Category Archives: Joe Biden

COVID Hospitalizations in the US Soar to More Than 100,000, Vaccines and The Idiocy regarding Ivermectin!

Ralph Ellis reminded us that more than 100,000 people in the United States were hospitalized with COVID-19 this past few weeks — a figure not reported since late January, when vaccines were not widely available.

Statistics from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services showed 100,317 COVID hospital patients on Wednesday, a figure that grew to 101,050 on Thursday.

That’s about six times the number of COVID hospitalizations from about nine weeks ago, CNN says.

The HHS data shows COVID hospitalizations are highest across the Southeast, with more than 16,800 patients in Florida, 14,000 in Texas, 6,200 in Georgia, 3,000 in Alabama, and 2,300 in Missouri.

In comparison, California, the most populous state, has about 8,700 people hospitalized with COVID, the HHS said.

Alarmingly, many of these COVID patients are severely ill. About 30% of the nation’s intensive care unit beds are now occupied by COVID patients, HHS data shows.

Infections, deaths, and hospitalizations have increased since early summer as the Delta variant spread across the nation, especially in places with low vaccination rates.

Health experts have said the majority of the hospitalized people are unvaccinated. Research shows that vaccinated people who become infected with the Delta variant generally don’t become as sick as unvaccinated people.

Paul Offit, MD, an FDA vaccine advisory committee member, said the current availability of the vaccine makes the high number of hospitalizations especially tragic.

“The numbers now…are actually in many ways worse than last August,” Offit said on CNN. “Last August, we had a fully susceptible population, (and) we didn’t have a vaccine. Now, we have half the country vaccinated…but nonetheless the numbers are worse. The Delta variant is one big game changer.”

Sources:

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: “Hospital Utilization.”

CNN: “With more than 100,000 people in the hospital with Covid-19 in the US, this August is worse than last, expert says.”

From Cancer to COVID: Is There a Fix for Willful Medical Ignorance?

Dr. H. Jack West pointed out something very interesting as he relayed an observation. He patient saw a patient for a second opinion after developing metastatic disease, but he’d initially been diagnosed with locally advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). His oncologist had appropriately proposed treatment with concurrent chemoradiation followed by durvalumab. He listened to the rationale and the evidence, but he refused to pursue it, favoring alternative medicine instead.

A repeat scan several months later showed obvious progression. Even though it was potentially treatable — including with curative intent — he demurred again.

Several months down the line, he developed back pain heralding a new spinal metastasis. Only then did he accept that perhaps conventional, evidence-based anticancer therapy was worth pursuing. Of course, by that time the window of opportunity to treat with the hope of cure had closed.

But in other ways, it isn’t too late for him. He can at least benefit from subsequent treatments for advanced NSCLC. Too many other patients I’ve seen have eschewed conventional medicine so long that their poor performance status precludes standard therapies that would have been effective had they pursued them as something other than a final act of desperation.

Corollaries to Coronavirus Though this dynamic has existed for decades in oncology, the current rejection of the coronavirus vaccine, on a massive scale involving a significant minority of the US population, is a reflection of this same willful ignorance.

In 2008, I started a nonprofit organization — the Global Resource for Advancing Cancer Education — dedicated to providing free, timely, and credible information to cancer patients and caregivers around the world.

It was based on the premise that if the lay public had access to the best information — in other words, the same content that informs experts and defines optimal patient management — patients would then be able to pursue these treatments to the extent that they were broadly available. And although this service and a growing number of similar efforts have since generated a virtual army of sophisticated patients (who have since become an important force in and of themselves), it has been humbling to recognize that this approach can’t help the many people who denigrate the very pursuit of evidence-based medicine.

The widespread rejection of COVID vaccines brings this into high relief for a couple of reasons. First, the selfishness of those who reject the vaccine affects not only the individual who makes that choice but the broader public. Their decision not only puts them at risk but also the unwitting person exposed to them later. At least with cancer, poor choices only affect those making them.

Another reason that COVID vaccination is such a flashpoint: everyone, including every public figure, now makes a public declaration of their support or suspicion of science and evidence-based medicine. And we are seeing an alarming fraction of people with access to very good information rejecting the evidence and our best opportunity to control the pandemic.

I am particularly disheartened that those who reject the science aren’t prone to change their views with better educational efforts. I recognize that there is a spectrum of resistance and that some of our colleagues have convinced family members and patients to reverse their prior anti-vaccine stance; but I wish it wasn’t so hard to overcome people’s biases against the establishment — biases that lead not only to self-harm but danger to the broader public.

We need to do more to understand what leads people to reject science, because it’s clearly not just ignorance and lack of better information. We have to recognize that this phenomenon is now a leading bottleneck in the progress of modern medicine, both in oncology and other settings.

I would love to learn what others think, including successes and more optimistic views — or to simply vent your frustrations with these issues.

Helping Patients Understand Breakthrough COVID Benefits Us All –Here’s how to approach the conversation.

I have been asked these questions multiple times about breakthrough infections from Covid by my patients and I thought that this would be a good time to review, especially recently with infection numbers and the discussion regarding booster shots. Dr. Gary C. Steben pointed out that the recent change in masking guidance from the CDC and reinstated public health measures from local and state governments have been met with frustration and defiance, with people understandably questioning why they got vaccinated if they have to go back to masking and distancing anyway. The answer is in the degree of exposure to SARS-CoV-2, and the explanation lies in the way vaccines work. We can help our patients understand this with three talking points:

1. The antibody levels in the bloodstream are completely helpless at preventing infection (saying it that way seems to get everybody’s attention!)

Neutralizing virus particles from the environment is the sole responsibility of the vaccine-induced antibodies in our respiratory, GI, and ocular secretions — our “frontline” defensive antibodies in our saliva, tears, nasal secretions, and pulmonary mucus. When exposed to airborne virus particles, these antibodies attach to the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, physically preventing it from latching on to the ACE2 receptor on the surface of our respiratory epithelium and gaining entry to those cells to cause an infection. But that’s all we’ve got — if we are exposed to so many virus particles that all the antibodies in these secretions have attached themselves to virus particles, yet we continue to expose ourselves to new particles faster than we transport more antibodies into these secretions, our antibody defense gets overwhelmed, we inhale or come in contact with more virus particles than we are able to neutralize, and we get infected.

2. Circulating antibodies help to contain the infection

Once infected, the virus takes over the machinery of our cells to make more virus particles and release them, and that’s where our circulating vaccine-induced antibodies come in. They latch on to these newly minted particles to prevent them from infecting adjacent cells and from being exhaled. Therein, unfortunately, lies one of the Delta variant’s strong suits — it can reproduce itself so rapidly that our antibodies don’t slow it down much, and we see that when infected, vaccinated people are shedding virus similarly to unvaccinated folks.

3. Our vaccine-induced T-cell immunity limits disease severity

The third element of the response to the vaccine that you don’t hear as much about is the T-cell immunity that is induced. This arm of the immune system kills off our own infected cells — they’re a lost cause anyway, and will need to be replaced — and thereby limits the extent of disease. That’s why the vaccines remain effective at limiting the severity of disease, and the reason why we don’t see many vaccinated people among the hospitalized even as the number of vaccinated people infected with the Delta variant increases. That’s also why it’s so critical to get vaccinated — the vaccines are extremely effective at preventing severe illness and death from COVID-19. But it is not in the T-cell job description to go after viruses themselves. Vaccine-induced T-cells do not provide protection against getting infected; they only mitigate severity once infected.

So, the CDC revised its masking guidance because, as we’re seeing in places like Provincetown and Milwaukee’s Deer District, vaccinated people can both get and spread SARS-CoV-2. More and more vaccinated people are getting infected because they’re interpreting vaccination as carte blanche to return to pre-pandemic life without restriction and are exposing themselves to massive viral loads that overwhelm their immunity. Every single vaccinated person I spoke with during a telemedicine visit in July who got themselves infected at a Bucks championship game told me they would have taken more precautions had the meaning of vaccination been explained to them as I have above.

These principles add to the arguments surrounding whether to administer a third dose, as recently discussed. Many studies have shown that neutralizing antibody titers decline only slowly over months, while we continue to see blunted disease severity in those vaccinated individuals who get infected. Moreover, breakthrough infections are not only occurring in older people who are far out from their second dose. This suggests breakthrough infections may occur not so much because of waning immunity, but because of people’s behavior that exposes them to overwhelming viral loads, especially in the face of the new variants. If that’s the case, a third dose without behavior modification may not be enough to promote sufficient disease containment. We need data from our contact tracers on the circumstances under which breakthrough infections occurred to better inform the decision on a third dose.

I believe history will judge our response to the pandemic harshly for its reliance on mandates more than education. We physicians were not consulted appropriately early on in the pandemic for our expertise and community respect to help shape local and regional procedures tailored to maximize disease containment while mitigating economic impact. There remains no coordinated effort to promote local physician involvement in mitigation strategies, and we are seeing the fallout from that in the current surge. So we must take it upon ourselves to do everything we can to educate our patients by promoting evidence-based containment measures and offering common-sense explanations for COVID-19 and the vaccines.

This is the most important public health crisis of our careers and lifetimes, and the urgency of this situation will reach a whole new level if post-acute COVID syndrome (PACS) turns out to be a virus-triggered autoimmune response that intensifies with subsequent infections. I sure hope that will not be the case and there is no evidence for that yet, but we physicians don’t have the luxury of waiting to find out. We need to leverage the respect we’ve earned among our communities to do what we can to transcend the rhetoric and misinformation, and minimize the worsening catastrophe that we know COVID-19 can become. Now.

Anti-parasite drug for animals ivermectin flying off store shelves as COVID spikes- Ivermectin dispensing by retail pharmacies has increased’ the CDC says. After many hours of “discussions” with friends who have decided not to get vaccinated and instead an anti-parasitic drug used on horses, cows, sheep and dogs, I thought that it would be worth a discussion. Daniella Genovese reported that despite strict warnings from federal health officials, consumers around the country are still trying to get their hands on a drug commonly used to treat or prevent parasites in animals in order to protect themselves against the coronavirus.

The drug, ivermectin, has been reportedly flying off stores shelves in multiple states, including Texas and Oklahoma, even though it has not been approved for treating or preventing COVID-19 in humans. “Ivermectin dispensing by retail pharmacies has increased, as has use of veterinary formulations available over the counter but not intended for human use,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. “FDA has cautioned about the potential risks of use for prevention or treatment of COVID-19.

Earlier this month, the FDA said it has seen a “growing interest” in the drug and already received multiple reports of “patients who have required medical support and been hospitalized after self-medicating with ivermectin intended for horses.”

However, over a dozen stores in the Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas area have sold out of the medicine, The Dallas Morning News reported. Noah Krzykowski, who manages the Irving Feed Store in Irving, Texas, told the outlet that he is seeing droves of new customers in search of the product. “You can tell the difference between someone who has cattle and someone who doesn’t,” Krzykowski told the Morning News. “And we’re seeing a lot of people right now who don’t have cattle.” Meanwhile, Alex Gieger, who manages the Red Earth Feed and Tack in Oklahoma City, Kansas, told KOCO that the store has been flooded with requests for the drug.

Scott Schaeffer, managing director of the Oklahoma Center Poison and Drug Information, told FOX Business they have already received seven calls this month regarding ivermectin. This is up from three calls in July. “We’re more concerned that people are taking medication without the input of their physician/prescriber, and that there is no reliable evidence that ivermectin is effective for the treatment or prevention of COVID,” Schaeffer said.

Ivermectin tablets are only approved by the FDA “to treat people with intestinal strongyloidiasis and onchocerciasis, two conditions caused by parasitic worms,” the agency said. According to the FDA, some forms of ivermectin are also approved to treat parasites like head lice and for skin conditions like rosacea while other forms are “used in animals to prevent heartworm disease and certain internal and external parasites.”

The FDA said consumers should never use medications intended for animals. “It’s important to note that these products are different from the ones for people, and safe when used as prescribed for animals, only,” the FDA said.

US Plans COVID-19 Booster Shots at 6 Months Instead of 8: WSJ

The Reuters Staff reported that U.S. health regulators could approve a third COVID-19 shot for adults beginning at least six months after full vaccination, instead of the previously announced eight-month gap, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

Approval of boosters for three COVID-19 shots being administered in the United States — those manufactured by Pfizer Inc and partner BioNTech SE, Moderna Inc and Johnson & Johnson — is expected in mid-September, the report said, citing a person familiar with the plans.

Pfizer and BioNTech have already started the application process for the approval of its booster shot in people 16 and older, saying it spurs a more than three-fold increase in antibodies against the coronavirus.

Earlier this week, U.S. regulators granted full approval to Pfizer’s two-dose vaccine. Moderna said on Wednesday it has completed the real-time review needed for a full approval for its jab in people 18 and above.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in her daily briefing that any such development would be under the purview of the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC said the government’s plan to administer booster shot depends on pending action from the Food and Drug Administration and recommendation to it from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

The FDA, however, reiterated its joint statement from last week that said the government was gearing up to roll out the third shot from mid-September to Americans who had their initial course of two-dose vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer more than eight months ago.

The rollout would start if the FDA and the CDC decide that boosters are needed, U.S. officials had said.

But the next question is:

Are We Jumping the Gun on COVID Boosters?- Efficacy, safety, and ethical questions linger

Dr. Vinay Prasad points out that over the last weeks, the topic of COVID-19 booster shots — a third dose of mRNA vaccine for healthy Americans — has been thrust into the spotlight. The surgeon general, CDC director, Anthony Fauci, MD, and President Biden have announced that they wish for boosters to be available by late September for healthy adults who are 8 months out from their original two-dose series. While this will be contingent on an FDA evaluation to determine the “safety and effectiveness of the third dose,” a clear path forward has already been set. And just like everything else throughout the course of the pandemic, the choice has been made with a dearth of data and an abundance of political pressure.

Diminishing vaccine effectiveness supposedly makes the case for boosters. But there are two big questions here: First, what is current vaccine effectiveness? And second, what justifies boosters? Let’s consider these in turn.

What Is Vaccine Effectiveness Now?

We have to be honest, many vaccine effectiveness studies are poorly done. All studies compare the rate of getting a breakthrough infection among vaccinated people against the rate of infection in unvaccinated people. But there are some issues with this approach. First, as time goes on, more unvaccinated people have had and recovered from COVID-19 (and these individuals may be less likely to go on to get a shot). This means that their risk of getting COVID-19 a second time is far less than the typical unvaccinated person who has never been sick. Even if vaccines “work” as well as before, this factor alone will result in the appearance of diminishing vaccine effectiveness.

Second, the order of vaccination in all nations is non-random. The folks who got vaccinated first are often the oldest and most vulnerable people with frailty and senescent immune systems. Vaccine effectiveness after 6 months, 8 months, and 12 months increasingly compares older, frailer people who got vaccinated first against unvaccinated people. These older people may always have a slightly higher risk of breakthrough infections. This bias will also give the false appearance of diminishing vaccine effectiveness.

A third consideration: We’re looking at vaccine effectiveness, but for what? People don’t want to get severely ill from SARS-CoV-2 and don’t want to die, but it might be too much to ask that vaccines prevent the nucleotide sequence of SARS-CoV-2 from ever being in your nose. In other words, vaccine effectiveness against severe disease may be much higher than vaccine effectiveness against asymptomatic or mild infection. This matters a great deal — if the vaccines continue to be highly effective against risk of severe illness and death, is it really worth boosting people in the U.S. right now?

And putting this all together, the best estimates of vaccine effectiveness do, in fact, still show high protection against severe disease and death.

What Justifies Boosters?

No matter what vaccine effectiveness is against preventing COVID-19 illness generally, the important question for boosters is whether they further lower the risk of severe disease or death. The only way to show this is through randomized controlled trials of the size and duration to measure that outcome. It is entirely possible that vaccine effectiveness is not perfect over time, or slightly lower than initial trials, but it’s also possible that boosters do not further reduce the risk of SARS-CoV-2. Only trials can answer this.

While emerging data from Israel suggest boosters may diminish the risk for COVID-19 infection and severe illness in people 60 and older, the data are not based on the types of studies we need. Pfizer has only submitted early trial results to the FDA to support their boosters, with phase III trial data forthcoming. But again, the data may be insufficient if severe outcomes are not captured.

Moreover, we have to consider the risk of new, compounding, and worse toxicity. Randomized trials and close observation will be needed to exclude worse safety signals, particularly increases in myocarditis and pericarditis. These rare adverse events are more common after the second mRNA dose — will they be even more common after dose three?

