The government may have pushed it during the pandemic, but health insurers have been steering our healthcare system in this direction for years. "Population health" programs, "value-based care" and "clinical guidelines" where "health," "value" and "guidelines" are all defined - and enforced - by insurers is how they continue to do it.
Try Medicare. You can’t even get treatment every year unless you fill out a form telling the government if you have guns.
The insurance issue began during the depression when the government offered “health insurance” to compete with private industry. In return, private industry had to compete. People complain about losing insurance when you lose your job, and that because we don’t buy it privately anymore, the government dictates HOW you should be covered (what benefits are standard), and people use healthcare far more now than ever before (and so much more is “covered” Including vaccines, the biggest boom in profit has been Pharma).
Try the military system. It’s socialized and we can tell you that under that system families show up for every sniffle and cough for treatment. It’s costly because people have forgotten how to take care of themselves.
The key to a better healthcare system isn’t “better” insurance, but insurance removed from employers and government, catastrophic for the most part (pays for hospital and urgent, some chronic), we pay out of pocket for the simple stuff, stop believing that every vaccine is going to keep you healthy (because they don’t), eat healthy and exercise, and get back to the model of understanding pure cost of things versus the insurance game of underpaying (especially Medicaid and Medicare) the pushing the rest of the cost on other patients.
I became a USAF pilot in 1990. After the Soviet Union fell apart in 1992, we flew a bunch of relief supplies into some former republics as part of Operation Provide Hope. In Alma-Ata, Khazakstan, some nurses and docs came from local hospitals to help unload the jet, and started crying when they saw what we brought (among other things): surgical pins, used to mend compound bone breaks. They had the training, but no such supplies, and had to resort to amputation a LOT. I saw a few people working at the airport missing an arm or a leg during my 2-hour ground time.
People want to believe socialist countries are utopias where everyone gets what they need, but the reality is very few at the top get what they need and the rest are all equally miserable.
The Wall Street Journal has been wrong on many things in the past, complicit with promoting the anti-vaxxer rhetoric against anyone who questions research and the FDA’s approval.
From your article:
“ With effective vaccines and treatments widely available, and an infection fatality rate on par with flu, it’s past time to recognize that Covid is no longer an emergency requiring special policies.”
First, there are no effective vaccines and second, they have still all but banned Ivermectin and even high dose vitamin C at some hospitals, only allowing drugs with horrible side effects like Remdesvir, which causes kidney failure. I agree with the assertion it’s on par with the flu, but they are wrong with their reasoning.
WSJ also published such articles titled “ How Covid-19 Lockdowns Have Boosted Mother-Daughter Bonds” WSJ (9/22/20)
Before the pandemic they published: “The Founding Generation Also Had to Fight ‘Anti-Vaxxers’” WSJ (4/27/2019)
[and we figured out the harms of this one before everyone else as well, welcome to the land of the informed]
And this one: “ Facebook Pledged Crackdown on Vaccine Misinformation. Then Not Much Happened.
The company says it is mindful of overreach and is still refining automated tools for culling content” WSJ (5/30/2019)
[WSJ has also always been a voice for shutting down anyone questioning safety of vaccines, before Covid, and participated in it during Covid. You think this one was research nightmare? Wait until you actually research previous childhood vaccines, which were never tested against a placebo OR given together at once on babies and children]
You can find a dozen articles about “anti-vaccination and how dumb we all are at the WSJ.
“ Antivaccination Groups in New York Push Home Schooling
Some parents look for ways around new law that eliminates religious-belief exemptions on vaccines”
Or this (an Opinion Piece, but appeared in the same year as many many vaccine articles in the WSJ:
“ Doctors Should Change the Vaccination Talk
This year’s measles outbreak shows that pathogens for which we have vaccines don’t disappear; they are around us and ready to infect the nonvaccinated.”
June 19, 2019
[funny how no correction mentioned the strain of measles that circulated was the vaccine strain, NOT wild type.]
WSJ has no credibility. They want to hold themselves up as some neutral bastion of truth, but they are Pharma shills. I so enjoyed their puff piece “ Dr. Fauci Was a Basketball Captain. Now He’s America’s Point Guard.
His teammates in high school looked to Dr. Anthony Fauci for leadership. They’re still doing it more than 60 years later.” WSJ March 29,2020
Even through WSJ knows how poorly the aids crisis was handled and how many Fauci killed with his drug then. They could’ve done honest reporting, questioning everything, but they mostly go along with the narrative until it changes, so they change.
US hospitals are doing pretty much the same but mostly to save insurance companies money. My father was booted from hospital after dealing with MRSA and the meds crashed his platelets so he had to take steroids which suppress the immune system. There was some doubt the MRSA cleared. While in rehab the Doc ignored deteriorating kidney function which was the first sign of sepsis and was only rushed to ER when his O2 levels were at 93%. He died 2 days later, saving the insurance company a pile of money (he had end stage liver disease). This was 10 years before COVID at a top Boston hospital
I dont see much of a decline in LE in the post 1960 Soviet era. A significant decline ensued in the 1990’s after the Soviet Union collapsed, and did not recover to Soviet era levels until ~2010 .
