged.

Yet, Biden can’t make the trucks run on time.

Because Shut Up

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A surgeon in Minnesota—and actual, licensed doctor, one who practices and not a government bureaucrat who happens to have a medical degree—spoke in favor of individual choice and especially of parental choice regarding their children on the matter of Wuhan Virus restrictions.

He did so publicly, too. Worse, he said it to a school board, one of those fonts of Know Better wisdom.

Dr Jeffrey Horak, a surgeon in Minnesota, told the Fergus Falls school board on October 11 that parents should make the decision about whether or not their children wear masks.

And he was fired for being so impudent. After all, the received wisdom from those bureaucrats who got a medical degree some while back held otherwise and that wisdom must be accepted by the unwashed masses, including those ignorant parents.

The Lake Region Healthcare hospital, his ex-employer, insisted he was fired because his views were no longer congruent with the hospital’s.

In other words, because shut up.

The hospital managers expounded on that. From their spokesman:

To be clear, this was a decision that was made by Dr Horak’s peers who serve on the Medical Group Board, not by Lake Region Healthcare[.]

Finger-pointing and blame-shifting regarding who did the canceling.

In this fashion, too, because shut up.

Grudge-Holding

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A Wisconsin child has been one of the unlucky few who caught the Wuhan Virus, seemingly from an unmasked classmate who had symptoms of…something. The boy caught the virus even though he was wearing a mask himself (which is indicative of the effectiveness of masks, but that’s for another post).

The school in question had had its mask mandate lifted ‘way last May by the district’s school board, and now the ill child’s parents are suing the school district over the matter.

The parents’ suit is being bankrolled by the Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC, which brewing company is owned by Kirk Bangstad.

Bangstad is running his grudge with this move. He’s already been vocal about

his frustrations about how former President Trump’s administration responded to the pandemic.

Payback’s a bitch, and Bangstad is trying to be one, too.

Importance of Some Wuhan Virus Vaccination Side Effects

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According to the Federal Government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, there are

569,294 adverse event reports associated with COVID-19 vaccination in the US, with a total of 2,433,730 symptoms reported.

Also reported is that

391 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been given in the US to 185 million people. It’s estimated about 56% of the population is fully vaccinated.

Among the adverse events/symptoms reported are some 34,589 folks getting the Wuhan Virus after having been vaccinated.

What’s carefully omitted from “journalist” reporting of these outcomes is their context—the specific relationship between the numbers of these events/symptoms and the numbers of vaccinated.

Adverse events work out to 0.14% of doses administered, and total symptoms represent 0.6% of doses administered.

Those 56% of Americans who are fully vaccinated are 184,852,416 Americans. Even if we take those 570,000 adverse events and 2.4 million symptoms as being solely allocated to fully vaccinated (which is a boundary value, not the actual distribution of events/symptoms), those per centages work out to 0.3% and 1.3% of fully vaccinated, respectively.

Those extremely tiny rates of uncomfortable-to-bad outcomes are in line with, if not smaller than, the rates of uncomfortable-to-bad outcomes for other vaccines and antibiotics that are routinely prescribed.

Now consider those 34,000 infections despite having been vaccinated. Assuming the boundary condition of those infections occurring despite having been fully vaccinated, that works out to a 99.98% effectiveness of the vaccines. Compare that rate with the rates on which the vaccines were, sort of, approved by the FDA: 95% for the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna two-dose vaccines, and 65% for the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccines.

It’s also becoming increasingly established that vaccinated folks who get the Wuhan Virus infection experience weaker symptoms, have lower hospitalization rates, and are even less likely to die than those who are unvaccinated and catch the virus.

With a lethality rate for the unvaccinated of less than a half per cent for healthy folks younger than ~65 and in the 2-5% range for those older, folks should weigh the likelihood of an uncomfortable-to-bad outcome and decide. Folks of any age with one or more comorbidities should weigh very seriously the relative odds.

Especially given the weaker symptoms after vaccination, I still recommend it, even though the vaccine only improves already highly favorable odds: it’s no fun being sick.

The Failure of the Department of Veterans Affairs

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It’s gotten even worse, astoundingly.

The Department of Veterans Affairs wants to hear from its customers, so to speak, but check your skin color before raising your hand. The VA is holding dozens of “listening sessions” for patients at its medical facilities. Eight cities are being virtually canvassed, with hearings for “racial/ethnic minorities,” “LGBTQ+ veterans,” and so forth.

For instance:

At a session on race last week in Augusta, Ga., a woman who described herself as white spoke in favor of inclusive language and safe spaces. “I appreciate your being upfront about the fact that you’re not a person of color yourself,” the VA’s facilitator chided, “because this listening session is for those from racial and ethnic minorities, to give them that kind of safe space.”

The woman was a member of a VA- and Government-disfavored group of Americans, and so she was told to shut up and sit down.

Now the VA has gone openly racist and sexist, and that’s not only damaging to our nation, it’s despicably harming those who defend and have defended our nation.

The VA is long past reparability; it must be eliminated entirely and all personnel returned to the private sector, not merely reallocated to other government sectors.

Veteranos Administratio delende est.