In short, diminished vaccine effectiveness does not make the case for boosters. A reduction in severe outcomes makes the case for boosters, but we have no such data to date.

Global Equity

There’s also the ethical question of how a wealthy nation can give its inhabitants a third dose when there are literally billions of vulnerable older people around the world who have not gotten any doses. The World Health Organization has begged nations not to do this, and history will judge us poorly if we pursue this. It is a human rights violation to direct limited mRNA supply and capabilities to third doses in the U.S. when the world remains vulnerable. Moreover, it is self-defeating. We are not safe from global variants.

Take a Step Back

Decisions about boosters have to be based in science and made by vaccine regulators. They should not be subject to the pressure of manufacturers, politicians, or political appointees. They should not be rushed. On Sunday television, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, MD, was specifically asked if the third shot was safe. His response: “the plan is contingent on that…”

Excuse me? We don’t know that to be true, and yet, our top medical and public health experts are pushing for boosters? Drug safety expert Walid Gellad, MD, MPH, tweeted: “It was irresponsible to push for boosters in healthy people before safety review.”

Two days after the White House’s announcement, two people with knowledge of the FDA’s deliberation told The Washington Post that the agency was investigating myocarditis signal with the Moderna vaccination. Canadian data suggest the risk may be 2.5 times that of Pfizer’s vaccine. The timing of this internal information leaking to reporters naturally leads me to wonder if reviewers in the agency are attempting to counteract political pressure, and create space to conduct a thorough review of booster data.

Boosters are an important medical question. Their approval must have a favorable safety and efficacy profile. Only randomized trials measuring severe disease can show that. Still, recently the FDA that boosters for Pfizer is only recommended for people over 65 and those compromised.

Let’s wait for the next set of data from the Moderna post vaccination studies, which is expected by the end of November.

203 Doctors Told Us What They Actually Think Of COVID Vaccines, And Everyone Should Hear Their Answers

A growing refrain among vaccine skeptics is that they won’t get vaccinated against COVID-19 because a handful of health scientists have told them they don’t have to.

Robert Malone, the self-proclaimed inventor of mRNA technology back in the 1980s, has been among those celebrated by the far right for voicing unproven concerns about COVID-19 vaccines to his 280,000-plus Twitter followers. While it’s easy to explain away an embittered, bruised-ego scientist, it’s much harder to dismiss the significant majority of healthcare professionals who support the vaccines and the preponderance of evidence backing them up.

Enter the anti-vaxxer’s latest unfounded claim: that most public health officials secretly don’t support vaccines. In fact, a friend of mine recently made a stunning declaration that she wholeheartedly believes: “Most experts are too afraid to speak up, but I suspect 9 out of 10 doctors would advise against COVID vaccines if you asked them privately.”

Though I could have readily dismissed such a callous and unsubstantiated statement, the journalist in me began to wonder whether I should.

After all, if a meaningful percentage of individuals with legitimate infectious disease and vaccination expertise were concerned, that would be worth reporting. Besides, I’d asked her to question her convictions, so shouldn’t I be willing to do the same?

With that in mind, I began researching epidemiologists, virologists, health department directors, pediatricians, infectious disease experts, and public health officials. I deemed it important to find such people in all 50 states and in counties that leaned both left and right in case politics had tainted anyone’s objectivity.

No one directed me where I should look nor which experts I could turn to; and I steered clear of anyone I’d seen making regular cable news appearances to ensure I was getting fresh perspectives from experts who may not have already spoken up.

In my research, I identified more than 200 such individuals, and, in the interest of taking up as little of their limited time as possible, decided to ask them all the same two yes or no questions with an invitation to elaborate if they chose to.

I also wanted them to know they could answer freely, so I offered anonymity — a condition that some appreciated and others waived.

My two questions were simply whether they believed the benefits of COVID-19 vaccinations outweigh any potential harms, and whether they’d recommended the shots to their own children if they had any in the 12–18-year-old age groups. Responses began pouring in almost immediately.

Over the next few days, I heard back from 203 of the doctors I’d reached out to. If my friend’s unfounded suspicions were correct, 183 of them should have recommended against vaccination.

Turns out the actual number against COVID vaccines was zero. And the number of vaccine experts who recommended the shots to me in our private, one-on-one interactions was a whopping 203.

None of the 203 responders raised a single concern about COVID vaccines for adults or for children. “The benefits outweigh the extremely rare harms by many miles,” one biostatistics researcher told me.

What’s more, many of the responders had a lot to say about the type of public health official who would use their academic credibility to steer people away from COVID-19 vaccines.

Abner told me she doesn’t actually know of any public health officials who have advocated against the vaccines; rather, the handful of fringe persons who have gained notoriety doing so are actually “lab scientists without any public health or epidemiological expertise. Being an expert in one area of science or medicine does not confer expertise in others.”

One health department director in Idaho put it even more bluntly: “Any public health official who discourages vaccination isn’t concerned about public health at all.”

CORRECTED-COVID SCIENCE-mRNA vaccines trigger backup immune response; some cancer drugs may help

Nancy Lapid summarized of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further study to corroborate the findings and that have yet to be certified by peer review.

Antibodies wane but other immune defenses remain alert.

A new study may help explain why mRNA vaccines by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna are more effective at preventing hospitalizations and deaths than they are at preventing infection. Test-tube experiments on blood samples from 61 fully vaccinated adults showed that by six months, vaccine-induced antibodies that can immediately neutralize the virus had declined. But so-called memory B cells, which produce new antibodies if they encounter the virus later on, had increased and become better at recognizing viral variants, according to a report posted on Monday on bioRxiv https://bit.ly/3zoCSAY ahead of peer review. “Your immune system has a backup,” said study leader John Wherry of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. B-cell production of antibodies might take a few days to get underway, but then these memory B cells “kick into action and prevent severe disease,” Wherry added.

Early data favors certain cancer treatments during pandemic

Certain cancer drugs may help protect patients with malignancies from being infected with the new coronavirus, preliminary data suggests. The drugs, known as mTOR/PI3K inhibitors and antimetabolites, target the parts of cells that the virus uses to enter and make copies of itself, including a “gateway” protein on cell surfaces called angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). The study of 1,701 cancer patients found that after taking underlying risk factors into account, patients treated with mTOR/PI3K inhibitors or ACE2-lowering antimetabolites were 47% less likely to test positive for the virus than patients who received other drug therapies. Gemzar (gemcitabine) from Eli Lilly appeared to be particularly promising, according to the report in JAMA Oncology https://bit.ly/38icqN6 on Thursday. The study does not prove that the drugs lowered infection rates, however, and much more research is needed to confirm their potential for protecting cancer patients from the coronavirus.

One in four infected LA residents had been vaccinated

From May through July 2021, as the Delta variant spread, 43,127 residents of Los Angeles County in California were diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 infections. One in four had been fully vaccinated, though these patients had lower rates of hospitalization (3.2% versus 7.6%), intensive care (0.5% versus 1.5%) and need for machines to help with breathing (0.2% versus 0.5%) than unvaccinated patients, public health officials reported on Tuesday in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report https://bit.ly/2XWWZIx. During the study period, the prevalence of the Delta variant rose from less than 9% to at least 87%, the authors note. As of July 25, hospitalization rates were 29 times higher for unvaccinated patients, they estimated, “indicating that COVID-19 vaccination protects against severe COVID-19 in areas with increasing prevalence of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant.”

Infectious disease expert: Americans must ‘recalibrate’ vaccine expectations

Tim O’Donnell reiterated what I have been trying to educate my patients and friends that COVID-19 vaccines won’t eliminate the coronavirus, “no matter how many booster shots the United States gives,” Céline R. Gounder writes for The Atlantic. But that’s no reason to panic or lose confidence in them.

Grounder, an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine and Bellevue Hospital in New York City, thinks public health messaging got out of hand early on during the vaccine drive, especially when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published real-world evidence that showed that two doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were 90 percent effective at preventing infections, as opposed to just disease. After that, folks got excited, believing that full vaccination status meant you could only very rarely get infected or transmit the disease. But now that the efficacy appears to be lower, there’s a lot of anxiety.

Grounder tried to ease that, explaining that vaccines are typically more effective at protecting against infection outright when battling viruses that have longer incubation periods, like measles and smallpox. In those cases, the body is trained to kick the virus out before it can really establish itself. But the coronavirus and influenza, for example, don’t take as long to start replicating and can do so before a vaccinated defense system revs up. Once it does, though, the virus doesn’t have much room to operate and is usually blocked from progressing in the lungs and causing serious damage.

With that in mind, Grounder says Americans simply need to “recalibrate our expectations about what makes a vaccine successful.” While “the public discussion of the pandemic has become distorted by a presumption that vaccination can and should eliminate COVID-19 entirely,” that’s not an attainable standard, she argues. And it’s one that makes “each breakthrough infection” look “like evidence that the vaccines are not working,” even though they’re performing “extremely well” and reducing what may have been serious infections to either mild or asymptomatic ones. Read Grounder’s full piece at The Atlantic.

Let us take a few moments of silence for the service men and women and the other civilians who lost their lives last week to the horror of the ISIS bomber.

Throw Away Your Mask After COVID Vaccination or Not, What about the Mutations and Infection after Vaccination?

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As our national mortality statistics reach over 500,000 and a third vaccine has been approved by the FDA I thought that we should examine the use of masks, etc. after vaccinations. This is an important question especially considering the increasing findings of more viral mutants.

Recently, a spirited discussion was sparked on social media: is it acceptable to relax masking 14 days after the second COVID-19 vaccine dose? Doctor Vinay Prasad and Doctor David Aronoff, in this post will discuss the advice as to whether to continue wearing masks as well as social distancing, etc. after one completes their vaccination.

Doctor Prasad starts off by noting that having spent some time thinking about the topic, and discussing with colleagues, I have reached two conclusions. First, it is a tradeoff with residual uncertainties, and reasonable people can disagree. But also, I favor the view that generally, 14 days after vaccination, we can relax some restrictions.

The caveats

It is important to be upfront with the caveats. Everything I say applies to average people in the community — I am not speaking about enhanced precautions in high-risk settings like nursing homes or medical centers. My argument is contingent on there being no “vaccine escape,” that is, no mutation in the coronavirus that markedly reduces vaccine efficacy. If that happens, may God help us. I am not sure we will make it.

Finally, my argument is appropriate for most places and most times, but if health systems are overwhelmed, e.g., as we saw in places like southern California or New York City, it might be reasonable to temporarily increase precautions. Additionally, my guiding principle does not apply to businesses, such as grocery stores or pharmacies, which can and will enforce their own policies.

Now, having said that: for most people, once you get 14 days out of your second dose of vaccine, I believe you can ease up on masking or another restriction, such as visiting a loved one for lunch or having more than one person visit a nursing home at the same time, or a small gathering of vaccinated people for dinner without masks.

The data

There are three lines of evidence that I wish to offer for my claim. First, consider the efficacy of the vaccine. The efficacy of the two mRNA vaccines is superb, offering 95% reduction in the rate of acquisition of symptomatic COVID-19 in randomized trials. That is a remarkable result. But the key statistic here is one step beyond the vaccine efficacy. If you get two doses of the vaccine, and if you remain asymptomatic 14 days after the second dose, what is the probability you will develop COVID-19? For Moderna, the answer is there is a 99.92% chance that you won’t. Only 12 cases occurred after this time in 14,550 actively vaccinated people in the trial, while the control arm experienced nearly 3.5% cumulative incidence. For Pfizer, only eight cases occurred amongst people who had completed a second dose and went 7 days without symptoms, again a 99.95% chance of not getting COVID if one remained asymptomatic a week after the second dose. In other words, if you get 14 days past the second dose, and feel fine, the likelihood you will get COVID-19 in these studies is very low. Some argue that in the real world — where folks are not as motivated as trial participants — the rate of SARS-CoV-2 acquisition might be higher, and thus relaxing rules riskier. But this logic cuts both ways: if people in the real world are less compliant, then the rules might be relaxed no matter what we say.

Next, consider the risk of spreading SARS-CoV-2 to others. That risk is in part driven by symptomatic infections which are exceedingly rare after second doses. Risk of spreading is diminished by the brisk immune response that occurs after symptomatic infection once someone is vaccinated. In the Moderna study, there were 30 cases of severe COVID overall and zero in the vaccination arm. Less symptomatic and less severe COVID will result in a lower propensity to propagate SARS-CoV-2. Moreover, studies of both recombinant antibody products speed viral clearance from airways. If the body is primed to manufacture anti-spike antibodies through vaccination, there is likely a similar rapid clearance and subsequent reduction in infectiousness occurs.

What about asymptomatic infection and so-called silent spread? In the Moderna trial, swabs taken from asymptomatic participants as they were receiving dose 2 showed a roughly 60% reduction in PCR positivity. It is likely that a second dose and longer asymptomatic period will result in greater reduction in PCR positivity. Preliminary data from AstraZeneca’s ChAdOx1 vaccine also showed reduced in asymptomatic PCR detection. In short, it is highly likely that receipt of vaccination and a 14-day asymptomatic period afterward results in both personal protection and reduced likelihood of ongoing viral propagation.

Third, what is the effect size of masks? More correctly — what is the effect size of masks 14 days after a vaccine with 95% efficacy? What is the effect of masks if PCR positivity is only 1 in 1,000 amongst asymptomatic people? I think we must confront a forgotten truth. Masks make sense not because we have perfect randomized controlled trial data showing they protect the wearer, or others, but based on bio-plausibility, and the precautionary principle, they were a reasonable public health measure to incorporate.

Authors of a 2020 update to the Cochrane review wrote, “Compared to no masks there was no reduction of influenza-like illness (ILI) cases (risk ratio 0.93, 95% CI 0.83-1.05) or influenza (risk ratio 0.84, 95% CI 0.61-1.17) for masks in the general population, nor in healthcare workers (risk ratio 0.37, 95% CI 0.05-2.50).” But the truth is none of these trials perfectly fits the moment. And we never did a cluster RCT of cloth masks — as they are used in the politically torn U.S. — to clarify the effect size with SARS-CoV-2.

The truth is I wear a cloth mask and I quite like it. But I have seen no data that can tell me the added benefit of masks 14 days after vaccination with 95% efficacy. It’s the biological equivalent of asking what happened before the Big Bang. If you ask, what is the evidence that it’s safe to stop wearing a mask, I say, what is the evidence that it’s still beneficial?

This same line of thinking applies to other restrictions that could be eased instead. What evidence supports restricting nursing home visitors, if all parties are vaccinated and masked? What evidence supports banning a small dinner, if everyone has had the vaccine? There is no evidence that supports these continued prohibitions.

Knowing these three facts allows us to put it all together. Is it reasonable to tell someone that, if they are asymptomatic 14 days after the second vaccine, they are highly unlikely to get COVID-19, and also less likely to spread the virus — both by having less severe disease, less asymptomatic carriage, clearing virus faster, stronger antibody responses, and fewer symptomatic cases? Absolutely, is my view.

It is then reasonable to say that the theoretical benefit of the mask may be so small that easing up on its use is fine. Alternatively, you might keep the mask, but ease up on something else, and, to be honest, most people might actually prefer a different concession. You might choose to see family instead, or have a gathering with your vaccinated friends. Getting vaccinated is like getting a stack of tickets at Chuck E. Cheese — you get to decide what to trade them in for!

The politics/sociology

Some contend my stance will undermine efforts to normalize masks, send mixed messages to the public. That’s possible, but it is also possible that my message empowers and excites people to get vaccinated, which is the only viable path out of the nightmare we find ourselves in. I think the less scientists manipulate their statements while trying to guess the response the better. I have tried to be fully transparent in my thinking on this topic. None of us knows the second or third order effects. If we distort the facts and bang on harder about prolonged mask use or other restrictions, will the world actually be better? Or will we provoke a deep backlash that has been brewing for some time? Do we risk losing some folks who might otherwise get vaccinated? I am not an incarnation of God, so I don’t know. I worry that the likes and retweets on social media encourage the fearful message rather than the correct one.

Public health experts have reminded me to talk about despair. We are all facing it, and when you clamp down on a society with restrictions, a free society can only bear it for so long. There must be a path out of it, and easing restrictions — particularly when the burden may outweigh the unproven, theoretical, and at best highly marginal benefit — is a great way to renew optimism. Folks who spend time doing boots on the ground public health share their view with me that this is a great place to start.