The government may have pushed it during the pandemic, but health insurers have been steering our healthcare system in this direction for years. "Population health" programs, "value-based care" and "clinical guidelines" where "health," "value" and "guidelines" are all defined - and enforced - by insurers is how they continue to do it.
Try Medicare. You can’t even get treatment every year unless you fill out a form telling the government if you have guns.
The insurance issue began during the depression when the government offered “health insurance” to compete with private industry. In return, private industry had to compete. People complain about losing insurance when you lose your job, and that because we don’t buy it privately anymore, the government dictates HOW you should be covered (what benefits are standard), and people use healthcare far more now than ever before (and so much more is “covered” Including vaccines, the biggest boom in profit has been Pharma).
Try the military system. It’s socialized and we can tell you that under that system families show up for every sniffle and cough for treatment. It’s costly because people have forgotten how to take care of themselves.
The key to a better healthcare system isn’t “better” insurance, but insurance removed from employers and government, catastrophic for the most part (pays for hospital and urgent, some chronic), we pay out of pocket for the simple stuff, stop believing that every vaccine is going to keep you healthy (because they don’t), eat healthy and exercise, and get back to the model of understanding pure cost of things versus the insurance game of underpaying (especially Medicaid and Medicare) the pushing the rest of the cost on other patients.
I became a USAF pilot in 1990. After the Soviet Union fell apart in 1992, we flew a bunch of relief supplies into some former republics as part of Operation Provide Hope. In Alma-Ata, Khazakstan, some nurses and docs came from local hospitals to help unload the jet, and started crying when they saw what we brought (among other things): surgical pins, used to mend compound bone breaks. They had the training, but no such supplies, and had to resort to amputation a LOT. I saw a few people working at the airport missing an arm or a leg during my 2-hour ground time.
People want to believe socialist countries are utopias where everyone gets what they need, but the reality is very few at the top get what they need and the rest are all equally miserable.
The Wall Street Journal has been wrong on many things in the past, complicit with promoting the anti-vaxxer rhetoric against anyone who questions research and the FDA’s approval.
From your article:
“ With effective vaccines and treatments widely available, and an infection fatality rate on par with flu, it’s past time to recognize that Covid is no longer an emergency requiring special policies.”
First, there are no effective vaccines and second, they have still all but banned Ivermectin and even high dose vitamin C at some hospitals, only allowing drugs with horrible side effects like Remdesvir, which causes kidney failure. I agree with the assertion it’s on par with the flu, but they are wrong with their reasoning.
WSJ also published such articles titled “ How Covid-19 Lockdowns Have Boosted Mother-Daughter Bonds” WSJ (9/22/20)
Before the pandemic they published: “The Founding Generation Also Had to Fight ‘Anti-Vaxxers’” WSJ (4/27/2019)
[and we figured out the harms of this one before everyone else as well, welcome to the land of the informed]
And this one: “ Facebook Pledged Crackdown on Vaccine Misinformation. Then Not Much Happened.
The company says it is mindful of overreach and is still refining automated tools for culling content” WSJ (5/30/2019)
[WSJ has also always been a voice for shutting down anyone questioning safety of vaccines, before Covid, and participated in it during Covid. You think this one was research nightmare? Wait until you actually research previous childhood vaccines, which were never tested against a placebo OR given together at once on babies and children]
You can find a dozen articles about “anti-vaccination and how dumb we all are at the WSJ.
“ Antivaccination Groups in New York Push Home Schooling
Some parents look for ways around new law that eliminates religious-belief exemptions on vaccines”
Or this (an Opinion Piece, but appeared in the same year as many many vaccine articles in the WSJ:
“ Doctors Should Change the Vaccination Talk
This year’s measles outbreak shows that pathogens for which we have vaccines don’t disappear; they are around us and ready to infect the nonvaccinated.”
June 19, 2019
[funny how no correction mentioned the strain of measles that circulated was the vaccine strain, NOT wild type.]
WSJ has no credibility. They want to hold themselves up as some neutral bastion of truth, but they are Pharma shills. I so enjoyed their puff piece “ Dr. Fauci Was a Basketball Captain. Now He’s America’s Point Guard.
His teammates in high school looked to Dr. Anthony Fauci for leadership. They’re still doing it more than 60 years later.” WSJ March 29,2020
Even through WSJ knows how poorly the aids crisis was handled and how many Fauci killed with his drug then. They could’ve done honest reporting, questioning everything, but they mostly go along with the narrative until it changes, so they change.
I have no respect for any quotes from MSM.
US hospitals are doing pretty much the same but mostly to save insurance companies money. My father was booted from hospital after dealing with MRSA and the meds crashed his platelets so he had to take steroids which suppress the immune system. There was some doubt the MRSA cleared. While in rehab the Doc ignored deteriorating kidney function which was the first sign of sepsis and was only rushed to ER when his O2 levels were at 93%. He died 2 days later, saving the insurance company a pile of money (he had end stage liver disease). This was 10 years before COVID at a top Boston hospital
I dont see much of a decline in LE in the post 1960 Soviet era. A significant decline ensued in the 1990’s after the Soviet Union collapsed, and did not recover to Soviet era levels until ~2010 .
Excellent piece connecting the dots and providing the big ugly picture. It all makes sense. Thank you.
it is ugly. isn't it.
Great article....one to save and quote. Thank you!
Jeffrey is a great writer!