The last objection I want to discuss is that my policy is not the safest policy. It is not absolute safety. Indeed, I acknowledge this is true. But I disagree that wearing a mask is absolute safety. I disagree that only one nursing home visitor is the safest policy, and only having a picnic outside is safest. Only truly becoming a hermit is absolute safety. Lock yourself in home, and get all foodstuffs delivered. When you go out, always wear an N95, and do this even a year or two after vaccination. After all, who knows if the vaccine will wear off? None of us really wants absolute safety. We seek reasonable safety, and I will defend the proposition that is achieved merely by a prolonged asymptomatic period after second vaccination and after that something can be relaxed — and there are several options.

The end of COVID

COVID-19 will someday no longer be the topic of daily and breathless news coverage. The virus may always circulate, and some people may always get sick, but the real end will be when we stop thinking about it every moment of every day. That’s how this pandemic will end. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

People need to know that there is light at the end of the tunnel because there is.

Vaccination in the absence of viral escape is the way out of this. Once a person is a sufficient time and distance away from the second shot, and if they are feeling well, we can start to view them differently. They are less a vector for the transmission of a plague, and more a real person — with hopes and wants and desires and seeking connection. In such a moment, if they remove their mask to share a smile with me, I can promise you, I will lower my mask, and smile back.

And Opposing View-Now Is Not the Time to Relax COVID Restrictions

Doctor David Aronoff counters the argument with the facts that the COVID-19 pandemic has now raged on for more than a year. In the U.S., we have documented more than 24.5 million cases and 400,000 COVID-19-related deaths, with between 3,000 and 4,000 people dying each day. The CDC projects we will reach nearly 500,000 total deaths within the next month. COVID-19-related hospitalizations remain at an all-time high. America continues to suffer through a third wave of disease activity that has dwarfed the peaks of the Spring and Summer of 2020.

And, while COVID-19 is beating down on us, it could be worse, believe it or not. We have learned much about how the SARS-CoV-2 virus spreads, easily, through our breath from one person to another. Most nefarious has been the extent to which transmission occurs silently, moving from infected individuals who feel well, look well, and have no idea that they are infected. However, we know that maintaining our distance from others protects against transmission, as does the use of cloth face-coverings. It has been through social distancing and mask use that we have, in the absence of vaccination and herd immunity, been able to limit the damage done by this horrible infectious disease.

Clearly, vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 are the light at the end of the tunnel, assuming that viral mutations do not escape our vaccines sooner than we can put out the fire. With estimates that more than 60% of the population will need to have immune protection against SARS-CoV-2 to benefit from herd immunity, we have a long way to go. While less than 10% of the U.S. population has been formally diagnosed with COVID-19, a recent estimate suggested that by November of 2020 we were at about 15% of the U.S. population immune to the virus. And while that figure may now exceed 20%, this leaves more than 250 million Americans without immune protection, and falls short of the roughly 200 million people who might need to be immune for herd immunity to take hold.

Vinay Prasad, MD, MPH, has authored a thoughtful, evidence-based commentary, making a strong case for why we can relax some restrictions following successful immunization against SARS-CoV-2. He succinctly lays out an argument about why and how immunization, in the absence of vaccine-escaping virus mutants, will confer strong enough protection to render tight adherence to wearing masks and other restrictions unnecessary. And, while I think he has the right idea (I would love to see more people’s faces right now and share a meal with my friends), it is premature to suggest that now is that time. It is OK for us to hold differing opinions (that’s what we do). Two well-intentioned scientists can both look at the same data and reach different policy conclusions. So, let me focus on the case for keeping our masks on, even as we roll our sleeves up. The same logic holds for other restrictions.

First, given how active COVID-19 is right now we need to be doing everything in our power to slow its spread. Lives hang in the balance. I really like the Swiss Cheese model of pandemic defense, popularized by Australian virologist Ian Mackay, PhD, which demonstrates the concept that each measure we implement to interrupt the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is imperfect yet when layered together they cooperatively reduce transmission risk.

Even immunization is not a perfect defense. Thus far, SARS-CoV-2 vaccination has not been shown to eliminate the risk that someone will get infected or pass the virus on to others. Studies published to date on the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccines show clear protection against developing symptomatic COVID-19. But they also show that some vaccinated people still develop symptomatic disease. And, given what we know about the disease in non-immune people, symptomatic infections represent a fraction of total infections. This predicts that despite immunization some people will develop asymptomatic infection. Do I think that SARS-CoV-2 immunization will significantly protect people against both asymptomatic and symptomatic COVID-19? Yes. Do I think the risk to an individual will be zero following successful immunization? No. Stated differently, removing masks from vaccinated people (or relaxing social distancing) is likely to increase the risk for propagating COVID-19 compared to maintaining these restrictions. And, even if that incremental risk is small, why take it, given where we are with the disease now?

There will be a time when immune people can let their guards down, allowing even non-immune people to do the same (a benefit of herd immunity). But that time is not now.

The issue of wearing masks has been a contentious one, not helped by mixed messaging from leaders in the federal and state government. This has translated into story after story of difficulty convincing people of the public health benefit of wearing face-coverings. What we do not need are more people out and about in public spaces without masks, which sends the wrong message at the wrong time. We cannot know if an unmasked person is unvaccinated or simply an anti-masker. Why provide fuel for people to skirt mask policies based on stating they have been vaccinated, when they might not have been? And the same holds for hosting dinner parties or participating in other gatherings.

To safely advise people that once they are immunized, they can leave their masks at home and relax other infection control measures we need to record sustained decreases in disease activity, hospitalizations, and deaths, to the point where leading infectious disease and public health experts are comfortable recommending that we can de-escalate these interventions. We also need to ensure widespread vaccine uptake, particularly among Black, indigenous, and people of color, who have been disproportionately harmed by COVID-19. Recent data show that Black Americans, for example, are getting vaccinated at lower rates than white Americans.

We remain in the thick fog of a true healthcare emergency and need to be doing all we can, especially the simple things, to shut it down. Now is not the time to let up on masking, even for the relatively few who have been immunized. Abandoning mask-wearing and social distancing, even in immunized persons, is not the right thing to recommend, yet. We need masks on and sleeves up.

COVID-19 Variants: ‘The Virus Still Has Tricks Up Its Sleeve’

Now more on the counterpoint reported by Molly Walker who interviewed Dr. Warner Greene as followed: We are honored to be joined once again by Dr. Warner Greene. He’s senior investigator at Gladstone Institutes and a professor at University of California San Francisco. As we’ve discussed, COVID-19 variants are very much in the news. Can we go over what is the latest news about the variants, even today? What do we know about them and what’s the latest that’s been happening?

Variants are very much in the news. What we’re seeing is the slow but steady evolution of the coronavirus. There are now four major variants that are of concern. And, in fact, they call them variants of concern. The first recognized was the U.K. variant, recognized in the south of the United Kingdom. It has an increased transmission efficiency. And there are some reports that it may be somewhat more virulent, particularly in men over the age of 60.

Of even greater concern is the South African variant, which contains mutations that confer resistance to certain monoclonal antibodies, like one of the two monoclonal antibodies developed by Regeneron. The Eli Lily monoclonal antibody doesn’t seem to work against the South African variant and vaccine efficiency is also reduced with the South African variant.

Similarly, the Brazilian variant has basically the same set of mutations that are conferring antibody resistance, causing real concern. What it means for the vaccines, etc.: I think that both the South African and the Brazilian variants are a major concern. And it is possible that those variants as they spread, and they are in the United States now, we may need to revise the vaccines to account for these types of variants. That’s not clear yet, but better to be prepared, in case we do need to revise the vaccine.

And then there’s a fourth type of variant, which is just kind of emerging, less well-studied at this point, but out of California. So clearly there, the virus is searching for a lock and key mechanism trying to search for ways to allow itself to replicate better. We’re applying immune pressure. So, it’s mutating away from some of that immune pressure, and that’s why this antibody resistance is emerging.

So, what types of mutations does the SARS-CoV-2 virus have to go through to make it a variant?

Well, for example, the South African variant has 27 mutations, nine of which occur in the spike protein. The spike is the protein on the surface that binds to the ACE2 receptor and allows entry and fusion into the host cell. And, of course, that’s where most of the vaccines are focused, is on the spike. That’s where the monoclonal antibody therapeutics are focused, on the spike. And so the virus is looking for ways to avoid these types of immune pressures and it’s making mutations in its receptor binding domain and the internal domain that confer resistance to certain types of neutralizing antibodies.

Given that recent studies from Novavax and Johnson & Johnson last week found somewhat reduced clinical efficacy of vaccines against these variants, what type of booster modification is required for vaccines in order to better combat them with the mRNA and the viral vector vaccines? Is it different, is it the same?

I think the booster that, for example, Moderna and Pfizer are now working on is to take the genetic sequence of the variant and use that as the immunogen. So, there is a mutation at position 484 that is absolutely key for this loss of antibody protection. You would introduce an RNA that now has that same mutation at position 484 into the vaccine to create a vaccine that is really tailored to take that particular type of virus out. And that mutation is shared between the South African and the Brazilian variants.

And so it wouldn’t require a different type, depending on the type of vaccine, it would just be the same type of reformulation. It wouldn’t be mRNA, different than a viral vector, it would just be a different formula. It’s not anything to do with the type of vaccine. It still would be an mRNA-based vaccine. It would just contain a different RNA or more likely it will be a multi-valent vaccine that would be original virus, as well as a new virus.

It’s not clear exactly how that would be administered. It may be that we want to boost immunity against the old virus, as well as the new virus, so we would use a multi-valent approach in that case. But the mRNA vaccine platform is quite amenable to this type of updating. That’s a real advantage, much more so than the adenoviral vectors, the virus-delivered vaccines. It’s a more complicated process there.

If we could just look at the vaccines as we have them now against this wild-type strain, if for some reason we didn’t have any boosters, what type of progress could we make against the pandemic? Can we vaccinate our way out of the pandemic, even if we don’t have these boosters? Have these variants prevented that?

To be clear, these variants, the Brazilian and the South African variants, are only compromising the neutralizing antibody response against the coronavirus. The T-cell immune response presumably is fully intact and remains unevaluated. So it’s quite possible that these vaccines will stand up better than we expect or predict. Clearly the U.K. variant does not appear to be a threat, although the recent acquisition of the neutralizing mutation at 484 causes concern that the virus is evolving. Even the U.K. variant is evolving.

I would say that the one thing that is disturbing to me, or that causes me pause is the story in Manaus, Brazil. Manaus is in the Amazon basin, they had a huge outbreak in the spring. It was thought, as reported, that there would probably be herd immunity within the community up to about 75%. Then this variant comes in to the community and it’s just sweeping through, causing re-infection or what appears to be re-infection.

Now did the original immunity wane and these people were all sensitive? Is it just that the variant is able to avoid both the T-cell and the antibody response that was present in the herd in Manaus? That kind of real-time experiment is concerning in terms of the spread of this virus. And I think data like that and what’s going on in South Africa is what’s really prompting the vaccine companies to get prepared now. We don’t know the full dimensions of the problem, but better to overprepare at this point in time.

So, given what happened in Brazil, do you think that’s evidence of viral escape?

Certainly, the South African and Brazilian variants, the mutations they are acquiring in their spike protein are examples of escape from the antibody neutralization. These are mutating principal antibody-binding sites that are responsible for neutralization, so that these variants are emerging under the influence of immune pressure. It’s harder to get around the T-cell immunity though, because T-cell immunity differs from person to person based on the composition of our HLA genes and our immune response. And T-cells are really the major defense mechanism against viruses, so let’s hope that our T-cells fill in for any gaps that the antibodies might come up a little short on.

I’m not sure exactly what has happened in Manaus, whether there was really ever herd immunity, whether it’s waned, but I do know that the variant there is hitting hard. So, that’s a big question mark. I think Brazil holds the answers to a lot of the future of this pandemic. We need to understand precisely what is going on there.

What do we need to be studying in Brazil specifically? And what type of data would we need to be looking at and tracking, what types of real-world studies and epidemiological studies would you like to see out of what’s happening in Brazil to help us going forward?

I would like to know whether or not there was real herd immunity. Before this new variant began to spread, was there clear evidence of a good antibody response and retention of durable antibody responses against the original strain of “wild-type” virus. So, if, in fact, there was an intact immune response, and this virus was able to overwhelm that response, well that’s not good news, but if the response had waned or had never really developed fully, then that’s a less daunting problem.

Now on the positive side, you look at the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, it’s not the world’s best at preventing you from becoming infected with or developing minor respiratory symptoms. But even with the South African variant, this vaccine protects you from severe disease, having to go to hospital and dying. And frankly, that’s what we want from a vaccine. That is fantastic. You may have a runny nose or a mild upper respiratory tract infection, but you’re not going to develop life-threatening pneumonia and require hospitalization, intubation, etc. And I’d sign up for that type of vaccine any day.

All we have from the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna are these kinds of in vitro and in lab studies that if you expose them to these variants, this is what they’ll do, but do we need some type of clinical efficacy? Would you say at this point that we don’t have evidence of clinical efficacy against the variants with these two vaccines that are currently being distributed?

Exactly. The mRNA vaccines are not being tested extensively in areas where the variants are prospering, but one of the trial sites for Johnson & Johnson was in South Africa. So, they were able to see how their vaccines stood up against that variant and it fared very well in terms of prevention of serious disease.

When do you think that we are going to get these types of studies? Is that something that we’re going to see as the vaccine trials kind of evolve, and are we going to be able to get that from the mRNA vaccines? Are we just going to not know what their clinical efficacy is until we get a booster, we’re just going to only have the lab evidence?

It’s likely that the virus is probably replicating at higher levels or more virus is replicating in terms of country here in the United States than almost anywhere else in the world, in terms of the breadth of cases that we’ve had, etc. We just simply do not have the genomic surveillance types of apparatus to necessarily detect these variants. For example, we’re just now detecting the California variants. There may be many variants in the United States. We do know that the Brazilian, as well as the South African, variants are in the United States, and it’s possible that there is community spread of these variants. So, we just have to really ramp up our sequencing efforts to really track what’s happening within our pandemic within the country and what types of viruses that we’re dealing with.

And it’s in that kind of setting as variants begin to hold sway. For example, it’s suggested that the U.K. variant will become dominant in the United States by March. So, our prediction is that the current vaccines will do very well against that variant. Now, if that variant is replaced by, for example, a South African variant, which is more immunologically daunting, well then, we’re going to have to see how the mRNA vaccines hold up against that. And it’s that kind of real-world information that’s going to inform whether or not we need to boost the immune system with a third shot.

Are the variants occurring in regions due to the similarities in the genome of the regional population, causing the viral RNA to mutate in a specific direction, and do antigen tests pick up variants?

No, the antigen tests will not pick up the variants. You really have to do the sequencing to find these mutations. So, it’s clear that the virus has a set of mutations and it’s trying different combinations. All the virus wants to do is to replicate better. The U.K. variant has one mutation in the receptor binding domain, which confers tighter binding to the ACE2 receptor and a higher level of transmission by 40% to 70%. And that’s the variant that may become dominant here in the United States by March. In contrast, the South African and the Brazilian variants, they not only have the same mutation that the U.K. variant does, they’ve added to it. They’ve added at least two additional mutations that really take out these neutralizing antibodies.

Now, did these two variants arise independently? Some would say yes. I don’t think that we know precisely because one person coming from South Africa carrying the virus could seed the virus in Brazil. So, we don’t know, but there are subtle differences. The virus is working toward a solution here for avoiding the antibodies.

Now, another question is, is the virus throwing everything at us right now that it’s got? Is this it and can we expect a pretty much static situation from here on out? And, you know, I don’t think so. I think the virus still has tricks up its sleeve, and will continue to evolve as we put additional immune pressures on it. So, that would be my guess, but we’re right at the cusp of the evolving science. And to think that where we were a year ago with no defense, no innate or no intrinsic immunity to this virus, and nothing really therapeutic or preventive. And now we’re in a situation where we have multiple, highly effective vaccines. It’s a true triumph of science.

Can you go into how else the virus could mutate? Is there any way that it could mutate that T-cell immunity that we have that would be compromised? Is that possible or is it just not that complex a virus?

Yeah, there may be the emergence of escape mutations that escape a cytotoxic T-cell, CD8 T-cell responses, or CD4 helper T-cell responses. We could certainly see that and it’s much harder to monitor for those types of immune reactions. So, certainly, like you get immune escape against antibodies, you can have immune escape against T-cell immunity as well.

California man tests positive for COVID-19 weeks after second jab: report

Edmund DeMarche reported that a California man said he was diagnosed with COVID-19 three weeks after he received his second dose of the vaccine, reports said.

CBS Los Angeles reported that Gary Micheal, who lives in Orange County’s Lake Forest, found out he had the virus after being tested for an unrelated health concern. His symptoms are relatively minor, the report said.

He received the Pfizer vaccine, the report said. Patch.com reported that he got his first dose on Dec. 28 and his second jab on Jan. 18.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious-disease scientist, said the latest evidence indicates that the two vaccines being used in the U.S. — Pfizer’s and Moderna’s — are effective even against the new variants.

A doctor interviewed in the CBS report said that he was not surprised to hear about Michael’s diagnosis.

“I think I’ve heard of six or seven independent cases over the last three weeks of individuals that have been vaccinated with different timelines that have tested positive, and I think we’re going to continue to see that more and more,” Dr. Tirso del Junco Jr., chief medical officer of KPC Health, told the station.

Fauci has estimated that somewhere between 70% and 85% of the U.S. population needs to get inoculated to stop the pandemic that has killed close to 470,000 Americans.

And Now Four people in Oregon who received both doses of vaccine test positive for coronavirus

Minyvonne Burke reported that four people in Oregon have tested positive for the coronavirus after receiving both doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, health officials said.

There are two cases each in Yamhill and Lane counties, the state’s Health Authority said in a series of tweets on Friday. The cases are either mild or asymptomatic.

“We are working with our local and federal public health partners to investigate and determine case origin,” the agency said. “Genome sequencing is underway, and we expect results next week.”

The agency referred to the individuals who tested positive as “breakthrough cases,” meaning that they got sick with the virus at least 14 days after receiving both doses.

The Health Authority said more breakthrough cases could pop up.

“Clinical trials of both vaccines presently in use included breakthrough cases. In those cases, even though the participants got Covid, the vaccines reduced the severity of illness,” the agency said in a tweet.

“Based on what we know about vaccines for other diseases and early data from clinical trials, experts believe that getting a Covid-19 vaccine may also help keep you from getting seriously ill even if you do get the virus. … Getting as many Oregonians as possible vaccinated remains a critical objective to ending the pandemic.”

The agency’s announcement came the same day its health officer said there has been a decline of daily Covid-19 cases over the past several weeks. As of Friday, there were 149,576 cases in the state, according to the department’s count.

“These decreases are a testament to the actions all Oregonians are taking to slow the spread of Covid-19 and the sacrifices made – thank you,” health officer Dean Sidelinger said at a news conference Friday.

Another breakthrough case was reported in North Carolina, according to NBC affiliate WCNC-TV in Charlotte. The state’s Department of Health and Human Services told the outlet that the person had mild symptoms and did not need to be hospitalized.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that quarantining is not necessary for fully vaccinated people within three months of having received their last doses as long as they do not develop any symptoms.

They do, however, still need to practice certain safety measures such as wearing face masks, social distancing, and avoiding crowds or poorly ventilated spaces.

“Fully vaccinated” means at least two weeks have passed since a person has completed their vaccination series and now we have the addition of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, which is a single dose with less effectivity but about the same activity of our yearly flu vaccine.

So, as I have said before, continue to wear your masks, whether one, two, three or whatever the number of masks that we are going to be advised with future “scientific” evidence.

Another New COVID Strain Is in the US; Will Present Vaccines Work with these New Strains, Pandemic Strategies Including New Migrants and What Happened to Merck’s Vaccine?

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This has been an interesting few week and almost led me to close my office and retire. We had a patient come in the office and complete the questionnaire and “by-pass” our screening procedures, lying to us about his exposure to the COVID-19 virus. He just visited his brother the two days before the days office visit and lied to us, saying that he had no recent exposure, etc. However, a week later he called our office to allow notification that his COVID test was positive.

The thing that angered me and my staff more was that the patient waited a number of days to notify, besides lying to us about his exposure. This led us to close the office, cancel all patients until we could have a complete cleaning of the office and all get COVID tested.

Luckily, we all tested negative and all my staff and I had at least had our first vaccine doses. If we had tested positive, we would have to notify all the patients that were seen in the office between his visit and the day that we closed the office.

What an irresponsible set of actions and my fear is that this goes on in many situations because many of our patients, etc. are selfish and irresponsible and don’t care about anyone else except themselves…and they think the virus is all a lie, util one of their family members or close friends dies. How totally stupid and disgusting!!

John Johnson wrote that the virus continues to mutate quickly. Anyone tracking the news is familiar with the new UK strain that is moving around the globe and threatens to become the dominant strain in the US soon. Now, health authorities in California have identified yet another strain that has popped up in about a dozen counties, reports the Los Angeles Times. Coverage on that and more:

California strain: The variant has been linked to large outbreaks in Santa Clara County and smaller outbreaks elsewhere. It’s still too early to say whether the new strain is more contagious or more lethal than the first forms of COVID that emerged, but studies on that are being prioritized. Bottom line: “This virus continues to mutate and adapt, and we cannot let down our guard,” says Dr. Sara Cody, Santa Clara County health officer.

A lament: In a New York Times op-ed, Ezra Klein runs through the coming COVID changes under the Biden administration. They include plans to get vaccinations organized on a mass scale, along with expanded testing and contract tracing. It’s all pretty basic stuff, he writes, which has him astonished that the Trump administration hasn’t done these things yet. “That it is possible for Joe Biden and his team to release a plan this straightforward is the most damning indictment of the Trump administration’s coronavirus response imaginable.”
Hopeful trend: US deaths are about to pass 400,000, but one medical expert spies a positive trend in the new data as well. “Over the last four days for the first time in months, we’ve seen a steady decline … a thousand per day fewer hospitalizations in the United States,” Dr. Jonathan Reiner of George Washington University tells CNN. “We’ve seen the same trend in new cases.” The next two months will likely be brutal, he adds, “but there is a ray of sunshine” as vaccinations continue.
Hopeful, II: In “The Morning” newsletter at the Times, David Leonhardt is tired of the “they’re only 95% effective” drumbeat, and he’s not alone. “It’s driving me a little bit crazy,” Dr. Ashish Jha of the Brown School of Public Health tells Leonhardt. Dr. Aaron Richterman of the University of Pennsylvania adds, “We’re underselling the vaccine.” As Leonhardt explains and doctors emphasize, the vaccine will save your life, even if you’re in that other 5%. To wit, of 32,000 people who got the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in trials, only one person suffered a severe COVID case.

Migrant caravan demands Biden administration ‘honors its commitments’

Now, a real challenge for the new Biden administration. Adam Shaw noted that a migrant caravan moving from Honduras toward the U.S. border is calling on the incoming Biden administration to honor what it says are “commitments” to the migrants moving north, amid fears of a surge at the border when President-elect Joe Biden enters office.

More than 1,000 Honduran migrants moved into Guatemala on Friday without registering, The Associated Press reported. That is part of a larger caravan that left a Honduran city earlier in the day.

The outlet reported that they are hoping for a warmer reception when they reach the U.S. border, and a statement issued by migrant rights group Pueblo Sin Fronteras, on behalf of the caravan, said it expects the Biden administration to take action.

“We recognize the importance of the incoming Government of the United States having shown a strong commitment to migrants and asylum seekers, which presents an opportunity for the governments of Mexico and Central America to develop policies and a migration management that respect and promote the human rights of the population in mobility,” the statement said. ” We will advocate that the Biden government honors its commitments.”

Biden has promised to reverse many of Trump’s policies on border security and immigration. He has promised to end the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), which keeps migrants in Mexico as they await their hearings. The Trump administration has said the program has helped end the pull factors that bring migrants north, but critics say it is cruel and puts migrants at risk.

Biden has also promised a pathway to citizenship for those in the country illegally and a moratorium on deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The migrants’ group also pointed to promises to end the asylum cooperative agreements the administration made with Northern Triangle countries.

“A new United States Government is an opportunity to work with the Mexican Government to develop a cooperation plan with Central America to address the causes of migration, together with civil society organizations, as well as an opportunity to increase regional cooperation regarding the persons in need of protection, and to dismantle illegal and inhuman programs such as Remain in Mexico, the United States’ Asylum Cooperation Agreements with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, as well as the Title 42 expulsions by the United States authorities,” it said, referring to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) order that allows the U.S. to quickly remove migrants on public health grounds.

Biden officials, however, have been keen to send the message to migrants that it will not mean open borders overnight.

“Processing capacity at the border is not like a light that you can just switch on and off,” incoming Biden domestic policy adviser Susan Rice told Spanish wire service EFE. “Migrants and asylum seekers absolutely should not believe those in the region peddling the idea that the border will suddenly be fully open to process everyone on Day 1. It will not.”

“Our priority is to reopen asylum processing at the border consistent with the capacity to do so safely and to protect public health, especially in the context of COVID-19,” she said. “This effort will begin immediately but it will take months to develop the capacity that we will need to reopen fully.”

It is unclear how far the migrants will get, and Guatemalan and Mexican governments have indicated they intend to turn them back. But the caravan comes amid fears that the new outlook on immigration and asylum from the Biden administration will fuel a surge at the border.

Acting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Mark Morgan said on “America’s News HQ” on Saturday that the caravan could include more than 5,000 migrants and blamed the tone from the incoming administration.

“We’re looking at two groups that are well over five thousand. And one of those groups have already gotten through the Guatemala border. And they’re on their way to El Rancho, which is about the located centrally in Guatemala,” he said. “It’s coming. It’s already started, just as we promised and anticipated it would with this rhetoric from the new administration on the border.”

President Trump warned this week that ending his policies and increasing incentives would lead to “a tidal wave of illegal immigration, a wave like you’ve never seen before” and that there were already signs of increased flows.

“They’re coming because they think that it’s a gravy train at the end,” he said. “It’s going to be a gravy train. Change the name from the caravans, which I think we came up with, to the gravy train because that’s what they’re looking for — looking for the gravy.”

Biden transition official tells migrant caravans: ‘Now is not the time’ to come to US

Yael Halon reported further on the migration noting that a migrant caravan moving from Honduras toward the U.S. border called on the incoming Biden administration to honor their “commitments” to the migrants moving north, citing the incoming administration’s vow to ease Trump’s restrictions on asylum.

But on Sunday, an unnamed Biden transition official said that migrants hoping to claim asylum in the U.S. during the first few weeks of the new administration “need to understand they’re not going to be able to come into the United States immediately,” NBC News reports.

More than 1,000 Honduran migrants moved into Guatemala on Friday without registering as part of a larger caravan that left a Honduran city earlier in the day.

The Associated Press reported that they are hoping for a warmer reception when they reach the U.S. border, and a statement issued by migrant rights group Pueblo Sin Fronteras, on behalf of the caravan, said it expects the Biden administration to take action.

The Biden transition official, however, warned migrants against coming to the U.S. during the early days of the new administration, telling NBC that while “there’s help on the way,” now “is not the time to make the journey.”

“The situation at the border isn’t going to be transformed overnight,” the official told the outlet.

“We have to provide a message that health and hope is on the way, but coming right now does not make sense for their own safety…while we put into place processes that they may be able to access in the future,” the official said.

President-elect Joe Biden has promised to reverse many of Trump’s policies on border security and immigration. He has promised to end the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), which keeps migrants in Mexico as they await their political asylum hearings. The Trump administration has said the program has helped end the pull factors that bring migrants north, but critics say it is cruel and puts them at risk.

Biden has also promised a pathway to legal permanent residency for those in the country illegally and a moratorium on deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The migrants’ group also pointed to promises to end the asylum cooperative agreements the administration made with Northern Triangle countries.

President Trump warned last week that ending his policies and increasing incentives would lead to “a tidal wave of illegal immigration, a wave like you’ve never seen before,” claiming that there were already signs of increased flows.

AMA President: Biden Team Must Create National Pandemic Strategy

Ken Terry stated that now that the campaign is over, that the incoming Biden administration must formulate an effective national strategy for the COVID-19 pandemic, said Susan R. Bailey, MD, president of the American Medical Association (AMA), in a speech delivered today at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

Bailey noted that America’s fight against the pandemic is in a critical phase, as evidenced by the escalation in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in recent weeks. Emergency departments and ICUs are overwhelmed; many frontline clinicians are burned out; and the state- and local-level mechanisms for vaccine distribution have been slow and inconsistent, she said.

“The most important lesson for this moment, and for the year ahead, is that leaving state and local officials to shoulder this burden alone without adequate support from the federal government is not going to work,” Bailey emphasized.

She called on the Biden administration, which takes over next week, to “provide states and local jurisdictions with additional resources, guidance, and support to enable rapid distribution and administration of vaccines.”

In addition, she said, the incoming administration needs to develop a more robust, national strategy for continued COVID-19 testing and PPE production “by tapping into the full powers of the Defense Production Act.”

Biden Vaccine Distribution Policy

In a question-and-answer period following her speech, however, Bailey said she opposed the president-elect’s decision to release nearly all available vaccine supplies immediately, rather than hold back some doses for the second shots that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require. On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced that it plans to do the same thing.

“We’re a little bit concerned about the announcement that [the Department of Health & Human Services] will not hold back vaccine doses to make sure that everyone who’s gotten their first dose will have a second dose in reserve,” Bailey said. “We don’t have adequate data to tell us that one dose is sufficient — we don’t think it is — and how long you can wait for the second dose without losing the benefits of the first dose.”

She added that it’s not recommended that people mix the two vaccines in the first and second doses. “Since the Pfizer vaccine has such rigid storage requirements, I want to make sure there’s plenty of vaccine for frontline healthcare workers who got the Pfizer vaccine because it was the first one to come out in December. I want to make sure they get their second dose on time and [do] not have to wait.”

Bailey said she hoped there will be plenty of vaccine supply. But she suggested that state and local health authorities be in communication with the federal government about whether there will be enough vaccine to guarantee people can get both doses.

Bolstering Public Health

In her speech, Bailey outlined five areas in which steps should be taken to improve the health system so that it isn’t overwhelmed the next time the US has a public health crisis:

Restore trust in science and science-based decision making. Make sure that scientific institutions like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration are “free from political pressure, and that their actions are guided by the best available scientific evidence.”
Ensure that the health system provides all Americans with affordable access to comprehensive healthcare. Bailey wasn’t talking about Medicare for All; she suggested that perhaps there be a second enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act’s individual insurance exchanges.
Work to remove healthcare inequities that have hurt communities of color, who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. She referred to a recent AMA policy statement that recognized racism as a public health threat.
Improve public health domestically and globally. Among other things, she noted, the public health infrastructure needs to be revitalized after “decades of disinvestment and neglect,” which has contributed to the slow vaccine rollout.
Recognize the global health community and restore America’s leadership in global efforts to combat disease, which are critical to preventing future threats. She praised Biden for his promise that the US will rejoin the World Health Organization.

At several points in her presentation, Bailey rejected political interference with science and healthcare. Among other things, she said public health could be improved by protecting the doctor-patient relationship from political interference.

Answering a question about how to separate politics from the pandemic, she replied, “The key is in sticking to the science and listening to our public health authorities. They all have to deliver the same message. Also, leaders at all levels, including in our communities, our schools, churches and college campuses, should wear masks and socially distance. This isn’t about anything other than the desire to get out of the pandemic and get our country on the right track again. Masks shouldn’t be political. Going back to school shouldn’t be political. Taking a certain medication or not shouldn’t be political. We need to stick to the science and listen to our public health authorities. That’s the quickest way out.”

Asked when she thought that life might get back to normal again in the US, Bailey said a lot depends on the extent of vaccine uptake and how much self-discipline people exhibit in following public health advice. “I think we’re looking at the end of this year. I’m hopeful that by fall, things will have opened up quite a bit as the Venn diagrams of those who’ve gotten vaccines grow larger.”

Merck Ends Development of Two Potential COVID-19 Vaccines

Tom Murphy, AP Health Writer, pointed out that the drug maker, Merck, said Monday that it will focus instead on studying two possible treatments for the virus that also have yet to be approved by regulators. The company said its potential vaccines were well tolerated by patients, but they generated an inferior immune system response compared with other vaccines.

Merck was developing one of the potential vaccines with France’s Pasteur Institute based on an existing measles vaccine. The French institute said it will keep working on two other vaccine projects using different methods.

Merck entered the race to fight COVID-19 later than other top drug makers.

It said last fall that it had started early-stage research in volunteers on potential vaccines that require only one dose. Vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna were already in late-stage research at that point.

The Food and Drug Administration allowed emergency use of both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines late last year. Each requires two shots.

Five potential vaccines have reached late-stage testing in the United States, the final phase before a drug maker seeks approval from regulators. Results from a single-dose candidate developed by Johnson & Johnson are expected soon.

Since vaccinations began in December, nearly 22 million doses have been delivered to people nationwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly 6% of the population has received at least one dose.

A total of 3.2 million people, or 1% of the population, have received both doses required for those vaccines.

More than 419,000 people in the United States and 2 million globally have died due to the coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The government is paying Merck & Co. about $356 million to fast-track production of one of its potential treatments under Operation Warp Speed, a push to develop COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. The money will allow the Kenilworth, New Jersey, company to deliver up to 100,000 doses by June 30, if the FDA clears the treatment for emergency use.

The treatment, known as MK-7110, has the potential to minimize the damaging effects of an overactive immune response to COVID-19. This immune response can complicate the life-saving efforts of doctors and nurses.

Merck said early results from a late-stage study of that drug showed a more than 50% reduction in the risk of death or respiratory failure in patients hospitalized with moderate or severe COVID-19. The company expects full results from that study in the first quarter.

Merck’s other potential treatment is an oral antiviral drug.

Merck said it will focus COVID-19 research and manufacturing efforts on two investigational medicines: MK-7110 and MK-4482, which it now calls molnupiravir. Molnupiravir, which is being developed in collaboration with Ridgeback Bio, is an oral antiviral being studied in both hospital and outpatient settings. If these oral antiviral drugs are effective this will be a real advancement in the treatment of COVID-19. Merck said a phase 2/3 trial of the drug is set to finish in May, but initial efficacy results are due in the first quarter and will be made public if clinically meaningful.

Merck said results from a phase 3 study of MK-7110, an immune modulator being studied as a treatment for patients hospitalized with severe COVID-19, are expected in the first quarter. In December, the company announced a deal to supply MK-7110 to the U.S. government for up to about $356 million. (Reporting by Deena Beasley Editing by Shri Navaratnam)

Moderna Study: Vaccine Effective vs COVID Variants

With the weekly announcement of new mutant strains of the COVID virus we are all wondering whether the vaccine that are being administered will be effective against the new strains. Carolyn Crist noted that as mutated strains of the coronavirus represent new threats in the pandemic, vaccine makers are racing to respond.

Moderna, whose two-dose vaccine has been authorized for use in the U.S. since Dec. 18, said Monday that it is now investigating whether a third dose of the vaccine will work to prevent the spread of a variant first seen in South Africa, while it also tests a new vaccine formula for the same purpose.

“Out of an abundance of caution and leveraging the flexibility of our mRNA platform, we are advancing an emerging variant booster candidate against the variant first identified in the Republic of South Africa into the clinic to determine if it will be more effective … against this and potentially future variants,” Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said in a statement.

Moderna on Monday also said its COVID-19 vaccine could protect against the U.K. strain but that it is less effective against the strain identified in South Africa.

Pfizer and BioNTech, whose vaccine were also authorized in December, announced last week that their COVID-19 vaccine creates antibodies that could protect vaccine recipients from the coronavirus variant first identified in the United Kingdom.

“This is not a problem yet,” Paul Offit, MD, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told CNBC.

“Prepare for it. Sequence these viruses,” he said. “Get ready just in case a variant emerges, which is resistant.”

There were at least 195 confirmed cases of patients infected with the U.K. variant in the U.S. as of Friday, according to the CDC. No cases from the South African variant have been confirmed in the U.S. To try and prevent the variant from entering the country, President Joe Biden plans to ban travel from South Africa, except for American citizens and permanent residents.

The U.S. has reported more than 25 million total COVID-19 cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, marking another major milestone during the pandemic.

That means about 1 in 13 people in the U.S. have contracted the virus, or about 7.6% of the population.

“Twenty-five million cases is an incredible scale of tragedy,” Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told The New York Times. She called the pandemic one of the worst public health crises in history.

After the first U.S. case was reported in January 2020, it took more than 9 months to reach 10 million cases in early November. Numbers rose during the holidays, and 10 million more cases were reported by the end of the year. Following a major surge throughout January, with a peak of more than 300,000 daily cases on some days, the U.S. reached 25 million in about 3 weeks.

Hospitalizations also peaked in early January, with more than 132,000 COVID-19 patients in hospitals across the country, according to the COVID Tracking Project. On Sunday, about 111,000 patients were hospitalized, which is the lowest since mid-December.

The U.S. has also reported nearly 420,000 deaths. As recently as last week, more than 4,400 deaths were reported in a single day, according to the COVID Tracking Project. Deaths are beginning to drop but still remain above 3,000 daily deaths.

The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation released a new projection last week that said new cases would decline steadily in coming weeks. New COVID-19 cases have fallen about 21% in the last 2 weeks, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

“We’ve been saying since summer that we thought we’d see a peak in January, and I think that, at the national level, we’re around the peak,” Christopher J.L. Murray, MD, director of the institute, told the newspaper.

At the same time, public health officials are concerned that new coronavirus variants could lead to an increase again. Murray said the variants could “totally change the story.” If the more transmissible strains spread quickly, cases and deaths will surge once more.

“We’re definitely on a downward slope, but I’m worried that the new variants will throw us a curveball in late February or March,” Rivers told the newspaper.

So, next, when we get vaccinated do we need to wear masks and continue social distancing?

We will explore that set of questions next.

Amid a public health crisis, Americans’ views on health care policy haven’t changed, survey says; And What will Biden do to Healthcare?

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Rebecca Morin reported that over the past several weeks, the majority of Americans have had to alter their lives due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Face masks have become part of most people’s daily wardrobe. Social distancing restrictions are still being ordered in many of the states. And millions have lost their jobs, as well as their health insurance.

Now that Joe Biden has been declared the next president, we need to consider what I have been saying, that if we have learned nothing else, a form of universal affordable health care is a necessity.

Despite the changes, the majority of Americans’ long-held beliefs surrounding health care haven’t changed, according to a new survey.

About half of Americans – 51% – said they agree that government-run health insurance should be provided to all Americans, according to a survey from the Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape Project. That’s just a 1 percentage point less than in February.

“The events themselves have not driven people to some radical new conclusions about whether the government should be providing certain types of services,” said Robert Griffin, research director for the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group. “These are not attitudes that have suddenly changed overnight in response to political events that have occurred.”

The new survey comes amid a public health crisis, where most of the United States was closed down for more than a month to help limit the spread of the coronavirus. Over the past couple of months, more than 36 million people have sought jobless benefits. The Labor Department said Thursday that about 3 million Americans filed initial unemployment benefit claims last week.

Are lockdowns being relaxed in my state? Here’s how America is reopening amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Half the states across the nation have also begun loosening social distancing restrictions over the past several weeks. Experts show that the curve showing the rate of new cases may be flattening, but they are estimating at least 60,000 more people will die from coronavirus by August.

The Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape Project is a large-scale study of the American electorate. Throughout the 2020 election cycle, the researchers aim to conduct 500,000 interviews about policies and the presidential candidates. This survey was conducted between April 29 and May 6, with 6,366 Americans surveyed. There is a margin of error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.

Another policy view that hasn’t seen a lot of change? Subsidizing health insurance for lower-income people who are not receiving Medicare or Medicaid.

Sixty-three percent of Americans said that they agree with that – a 2 percentage-point drop from February.

However, a majority of Americans believe there should be more short-term aid for those in need during the coronavirus pandemic, according to an analysis on Nationscape Insights, a project of Democracy Fund, UCLA, and USA TODAY.

Pandemic protocols: Safety measures vary from the White House to the Supreme Court

Griffin noted that during the pandemic, Americans are “much more flexible in terms of thinking about what types of policies they might consider,” even if their attitudes about basic policies haven’t shifted much.

Seventy-nine percent of Americans strongly or somewhat support increasing spending on health insurance and food aid for the poor during the coronavirus pandemic. When broken down between Democrats and Republicans, the majority of both also support to increase spending.

The coronavirus pandemic also hasn’t affected long-standing political norms for Republicans and Democrats, according to the survey.

Sixty-nine percent of Democrats said they agree with providing government-run health insurance to all Americans. In February, that number was at 68%. In terms of agreeing on subsidizing health insurance for lower income people who are not receiving Medicare or Medicaid, Democrats are at 78%, a 2-percentage point drop from February.

For Republicans, the numbers don’t change drastically either. Thirty percent of Republicans agree to providing government-run health insurance to all Americans, compared with 33% in February. There was also a three-point drop from February to May among Republicans when asked if they agree on subsidizing health insurance for lower income people who are not receiving Medicare or Medicaid, from 53% to 50%.

Biden Wants to Lower Medicare Eligibility Age To 60, But Hospitals Push Back

Phil Galewitz reported that President-elect Joe Biden’s plan to lower the eligibility age for Medicare is popular among voters but is expected to face strong opposition on Capitol Hill.

Of his many plans to expand insurance coverage, President-elect Joe Biden’s simplest strategy is lowering the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 60. Is this the first step to Medicare-for-All?

But the plan is sure to face long odds, even if the Democrats can snag control of the Senate in January by winning two runoff elections in Georgia.

Republicans, who fought the creation of Medicare in the 1960s and typically oppose expanding government entitlement programs, are not the biggest obstacle. Instead, the nation’s hospitals — a powerful political force — are poised to derail any effort. Hospitals fear adding millions of people to Medicare will cost them billions of dollars in revenue.

“Hospitals certainly are not going to be happy with it,” said Jonathan Oberlander, professor of health policy and management at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Medicare reimbursement rates for patients admitted to hospitals are on average half what commercial or employer-sponsored insurance plans pay.

“It will be a huge lift [in Congress] as the realities of lower Medicare reimbursement rates will activate some powerful interests against this,” said Josh Archambault, a senior fellow with the conservative Foundation for Government Accountability.

Biden, who turns 78 this month, said his plan will help Americans who retire early and those who are unemployed or can’t find jobs with health benefits.

“It reflects the reality that, even after the current crisis ends, older Americans are likely to find it difficult to secure jobs,” Biden wrote in April.

Lowering the Medicare eligibility age is popular. About 85% of Democrats and 69% of Republicans favor allowing those as young as 50 to buy into Medicare, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll from January 2019. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation.)

Although opposition from the hospital industry is expected to be fierce, it is not the only obstacle to Biden’s plan.

Critics, especially Republicans on Capitol Hill, will point to the nation’s $3 trillion budget deficit as well as the dim outlook for the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund. That fund is on track to reach insolvency in 2024. That means there won’t be enough money to pay hospitals and nursing homes fully for inpatient care for Medicare beneficiaries.

It’s also unclear whether expanding Medicare will fit on the Democrats’ crowded health agenda, which includes dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, possibly rescuing the Affordable Care Act (if the Supreme Court strikes down part or all of the law in a current case), expanding Obamacare subsidies and lowering drug costs.

Biden’s proposal is a nod to the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, which has advocated for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ government-run “Medicare for All” health system that would provide universal coverage. Biden opposed that effort, saying the nation could not afford it. He wanted to retain the private health insurance system, which covers 180 million people.

To expand coverage, Biden has proposed two major initiatives. In addition to the Medicare eligibility change, he wants Congress to approve a government-run health plan that people could buy into instead of purchasing coverage from insurance companies on their own or through the Obamacare marketplaces. Insurers helped beat back this “public option” initiative in 2009 during the congressional debate over the ACA.

The appeal of lowering Medicare eligibility to help those without insurance lies with leveraging a popular government program that has low administrative costs.

“It is hard to find a reform idea that is more popular than opening up Medicare” to people as young as 60, Oberlander said. He said early retirees would like the concept, as would employers, who could save on their health costs as workers gravitate to Medicare.

The eligibility age has been set at 65 since Medicare was created in 1965 as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society reform package. It was designed to coincide with the age when people at that time qualified for Social Security. Today, people generally qualify for early, reduced Social Security benefits at age 62, but full benefits depend on the year you were born, ranging from age 66 to 67.

While people can qualify on the basis of other criteria, such as having a disability or end-stage renal disease, 85% of the 57 million Medicare enrollees are in the program simply because they’re old enough.

Lowering the age to 60 could add as many as 23 million people to Medicare, according to an analysis by the consulting firm Avalere Health. It’s unclear, however, if everyone who would be eligible would sign up or if Biden would limit the expansion to the 1.7 million people in that age range who are uninsured and the 3.2 million who buy coverage on their own.

Avalere says 3.2 million people in that age group buy coverage on the individual market.

While the 60-to-65 group has the lowest uninsured rate (8%) among adults, it has the highest health costs and pays the highest rates for individual coverage, said Cristina Boccuti, director of health policy at West Health, a nonpartisan research group.

About 13 million of those between 60 and 65 have coverage through their employer, according to Avalere. While they would not have to drop coverage to join Medicare, they could possibly opt to pay to join the federal program and use it as a wraparound for their existing coverage. Medicare might then pick up costs for some services that the consumers would have to shoulder out of pocket.

Some 4 million people between 60 and 65 are enrolled in Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for low-income people. Shifting them to Medicare would make that their primary health insurer, a move that would save states money since they split Medicaid costs with the federal government.

Chris Pope, a senior fellow with the conservative Manhattan Institute, said getting health industry support, particularly from hospitals, will be vital for any health coverage expansion. “Hospitals are very aware about generous commercial rates being replaced by lower Medicare rates,” he said.

“Members of Congress, a lot of them are close to their hospitals and do not want to see them with a revenue hole,” he said.

President Barack Obama made a deal with the industry on the way to passing the ACA. In exchange for gaining millions of paying customers and lowering their uncompensated care by billions of dollars, the hospital industry agreed to give up future Medicare funds designed to help them cope with the uninsured. Showing the industry’s prowess on Capitol Hill, Congress has delayed those funding cuts for more than six years.

Jacob Hacker, a Yale University political scientist, noted that expanding Medicare would reduce the number of Americans who rely on employer-sponsored coverage. The pitfalls of the employer system were highlighted in 2020 as millions lost their jobs and their workplace health coverage.

Even if they can win the two Georgia seats and take control of the Senate with the vice president breaking any ties, Democrats would be unlikely to pass major legislation without GOP support — unless they are willing to jettison the long-standing filibuster rule so they can pass most legislation with a simple 51-vote majority instead of 60 votes.

Hacker said that slim margin would make it difficult for Democrats to deal with many health issues all at once.

“Congress is not good at parallel processing,” Hacker said, referring to handling multiple priorities at the same time. “And the window is relatively short.”

Biden has room on health care, though limited by Congress

Biden’s proposals for a public health insurance option and empowering Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices seem out of reach

President-elect Joe Biden is unlikely to get sweeping health care changes through a closely divided Congress, but there’s a menu of narrower actions he can choose from to make a tangible difference on affordability and coverage for millions of people.

With the balance of power in the Senate hinging on a couple of Georgia races headed to a runoff, and Democrats losing seats in the House, Biden’s proposals for a public health insurance option and empowering Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices seem out of reach. Those would be tough fights even if Democrats controlled Congress with votes to spare.

But there’s bipartisan interest in prescription drug legislation to limit what Medicare recipients with high costs are asked to pay, and to restrain price increases generally. Biden also could nudge legislation to curb surprise medical bills over the finish line.

Moreover, millions of people already eligible for subsidized coverage through “Obamacare” remain uninsured. A determined effort to sign them up might make a difference, particularly in a pandemic. And just like the Trump administration, Biden is expected to aggressively wield the rule-making powers of the executive branch to address health insurance coverage and prescription drug costs.

With COVID-19 surging across the country, Biden’s top health care priority is whipping the federal government’s response into shape. In his victory speech Saturday, he pledged to “spare no effort, or commitment, to turn this pandemic around.” He appointed a pandemic task force to develop “an action blueprint” that could be put into place on Inauguration Day.

On broader health policy issues, Biden has signaled he will stick with his robust campaign platform, which called for covering all Americans by building on the Affordable Care Act, adding a new public insurance option modeled on Medicare and lowering the eligibility age for Medicare.

“We’re going to work quickly with the Congress to dramatically ramp up health care protections, get Americans universal coverage, lower health care costs, as soon as humanly possible,” the president-elect said earlier this week.

Progressives who drive the Democratic Party’s health care agenda say Biden must try as hard as he can to deliver, no matter if Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., remains majority leader of the Senate.

“I would vote for anything that improves health care for the American public, but what we need to do is push boldly and clearly for progressive policies,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., first vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Khanna says he’d like to see a President Biden calling out McConnell in public. “Right at the State of the Union, he should say, ‘One person potentially stands in the way of this, and that is Mitch McConnell,’” said Khanna.

Not in the real world, Republicans say.

They say the only way Democrats could get a big health care bill through is to first win the two Senate seats in Georgia and then rely on a special budget procedure that would allow them to pass legislation in the Senate on a simple majority vote. Either that or change Senate rules to abolish the filibuster. None of that can be done with a snap of one’s fingers.

“I put the odds of large-scale comprehensive health care reform at almost zero,” said Brendan Buck, who served as a top adviser to former House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

Biden’s to-do list on health care begins with new hires and a rewrite of Trump administration policies.

Democrats have a deep talent pool he can tap for top jobs. Among the leading contenders for health secretary is former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, who is a co-chair of Biden’s coronavirus task force. North Carolina state health secretary Dr. Mandy Cohen, another Obama administration alum, is also being promoted.

The rewrite project involves rescinding regulations and policies put in place by the Trump administration that allowed states to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients, barred family planning clinics from referring women for abortions, made it easier to market bare-bones health insurance and made other changes.

But Biden can also use the government’s rule-making powers proactively. Prescription drugs is one area. The Trump administration was unable to finalize a plan to rely on lower overseas prices to limit what Medicare pays for some drugs. It’s a concept that Democrats support and that Biden may be able to put into practice.

On Capitol Hill, there doesn’t seem to be a clear path.

A Republican advocate for action to curb prescription drug costs, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, is expected to take on a new role in the next Congress, with less direct influence over health care issues.

A factor that may work in Biden’s favor is that many Republicans want to change the subject on health care. Exhaustion has set in over the party’s decade long campaign to overturn the Affordable Care Act, which has left the main pillars of former President Barack Obama’s health law standing, while knocking off some parts.

Though not ready to embrace the ACA, “Republicans have tired of banging their heads against the wall in an effort to get rid of it,” said Buck.

Brian Blase, a former Trump White House health care adviser, says he thinks there is potential on prescription drugs.

“Biden, I think, will be pragmatic in this area,” Blase said.

He expects a Biden administration to wield its rule-making powers aggressively, looking at international prices to try to limit U.S. prescription drug costs.

Coronavirus relief legislation could provide an early vehicle for some broader health care changes.

Former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who oversaw the rollout of the ACA under Obama, says it’s not a question of all or nothing.

“Will it be as much progress as if we had had a big Senate win?” she asked.

It may not look that way.

“But can he make progress? I think he can.”

What You Need to Know About the ‘90% Effective’ COVID-19 Vaccine

There is promise—but there are also questions.

Marty Munson noted that on Monday, a COVID-19 vaccine made by the drug company Pfizer in conjunction with BioNTech made headlines. An early analysis released by the drug maker suggested that the vaccine could be more than 90 percent effective in preventing COVID-19.

No doubt it’s promising news—in fact, a CNN report says that Anthony Fauci, M.D., the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, texted CNN and called it “extraordinarily good news.”

The early analysis is of a trial that involved nearly 44,000 subjects; half receiving a placebo and the other half receiving a two-dose regimen of the new vaccine. The report says that 94 people got COVID-19. It’s not clear how many of those received a placebo and not the vaccine, but it would have to be most of them for the reports to claim more than 90 percent efficacy.

The excitement among scientists and the financial sector isn’t just about the robustness of the results. This vaccine uses a new technology, known as mRNA, a gene-based drug technology that has never been used in a vaccine before. So, the potential success of this drug is also a huge success for science. The Wall Street Journal quotes Professor John Bell, a UK health-policy advisor involved in the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine as saying, “the most important message is that you can make a vaccine against this critter.”

What it means so far

The news is encouraging, but the vaccine is not a panacea yet. The New York Times pointed out on Tuesday that “independent scientists have cautioned against hyping early results before long-term safety and efficacy data has been collected. And no one knows how long the vaccine’s protection might last.”

Data hasn’t been released on whether any people in the trial developed milder forms of COVID-19, what kind of side effects are associated with it, and how long protection might last. A few more considerations that moderate enthusiasm for the results: The results were released by the company, not in a medical journal, and the trial hasn’t concluded, so the numbers may change, The New York Times report points out.

If the company does receive emergency authorization of the vaccine after it collects the required amount of safety data, there are still questions and concerns about whether it is effective in all populations, how much vaccine the company can produce and how quickly, who would get it first, how it will be transported and delivered and whether people will accept the vaccine and get it when it’s offered.

What else to know

The news is promising and especially with the latest information regarding the Moderna vaccine, but there’s more data to come out, and many more problems need to be solved before a vaccine is a reality for most Americans. The pandemic is far from over, and this news doesn’t change that yet. So for now, at a time when there have been about 110,000 COVID-19 cases a day surging in the U.S., it’s still important to wear masks and continue to use social distancing measures and common sense. It seems that we are all forgetting common sense.

So, as my favorite candidate for the presidency. Governor Larry Hogan, says-Wear the damn masks and…get your flu shots!!!!

Also, I have included a cartoon from Rick Kollinger who has suffered a setback in his fight with his cancer. But after my visit with him, and my harassment he has attempted to draw a few more cartoons for me and his fans. Thank you Rick and please get better!

[r1]

Time to prepare for an even more deadly pandemic and Trump’s Healthcare Plan

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What a confusing time and how disappointed can one be when one candidate running for President convinces a group of physicians to complain about Trump’s response to the Pandemic. I am embarrassed to say that they are in the same profession that I have been so proud to call my own. Can you blame the President for the pandemic as all the other countries that are experiencing the increased wave of COVID? Can you blame Trump for the lack of PPE’s when former President Obama and yes, Vice President Biden refused to restock the PPE’s used for the other SAR’s viruses? What a pathetic situation where the average American is so hateful and, yes, the word is stupid, and with no agreement in our Congress except to make us all hate them. Where is the additional financial support, the stimulus package promised, for the poor Americans without jobs and huge debts? This is a difficult situation when we have such poor choices for the most important political office and can’t see through the media bias.

I just had to get all that off my chest as I am like many very frustrated. How did we get here and who do we believe as we hear more about Biden’s connection with his son’s foreign dealings?

Thomas J. Bollyky and Stewart M. Patrick reported that the winner of the presidential election, whether that is Donald Trump or Joe Biden, will need to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic — the worst international health emergency since the 1918 influenza outbreak — and also begin preparing the United States and the world for the next pandemic.

Think it is too soon to worry about another pandemic? World leaders have called the coronavirus outbreak a “once-in-100-year” crisis, but there is no reason to expect that to be true. A new outbreak could easily evolve into the next epidemic or a pandemic that spreads worldwide. As lethal as this coronavirus has been, a novel influenza could be worse, transmitting even more easily and killing millions more people.

Better preparation must begin with an unvarnished assessment of what has gone wrong in the U.S. and in the global response to the current pandemic and what can be done to prepare for the next one when it strikes, as it inevitably will.

Preparedness needs to start with investment. Despite multiple recent threats, from SARS (2003) to H5N1 (2007) to H1N1 (2009) to Ebola (2013-2016); many blue ribbon reports and numerous national intelligence assessments; international assistance for pandemic preparedness has never amounted to more than 1% of overall international aid for health.

The United States devoted an even smaller share of its foreign aid budget in 2019 — $374 million out of $39.2 billion — to prepare for a pandemic that has now cost the country trillions of dollars. Meanwhile, funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s support to states and territories has fallen by more than a quarter since 2002. Over the last decade, local public health departments have cut 56,360 staff positions because of lack of resources.

Preparation isn’t only about investing more money. It is also about embracing the public health fundamentals that allowed some nations to move rapidly and aggressively against the coronavirus. The United States has been hard hit by this pandemic, but all countries were dealt this hand.

But we can do better. Here are four measures, outlined in a new report from the Council on Foreign Relations, that would make Americans and the rest of the world safer.

First, the United States must remain a member of the World Health Organization, while working to reform it from within. The agency is hardly perfect, but it prompted China to notify the world of the coronavirus and it has coordinated the better-than-expected response to the pandemic in developing nations. Yet, the agency has no authority to make member states comply with their obligations and less than half of the annual budget of New York-Presbyterian Hospital. The WHO needs more dedicated funding for its Health Emergencies Program and should be required to report when governments fail to live up to their treaty commitments.

Second, we need a new global surveillance system to identify pandemic threats, one that is less reliant on self-reporting by early affected nations. An international sentinel surveillance network, founded on healthcare facilities rather than governments, could regularly share hospitalization data, using anonymized patient information. Public health agencies in nations participating in this network, including the CDC, can assess that data, identify unusual trends and more quickly respond to emerging health threats.

The U.S. should take the lead in forming a coalition to work alongside the WHO to develop this surveillance network. We should also work with like-minded G-20 partners, as well as private organizations, in this coalition to reduce unnecessary trade and border restrictions; increase the sharing of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics; and work with international financial institutions to provide foreign aid and debt relief packages to hard-hit nations.

Third, responding to a deadly contagion requires a coordinated national approach. Too often in this pandemic, in the absence of federal leadership, states and cities competed for test kits and scarce medical supplies and adopted divergent policies on reopening their economies. The next administration needs to clarify the responsibilities of the federal government, states and 2,634 local and tribal public health departments in pandemic preparedness and response. Elected leaders, starting with the president, must also put public health officials at the forefront of communicating science-based guidance and defend those officials from political attacks.

Finally, the U.S. must do better by its most exposed and vulnerable citizens. More than 35% of deaths in the U.S. from COVID-19 have been nursing home residents. Many others have been essential workers, who are disproportionately Black and Latinx and from low-income communities. Federal, state and local governments should direct public health investments to these groups as a matter of social justice and preparedness for future threats.

All of this will require leadership and marshaling support at home and abroad. The next president need not be doomed to replay this current catastrophe — provided he acts on the tragic lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic.

In search of President Trump’s mysterious health care plan

Hunter Walker responded to questions about President Trump’s healthcare plan noting that President Trump’s health care plan has become one of the most highly anticipated, hotly debated documents in Washington. And depending on whom you ask, it might not exist at all.

The contents — and the whereabouts — of the health plan have been a growing mystery since 2017, when efforts to pass a White House-backed replacement for Obamacare stalled in the Senate. Since then, Trump has repeatedly vowed to unveil a new health plan. In July, it was said to be two weeks away. On Aug. 3, Trump said the plan would be revealed at the end of that month. Last month, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said it would be released within two weeks. At other points, Trump has suggested the plan is already complete. That shifting schedule has lent Trump’s health plan an almost mythical status.

Let me state here that if President Trump doesn’t win this election his lack of a healthcare plan as well as the blame for the pandemic will be the deciding reason that even previous GOP supporters will vote for Biden. Hard to believe, right? In fact, weeks to months ago I related the need for the President to release his healthcare plan to further prove to the voters that he is fulfilling his promises.

The mystery surrounding the president’s vision for health care has added urgency because the Supreme Court is currently scheduled to hear oral arguments in a case that could decide the future of former President Barack Obama’s signature health care law on Nov. 10, exactly one week after the election. That case was brought by Republican attorneys general and joined by the Trump administration. The argument that Obamacare is unconstitutional could lead to the current health care framework being struck down, but Trump has yet to present an alternative.

With both the election and the court date looming, questions about Trump’s health care plan have intensified on the campaign trail. And the White House’s answers have only added to the uncertainty.

During the first presidential debate last month, Trump was pressed by Fox News moderator Chris Wallace about the fact he has “never in these four years come up with a plan, a comprehensive plan, to replace Obamacare.”

“Yes, I have,” Trump replied. “Of course, I have.”

He was apparently referring to the Republican tax bill passed in 2017 that eliminated the tax penalty for individuals who did not purchase health insurance, or obtain it through their jobs or government assistance. That so-called individual mandate was a critical part of the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare, meant to ensure that even healthy people would buy health insurance and spread the costs out across the population. Other parts of the Affordable Care Act remain in place, but the Republican lawsuit argues that without the mandate the entire program should be overturned.

That could end the most popular feature of Obamacare: the requirement that insurance companies provide affordable coverage for preexisting conditions. While Trump has repeatedly insisted, he wants to maintain that protection, any details of his plan or evidence of how he would do it have remained elusive.

During the final debate last week, Democratic nominee Joe Biden argued that the administration “has no plan for health care.”

“He’s been promising a health care plan since he got elected. He has none,” Biden said of Trump. “Like almost everything else he talks about, he does not have a plan. He doesn’t have a plan. And the fact is, this man doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

The issue also came up during the vice-presidential debate on Oct. 7, when Vice President Mike Pence said, “President Trump and I have a plan to improve health care and protect preexisting conditions for every American.”

“Obamacare was a disaster, and the American people remember it well,” Pence said.

But Trump seemed to admit during last week’s debate that his plan is more of a dream than a concrete proposal.

“What I would like to do is a much better health care, much better,” he said, adding, “I’d like to terminate Obamacare, come up with a brand-new, beautiful health care.”

However, by the end of last weekend, the idea of a written, completed Trump health plan was back on the table — literally.

During the president’s contentious “60 Minutes” interview that aired on Sunday, host Lesley Stahl asked Trump about his repeated promises of a health plan coming imminently.

“Why didn’t you develop a health plan?” Stahl asked.

“It is developed,” Trump responded. “It is fully developed. It’s going to be announced very soon.”

And after Trump ended the interview and walked out on Stahl, McEnany, the White House press secretary, came in and handed the “60 Minutes” correspondent a massive binder.

“Lesley, the president wanted me to deliver his health care plan,” McEnany said. “It’s a little heavy.”

Indeed, Stahl struggled with the huge book. The situation seemed reminiscent of other instances where Trump tried to dissuade debate by presenting massive piles of paper that didn’t stand up to scrutiny, and it sparked speculation that the contents of the massive binder were blank. However, the conservative Washington Examiner newspaper subsequently reported it contained more than 500 pages comprising “13 executive orders and 11 other pieces of healthcare legislation enacted under Trump.”

Stahl was unimpressed. After perusing the gigantic tome, she declared, “It was heavy, filled with executive orders, congressional initiatives, but no comprehensive health plan.”

McEnany took issue with that assessment and shot back with a tweet that declared, “@60Minutes is misleading you!!”

“Notice they don’t mention that I gave Leslie 2 documents: a book of all President @realDonaldTrump has done & a plan of all he is going to do on healthcare — the America First Healthcare Plan which will deliver lower costs, more choice, better care,” the press secretary wrote.

McEnany had implied one of Washington’s most wanted documents was printed, bound and ready for review. It even had a name! Were we really this close to seeing the Trump health plan?

Not exactly.

After Yahoo News requested a copy of the “health care plan” that she presented to Stahl, McEnany provided a statement detailing the contents of the enormous binder.

“The book contains all of the executive orders and legislation President Trump has signed,” McEnany said.

She credited those actions with “lowering health care premiums and drug costs” compared with where they were under Obama and Vice President Biden. Trump has previously claimed premiums and costs have gone down during his administration, but these assertions aren’t entirely backed up by the data. And many of Trump’s executive orders on health care have been largely symbolic.

McEnany also provided us with a copy of the second document that she described on Twitter and Stahl had supposedly ignored. It was a 10-page report (including front and back covers) with a large-print, bullet-pointed list of highlights from Trump’s previous actions on health care and slogans making promises for the future.

“The America First Healthcare Plan lays out President Trump’s second term vision animated by the principles that have brought us lower cost, more choice and better care,” McEnany said.

The White House’s immense binder clearly didn’t contain Trump’s “health care plan” as McEnany declared during the dramatic on-camera delivery. But it did hold a fragment of the president’s policy vision.

Perhaps more pieces of the puzzle could be found on Capitol Hill. After all, in April 2019, Trump proclaimed on Twitter that “the Republicans … are developing a really great HealthCare Plan.” That comment followed reports that a group of Republican senators including Mitt Romney of Utah, John Barrasso of Wyoming, Rick Scott of Florida and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana were working on drafting a proposal. Trump said this plan would “be far less expensive & much more usable than ObamaCare.” The president further suggested it would be complete and ready to be voted on “right after the election.”

So, is there a finished plan floating around Capitol Hill ready to make its debut in a matter of weeks? No.

A Republican Senate source who has been privy to the talks told Yahoo News that a group of GOP senators including Romney, Barrasso, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Senate Health Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander of Tennessee have been “exploring” an alternative to Obamacare “over the course of the past year and a half.” However, with the coronavirus pandemic and a Supreme Court confirmation dominating the agenda, the source, who requested anonymity to discuss the deliberations, suggested the planning had stalled.

“I don’t think they’ve talked about this stuff for months now due to other pressing issues,” the source said of the health care planning.

The source predicted that activity on health care would not resume until the outcome of the election and the Supreme Court’s Obamacare case are clear.

“Depending on how things in November shake out and … what the Supreme Court does with the ACA, maybe those discussions will be revived,” the source said. “But there really has not been much going on of late.”

Nevertheless, the source contended that, even though there is no finished plan, Trump and his Republican allies on the Hill have made some real progress toward “a potential plan that would preserve private insurance but also seek to lower costs.” They suggested Senate efforts to lower drug prices and end surprise medical billing are part of the “frameworks,” as are some of the executive orders issued by Trump.

“There have been sort of piecemeal efforts in this area. … The executive branch has done what they can do within their authority to try to lower costs,” the source said. “There just hasn’t been … a wholesale piece of legislation or framework that everyone has coalesced around. That’s just something that has not come together.”

In the end, perhaps the truest answer to the ongoing mystery of Trump’s proposed Obamacare replacement came from the president himself during the “60 Minutes” interview. In the conversation, Trump suggested that his health plan exists in a realm beyond the bounds of space and time.

“A new plan will happen,” he said. “Will and is.”

As you can tell from the lead in to this post, that many of us who can really think and put enough words together to make a understandable sentence our choices are not good but it is really important for us all to go and turn out to vote, either in person, with masks in place and socially distancing or by mail in or drop off ballots.

Also, make sure you all get your new flu shots!!

Election 2020: What Exactly Is Joe Biden’s Healthcare Plan? And Really, Telehealth to Care for Our Patients?

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So, first I wanted to relate an experience, which exemplifies the failure of telehealth, or maybe the failure of healthcare workers who are taking advantage of the “new” health care system of patient care.

Consider the case a two weeks ago. As I was about to operate on a cancer surgery patient, I was asked to evaluate a patient healthcare conundrum. One of our nurse teammate’s husband was sick and no one knew what was the problem. He had lost 23 pounds over 3 ½ weeks, was dehydrated, appetite, sore throat, weak and needed to go to the emergency room multiple times for intravenous fluids. Each time he was told that they were very sorry but they had no idea what the problem was.

His Primary care physician would not see him in person, and he had another telehealth visit, which he was charged for and was prescribed an antibiotic with no improvement.

I asked if he had a COVID test which he did and it was negative.

I then asked if I could examine him or if she had any pictures. She had pictures, with no skin rashes except I noticed something interesting on the intraoral pictures, which showed left sided ulcers on his cheeks, left lateral posterior tongue and palate, again-only on the left side.

I asked if this was true in that the ulcers were only on one side of his mouth? When his wife responded with a yes to the question I then responded that he had intraoral shingles involving the nerve to the tongue, cheek, palate ( glossophyngeal nerve ) and sometimes also affected additional nearby cranial nerve, which is probably why he was having some of his stomach problem. She thought that was interesting and wanted to know what to do since he was about to have some gallbladder studies.

I outlined a treatment plan and low and behold he is getting better. My question is why didn’t anyone in the doc’s office or ER never complete a thorough physical exam? Oh, wait- how does one do a complete physical exam through the telehealth system? What about heart or lung disease patients, how does a nurse or physician listen to their heart or lungs, etc?? Are we physicians forgetting our teachings and training regarding the proper approach to physical diagnosis?

And now what about Biden’s proposal for health care?

Leigh Page pointed out that physicians — like all Americans — are trying to size up Joe Biden’s healthcare agenda, which the Democratic presidential nominee has outlined in speeches and on his official website.

Many healthcare professionals, patients, and voters of all political stripes think our current healthcare system is broken and in need of change, but they don’t agree on how it should change. In Part I of this article, we take a look at Biden’s proposals for changing the US healthcare system. Then, we include comments and analysis from physicians on both sides of the fence regarding the pros and cons of these proposed healthcare measures.

Part 1: An Overview of Biden’s Proposed Healthcare Plan

Biden’s proposed healthcare plan has many features. The main thrust is to expand access to healthcare and increase federal subsidies for health coverage.

If elected, “I’ll put your family first,” he said in a speech in June. “That will begin the dramatic expansion of health coverage and bold steps to lower healthcare costs.” He said he favored a plan that “lowers healthcare costs, gets us universal coverage quickly, when Americans desperately need it now.”

Below are Biden’s major proposals. They are followed by Part 2, which assesses the proposals on the basis of comments by doctors from across the political spectrum.

Biden Says We Should Restore the ACA

At a debate of the Democrat presidential candidates in June 2019, Biden argued that the best way to expand coverage is “to build on what we did during the Obama administration,” rather than create a whole new healthcare system, as many other Democratic candidates for president were proposing.

“I’m proud of the Affordable Care Act,” he said a year later in his June 2020 speech. “In addition to helping people with preexisting conditions, this is the law that delivered vital coverage for 20 million Americans who did not have health insurance.”

At the heart of the ACA are the health insurance marketplaces, where people can buy individual insurance that is often federally subsidized. Buyers select coverage at different levels ― Gold, Silver, and Bronze. Those willing to pay higher premiums for a Gold plan don’t have high deductibles, as they would with the Silver and Bronze plans.

Currently, federal subsidies are based on premiums on the Silver level, where premiums are lower but deductibles are higher than with the Gold plan. Biden would shift the subsidies to the Gold plan, where they would be more generous, because subsidies are pegged to the premiums.

In addition, Biden would remove the current limit on subsidies, under which only people with incomes less than 400% of the federal poverty level qualify for them. “Many families making more than 400% of the federal poverty level (about $50,000 for a single person and $100,000 for a family of four), and thus not qualifying for financial assistance, still struggle to afford health insurance,” the Biden for President website states.

Under the Biden plan, there would still be a limit on insurance payments as a percentage of income, but that percentage would drop, meaning that more people would qualify. Currently, the level is 9.86% or more of a person’s income; Biden would lower that level to 8.5%.

“We’re going to lower premiums for people buying coverage on their own by guaranteeing that no American ever has to spend more than 8.5% of their income on health insurance, and that number would be lower for lower-income people,” Biden said in the June speech.

Add a Public Option, but Not Medicare for All

In the primary, Biden parted company from rivals who backed Medicare for All, a single-payer health system that would make the government pay for everyone’s healthcare. “I understand the appeal of Medicare for All,” he said in a video released by his campaign. “But folks supporting it should be clear that it means getting rid of Obamacare, and I’m not for that.” But he nor anyone else who supported Obamacare has come up with a way to finance this type of healthcare system.

However, Biden embraced a “public option” that would allow people to buy into or be subsidized into “a Medicare-like” plan. It is unclear how similar the public option would be to regular Medicare coverage, but the Biden campaign has made it clear that it would not take funds from the Medicare trust fund, which is expected to start losing funds by 2026.

The more than 150 million Americans who have employer-sponsored insurance could keep it, but they could still buy into the public option if they wanted to. In addition, the public option would automatically enroll ― at no cost to them ― some 4.8 million low-income Americans who were excluded from the ACA’s Medicaid expansion when many states chose to opt out of the Medicaid expansion.

In addition, the 37 states that participate in expanded Medicaid could switch coverage to the new public option, provided that they continue to pay their current share of the costs. (In June, Oklahoma became the 37th state to allow the expansion, following the results of a ballot measure.)

“We need a public option now more than ever, especially when more than 20 million people are unemployed,” Biden said in the June speech. “That public option will allow every American, regardless of their employment status, the choice to get a Medicare-like plan.”

Lower the Medicare Age

In spring 2020, Biden proposed lowering the age to qualify for Medicare from 65 to 60. This provision is not included among the official policies listed on the Biden for President website, but it has been cited by many, including the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force.

This provision would bring almost 23 million people into Medicare, including 13.4 million from employer-sponsored coverage, according to one analysis. It’s not clear whether these people would buy into Medicare or simply be covered. Their care would not be paid for by the Medicare Trust Fund but would use tax dollars instead. Oh, finally, we find out that our taxes would go up. How much is the problem as we consider all the other programs that Biden and Harris have promoted.

Provide Relief in the Covid-19 Pandemic

Biden would cover the cost of COVID-19 testing and the cost of health coverage for people laid off during the pandemic.

“Testing unequivocally saves lives, and widespread testing is the key to opening our economy again,” Biden said in his June speech. “To fix the economy, we have to get control over the virus.”

Prescription Drug Reform

Biden would repeal a Bush-era exception that bars the Medicare program from negotiating prescription drug prices for the Part D prescription drug benefit. “There’s no justification for this except the power of prescription drug lobbying,” the Biden for President website states.

In addition, Biden’s prescription drug reform plan would do the following:

• Limit launch prices for drugs. The administration would establish an independent review board that would assess the value of new drugs and would have the power to set limits on their prices. Such drugs are “being abusively priced by manufacturers,” the Biden for President site says.

• Limit price increases to inflation. As a condition of participation in government programs, drug prices could not rise more than the general inflation rate. Biden would impose a tax penalty on drug makers whose prices surpassed inflation.

• Allow consumers to buy prescription drugs from other countries. Biden would allow consumers to import prescription drugs from other countries, provided the US Department of Health and Human Services certifies that those drugs are safe.

• Stop tax breaks for pharma ads: Biden would drop drug makers’ tax breaks for advertising, which amounted to $6 billion in 2016.

Stop Surprise Billing

Biden proposes to stop surprise billing, which occurs when patients receive care from a doctor or hospital that is not in their insurer’s network. In these situations, patients can be surprised with very high bills because no payment limit has been negotiated by the insurer.

Twenty-eight states have enacted consumer protections to address surprise medical billing, but Congress has not passed such a measure. One proposed solution is to require payers to pay for out-of-network services on the basis of a benchmark, such as the average Medicare rate for that service in a specific geographic area.

Closely Monitor Healthcare Mergers

Biden would take a more active stance in enforcing antitrust laws against mergers in the healthcare industry.

“The concentration of market power in the hands of a few corporations is occurring throughout our health care system, and this lack of competition is driving up prices for consumers,” the Biden for President website states.

Overhaul Long-term Care

Biden’s latest plan calls for a $775 billion overhaul of the nation’s caregiving infrastructure. Biden says he would help create new jobs, improve working conditions, and invest in new models of long-term care outside of traditional nursing homes.

Restore Funding for Planned Parenthood

Biden would reissue guidance barring states from refusing Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood and other providers that refer for abortions or that provide related information, according to the Biden for President website. This action would reverse a Trump administration rule.

Boost Community Health Centers

Biden promises to double federal funding for community health centers, such as federally qualified health centers, that provide care to underserved populations.

Support Mental Health Parity

Biden says he supports mental health parity and would enforce the federal mental health parity law and expand funding for mental health services.

Part 2: Physicians’ Opinions on Biden’s Healthcare Plans: Pro and Con

Biden’s plans to expand coverage are at the heart of his healthcare platform, and many see these as the most controversial part of his legislative agenda.

Biden’s Medicare expansion is not Medicare for All, but it can be seen as “Medicare for all who want it.” Potentially, millions of people could enter Medicare or something like Medicare. If the Medicare eligibility age is dropped to 60, people could switch from their employer-sponsored plans, many of which have high deductibles. In addition, poor people who have no coverage because their states opted out of the Medicaid expansion would be included.

The possibility of such a mass movement to government-run healthcare alarms many people. “Biden’s proposals look moderate, but it is basically Medicare for All in sheep’s clothing,” said Cesar De Leon, DO, a family physician in Naples, Florida, and past president of the county’s medical society.

Reimbursements for Doctors Could Fall- No, Will Fall!

A shift of millions of people into Medicare would likely mean lower reimbursements for doctors. For example, the 13.4 million people aged 60 to 65 who would switch from employer-sponsored coverage to Medicare would be leaving some of the best-paying insurance plans, and their physicians would then be reimbursed at Medicare rates.

“Biden’s plan would lower payments to already cash-strapped doctors and hospitals, who have already seen a significant decrease in reimbursement over the past decade,” De Leon said. “He is trying to win the support of low-income voters by giving them lower healthcare prices, which doctors and hospitals would have to absorb.

“Yes, the US healthcare system is dysfunctional,” De Leon added, “but the basic system needs to be fixed before it is expanded to new groups of people.”

The American Association of Neurological Surgeons/Congress of Neurological Surgeons warns against Biden’s proposed government-run system. “We support expanding health insurance coverage, but the expansion should build on the existing employer-based system,” said Katie O. Orrico, director of the group’s Washington office. “We have consistently opposed a public option or Medicare for All.

“Shifting more Americans into government-sponsored healthcare will inevitably result in lower payments for physicians’ services,” Orrico added. “Reimbursement rates from Medicare, Medicaid, and many ACA exchange plans already do not adequately cover the costs of running a medical practice.”

Prospect of Higher Taxes- Absolutely, grab your wallets and your retirement funds!!

Paying for ambitious reforms means raising taxes. Biden’s plan would not make the Medicare trust fund pay for the expansions and would to some extent rely on payments from new beneficiaries. However, many new beneficiaries, such as people older than 60 and the poor, would be covered by tax dollars.

Altogether, Biden’s plan is expected to cost the federal government $800 billion over the next 10 years. To pay for it, Biden proposes reversing President Trump’s tax cuts, which disproportionately helped high earners, and eliminating capital gains tax loopholes for the wealthy.

“Rather than tax the average American, the Democrats will try to redistribute wealth,” De Leon said.

“The elephant in the room is that taxes would have to be raised to pay for all these programs,” said Gary Price, MD, president of the Physicians Foundation. Because no one likes higher taxes, he says, architects of the Biden plan would try to find ways to save money, such as tamping down reimbursements for physicians, to try to avoid a public backlash against the reforms.

“Physicians’ great fear is that efforts to keep taxes from getting too high will result in cutting physician reimbursement,” he said.

Impact of COVID-19

Perhaps an even larger barrier to Biden’s health reforms comes from the COVID-19 crisis, which didn’t exist last year, when health reform was the central issue in the presidential primary that pitted Biden against Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the chief proponent of Medicare for All.

“The top two issues on voters’ minds right now are the pandemic and the economy,” said Daniel Derksen, MD, a family physician who is professor of public health policy at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “Any other concerns are pushed down the list.”

The COVID-19 crisis is forcing the federal government to spend trillions of dollars to help businesses and individuals who have lost income because of the crisis. Will there be enough money left over to fund an ambitious set of health reforms?

“It’s not a good time to start reforms,” warned Kevin Campbell, MD, a cardiologist in Raleigh, North Carolina. “Given the current pressures that COVID-19 has placed on physicians, healthcare systems, and hospitals, I don’t believe that we can achieve meaningful change in the near term.”

However, supporters of Biden’s reforms think that now, during the COVID-19 crisis, is precisely the right time to enact healthcare reform. When millions of Americans lost their jobs because of the pandemic, they also lost their insurance coverage.

“COVID-19 has made Biden’s healthcare agenda all the more relevant and necessary,” said Don Berwick, MD, who led the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) under President Obama. “The COVID-19 recession has made people more aware of how vulnerable their coverage is.”

Orrico at the neurosurgeons group acknowledges this point. “The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed some cracks in the US healthcare system,” she said. “Whether this will lead to new reforms is hard to say, but policymakers will likely take a closer look at issues related to unemployment, health insurance coverage, and healthcare costs due to the COVID-19 emergency.”

Many Physicians Want Major Reform

Although many doctors are skeptical of reform, others are impatient for reform to come and support Biden’s agenda ― especially its goal to expand coverage.

“Joe Biden’s goal is to get everyone covered,” said Alice Chen, MD, an internist who is a leader of Doctors for Biden, an independent group that is not part of the Biden campaign. “What brings Democrats together is that they are united in the belief that healthcare is a right.”

In January, the American College of Physicians (ACP) endorsed both Medicare for All and the public option. The US healthcare system “is ill and needs a bold new prescription,” the ACP stated.

The medical profession, once mostly Republican, now has more Democrats. In 2016, 35% of physicians identified themselves as Democrats, 27% as Republicans, and 36% as independents.

Many of the doctors behind reform appear to be younger physicians who are employed by large organizations. They are passionate about reforming the healthcare system, and as employees of large organizations, they would not be directly affected if reimbursements fell to Medicare levels ― although their institutions might subsequently have to adjust their salaries downward.

Chen, for example, is a young physician who says she has taken leave from her work as adjunct assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, to raise her young children.

She is the former executive director of Doctors for America, a movement of thousands of physicians and medical students “to bring their patients’ experiences to policymakers.”

“Doctors feel that they are unseen and unheard, that they often feel frankly used by large health systems and by insurance companies,” Chen said. “Biden wants to hear from them.”

Many idealistic young physicians look to health system leaders like Berwick. “I believe this nation needs to get universal coverage as fast as we can, and Biden’s policies present a path to get there,” the former CMS director said. “This would be done chiefly through Biden’s public option and his plans to expand coverage in states that have not adopted the ACA Medicaid expansion.”

But what about the potential effect of lowering reimbursement rates for doctors? “The exact rates will have to be worked out,” Berwick said, “but it’s not just about who pays physicians, it’s about how physicians get paid.” He thinks the current fee-for-service system needs to be replaced by a value-based payment system such as capitation, shared savings, and bundled payments.

The Biden-Sanders Task Force

Berwick was a member of the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force, which brings together supporters of Biden and Sanders to create a shared platform for the Biden campaign.

The task force issued a report in early July that recommended a variety of healthcare reforms in addition to expanding access to care. One of them was to find ways to address the social determinants of health, such as housing, hunger, transportation, and pollution, which can harm health outcomes.

Chen specifically cites this provision. “We need to focus on the social determinants of heath and try to encourage better health,” she said. “I remember as a doctor advising a patient who was a young mother with several small children that she needed to exercise more. She asked me, ‘When am I supposed to exercise, and who will watch my kids?’ I realized the predicament that she was in.”

Price is also glad to see the provision in Biden’s plan. “Social determinants of health has been a key focus of the Physicians Foundation,” he said. “To my knowledge, this is the first time that a political candidate’s healthcare policy has included this point.

“Physicians are not in control of the social determinants of health, even though they affect their reimbursements,” he said. Under Medicare’s Merit-based Incentive Payment System, for example, doctors are penalized when their patients don’t meet certain health standards, such as when diabetes patients can’t get their A1C levels under control, he says.

However, Price fears that Biden, in his efforts to make peace with Sanders supporters, may have to some degree abandoned his moderate stance on health reform.

Is the Nation Ready for Another Health Reform Battle?

Clearly, many Democrats are ready to reform the system, but is the nation ready? “Are American voters ready for another major, Democratic-led health reform initiative?” asked Patricia Salber, MD, an internist and healthcare consultant who runs a blog called The Doctor Weighs In.

“I’ve been around long enough to remember the fight over President Clinton’s health plan and then President Obama’s plan,” she said. Each time, she says, there seemed to be a great deal of momentum, and then there was a backlash. “If Biden is elected, I hope we don’t have to go through the same thing all over again,” Salber said.

Derksen believes Biden’s proposed healthcare reforms could come close to rivaling President Obama’s Affordable Care Act in ambition, cost, and controversy.

He shares Biden’s goal of extending coverage to all ― including paying the cost of covering low-income people. But the result is that “Biden’s agenda is going to be a ‘heavy lift,’ as they say in Washington,” he said. “He has some very ambitious plans to expand access to care.”

Derksen speaks from experience. He helped draft part of the ACA as a health policy fellow in Capitol Hill in 2009. Then in 2011, he was in charge of setting up the ACA’s insurance marketplace for the state of New Mexico.

Now Biden wants to begin a second wave of health reform. But Derksen thinks this second wave of reform could encounter opposition as formidable as those Obama faced.

“Assuming that Biden is elected, it would be tough to get this agenda passed ― even if he had solid Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate,” said Derksen,

According to polls by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), 53% of Americans like the ACA, while 37% dislike it ― a split that has been relatively stable for the past 2 years, since the failed GOP effort to repeal the law.

In that KFF poll, the public option fared better ― 68% of Americans support the public option, including 42% of Republicans. These numbers help explain why the Biden campaign moved beyond its support of the ACA to embrace the public option as well.

Even when Democrats gain control of all the levers of power, as they did in 2009, they still have a very difficult time passing an ambitious healthcare reform bill. Derksen remembers how tough it was to get that massive bill through Congress.

The House bill’s public option might have prevailed in a reconciliation process between the two bills, but that process was cut short when Sen. Ted Kennedy died and Senate Democrats lost their filibuster-proof majority. The bill squeaked through as the Senate version, without the public option.

The ACA Has Survived-But at What Cost?

The ACA is much more complex piece of legislation than the public option.

“The ACA has survived for a decade, despite all efforts to dismantle it,” Salber said. “Biden wants to restore a law that the Republicans have been chipping away at. The Republicans eliminated the penalty for not having coverage. Think about it, a penalty of zero is not much of a deterrent.”

It was the loss of the ACA penalty in tax year 2019 that, paradoxically, formed the legal basis for the latest challenge of the ACA before the Supreme Court, in a suit brought by the Trump administration and 18 Republican state attorneys general.

The Supreme Court will make its ruling after the election, but Salber thinks the suit itself will boost both Biden and the ACA in the campaign. “I think most people are tired of all the attempts to repeal the ACA,” she said.

“The public now thinks of the US healthcare system as pathetically broken,” she added. “It used to be that Americans would say we have the best healthcare system in the world. I don’t hear that much anymore.”

Physicians who oppose the ACA hold exactly the opposite view. “Our healthcare system is in shambles after the Obamacare fiasco,” Campbell said. “Even if Biden has a Democrat-controlled House and Senate, I still don’t think that there would be enough votes to pass sweeping changes to healthcare.”

Biden Could Choose Issues Other Than Expanding Access

There are plenty of proposals in the Biden healthcare plan that don’t involve remaking the healthcare system.

These include making COVID-19 testing free, providing extra funding for community health centers, and stopping surprise billing. Proposals such as stepping up antitrust enforcement against mergers would involve administrative rather than Congressional action.

Some of these other proposals could be quite expensive, such as overhauling long-term care and paying for health insurance for laid-off workers. And another proposal ― limiting the prices of pharmaceuticals ― could be almost as contentious as expanding coverage.

“This proposal has been talked about for many years, but it has always met with strong resistance from drug makers,” said Robert Pearl, MD, former CEO of the Permanente Medical Group and now a faculty member at Stanford School of Medicine and Graduate School of Business.

Pearl thinks the first item in Biden’s drug plan ― to repeal a ban against Medicare negotiating drug prices with drug makers ― would meet with Congressional resistance, owing to heavy lobbying and campaign contributions by the drug companies.

In addition, Pearl thinks Biden’s plans to limit drug prices ― barring drug makers from raising their prices above the general inflation rate and limiting the launch prices for many drugs ― enter uncharted legal waters and could end up in the courts.

Even Without Reform, Expect Lower Reimbursements

Although many doctors are concerned that Biden’s healthcare reforms would reduce reimbursements, Pearl thinks reimbursements will decline even without reforms, owing in part to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Employer-based health insurance has been the bedrock of the US healthcare system, but Pearl says many employers have long wanted to get rid of this obligation. Increasingly, they are pushing costs onto the employee by raising deductibles and through premium sharing.

Now, with the pandemic, employers are struggling just to stay in business, and health insurance has truly become a financial burden, he says. In addition, states will be unable to balance their budgets and will try to reduce their Medicaid obligations.

“Before COVID-19 hit, healthcare spending was supposed to grow by 5% a year, but that won’t happen for some time into the future,” Pearl said. “The COVID economic crisis is likely to continue for quite some time, forcing physicians to either accept much lower payments or find better ways to provide care.”

Like Berwick, Pearl believes healthcare will have to move to value-based payments. “Instead of producing more services, doctors will have to preserve resources, which is value-based healthcare,” he said. The primary form of value-based reimbursement, Pearl thinks, will be capitation, in which physicians agree to quality and service guarantees.

Even steadfast opponents of many of Biden’s reforms foresee value-based payments taking off. “Certainly, there are ways to improve the current healthcare system, such as moving to value-based care,” said Orrico at the neurosurgeons’ group.

In short, a wide swath of observers agree that doctors are facing major changes in the payment and delivery of healthcare, regardless of whether Biden is elected and succeeds with his health agenda.

Notice that no one has mentioned tort reform in healthcare. Why Not???????

Trump health officials “not aware” of how he would replace Obamacare; and what about the Vaccines?

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Trump health officials “not aware” of how he would replace Obamacare; and what about the Vaccines?

It is truly amazing how out of touch the GOP and, I believe President Trump is, on health care, especially “after” or during this COVID pandemic. Consider the amount of monies spent on caring for the millions of patients diagnosed with COVID-19. One must remember that due to the EMTALA Act, which ensures public access to emergency services regardless of ability to pay. Think of all the COVID testing and ICU care that has been provided for all that needed it. This experience, etc. should convince, even the clueless that we need a type of universal health care policy.

They, the GOP and the President, promised us all that they would create, provide a wonderful healthcare for all, better than Obamacare. But have they? No!

And now is the time to produce a well-designed alternative, or consider Obamacare as a well thought out program, except for the lack of financial sustainability. And guess what happened after I had a phone call with a member of the Trump administration. He asked me what I thought Trump’s chances of winning re-election. I responded that I thought he had about a 20% chance of getting re-elected. He pressed me as what I thought that would increase his chances. My response was to finally reveal their, the GOP/Trump’s

, plan and I suggested that they should adopt the Affordable Care Act but outline a plan to sustainably finance the healthcare plan.

My suggestion- embrace the Affordable Care Act as a good starting point and use a federal sales tax to finance it instead of putting the onus on the young healthy workers.

At a hearing on the coronavirus response, Senator Dick Durbin asked the Trump administration’s top health officials about the president’s comments touting a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. They said they did not know about such a plan.

And a Republican victory in Supreme Court battle could mean millions lose health insurance in the middle of a pandemic.

John T. Bennett noted that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell could soon be forever linked if the late Supreme Court justice’s death leads to the termination of the 44th president’s signature domestic policy achievement: the Affordable Care Act

All sides in the coming battle royal over how to proceed with filling the high court seat she left behind are posturing and pressuring, floating strategic possibilities and offering creative versions of history and precedent. Most Republicans in the Senate want to hold a simple-majority floor vote on a nominee Mr. Trump says he will announce as soon as this week before the end of the calendar year. Democrats say they are hypocrites because the blocked a Barack Obama high court pick during his final year.

It appears Democrats have only extreme options as viable tactics from preventing confirmation hearings and a floor vote before this unprecedented year is up. Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday refused to rule bringing articles of impeachment against the president or even William Barr, his attorney general whom the Democrats say has improperly used his office to help Mr. Trump’s friends and use federal law enforcement unjustly against US citizens.

Unless Ms Pelosi pulls that politically dangerous lever, the maneuvering of the next few weeks most likely will end after Congress returns after the 3 November election with a high court with a 6-3 conservative bend. Analysts already are warning that conservatives appear months away from being able to partially criminalize abortion and also take down the 2011 Affordable Care Act, also known as Obama care.

Democrats have sounded off since Ms. Ginsburg’s death to warn that millions of Americans could soon lose their health insurance, especially those with pre-existing conditions. Last year, 8.5m people signed up for coverage using the Affordable Care Act, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

“Healthcare in this country hangs in the balance,” Joe Biden, who is the Democratic nominee for president and was vice president when Mr. Obama signed the health plan now linked to his name into law, said on Sunday.

Mr. Biden accused Republicans of playing a “game” by rushing the process to replace Ms. Ginsburg on the court because they are “trying to strip healthcare away from tens of millions of families.”

Doing so, he warned, would “strip away their peace of mind” because insurance providers would no longer be required to give some Americans policies. Should a 6-3 court decide to uphold a lower court’s ruling that the 2011 health law be taken down, those companies would “drop coverage completely for folks with pre-existing conditions,” Mr. Biden warned in remarks from Philadelphia.

“If Donald Trump has his way, the complications from Covid-19 … would become the next deniable pre-existing condition for millions of Americans.” That means they would lose their health insurance and be forced to either pay for care out of their pocket or use credit lines. Both could force millions into medical bankruptcy or otherwise create dire financial hardships.

Mr. Trump about a month ago promised to release a new healthcare plan that, if ever passed by both chambers of Congress and signed into law, would replace Obamacare.

So far, however, he has yet to unveil that alleged plan.

Trump Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters last week that the White House’s Domestic Policy Council is leading the work on the plan. But when pressed for more details, she chose to pick a fight with a CNN reporter.

“I’m not going to give you a readout of what our healthcare plan looks like and who’s working on it,” Ms. McEnany said. “If you want to know, if you want to know, come work here at the White House.”

When pressed, Ms. McEnany said “stakeholders here in the White House” are working on a plan the president has promised for several years. “And, as I told you, our Domestic Policy Council and others in the White House are working on a healthcare plan,” she insisted, describing it as “the president’s vision for the next five years.”

The president frequently mentions healthcare during his rowdy campaign rallies, but only in general terms. He promises a sweeping plan that will bring costs down across the board and also protect those with pre-existing conditions. But he mostly brings it up to hammer Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden for pushing a flawed law that he has been forced to tinker with to make it function better for consumers.

Broad brush

His top spokeswoman echoed those broad strokes during a briefing on Wednesday. “In aggregate, it’s going to be a very comprehensive strategy, one where we’re saving healthcare while Democrats are trying to take healthcare away,” she told reporters. “We’re making healthcare better and cheaper, guaranteeing protections for people with preexisting conditions, stopping surprise medical billing, increasing transparency, defending the right to keep your doctor and your plan, fighting lobbyists and special interests, and making healthier and making, finding cures to diseases.”

If there is a substantive plan that would protect millions with pre-existing conditions and others affected by Covid-19, it would have made a fine backbone of Mr. Trump’s August Republican National Committee address in which he accepted his party’s presidential nomination for a second time. But healthcare was not the major focus, even though it ranks in the top two issues – along with the economy – in just about every poll that asks voters to rank their priorities in deciding between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden.

If there is a coming White House healthcare plan that would protect those with pre-existing conditions and prevent millions from losing coverage as the coronavirus pandemic is ongoing, the president is not using his campaign rallies at regional airport hangars to describe or promote it.

“We will strongly protect Medicare and Social Security and we will always protect patients with pre-existing conditions,” said at a campaign stop Saturday evening in Fayetteville, North Carolina, before pivoting to a completely unrelated topic: “America will land the first woman on the moon, and the United States will be the first nation to land an astronaut on Mars.”

The push to install a conservative to replace the liberal Ms. Ginsburg and the lack of any expectation Mr. Trump has a tangible plan has given Democrats a new election-year talking point less than two months before all votes must be cast.

“Whoever President Trump nominates will strike down the Affordable Care Act,” Hawaii Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono told MSNBC on Sunday. “It will throw millions of people off of healthcare, won’t protect people with pre-existing conditions. It will be disastrous. That’s why they want to rush this.”

About 1 In 5 Households in U.S. Cities Miss Needed Medical Care During Pandemic

Patti Neighmond noted that when 28-year-old Katie Kinsey moved from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles in early March, she didn’t expect the pandemic would affect her directly, at least not right away. But that’s exactly what happened.

She was still settling in and didn’t have a primary care doctor when she got sick with symptoms of what she feared was COVID-19.

“I had a sore throat and a debilitating cough,” she says, “and when I say debilitating, I mean I couldn’t talk without coughing.” She couldn’t lie down at night without coughing. She just wasn’t getting enough air into her lungs, she says.

Kinsey, who works as a federal consultant in nuclear defense technology, found herself coughing through phone meetings. And then things got worse. Her energy took a dive, and she felt achy all over, “so I was taking naps during the day.” She never got a fever but worried about the coronavirus and accelerated her effort to find a doctor.

No luck.

She called nearly a dozen doctors listed on her insurance card, but all were booked. “Some said they were flooded with patients and couldn’t take new patients. Others gave no explanation, and just said they were sorry and could put me on a waiting list.” All the waiting lists were two to three months’ long.

Eventually Kinsey went to an urgent care clinic, got an X-ray and a diagnosis of severe bronchitis — not COVID-19. Antibiotics helped her get better. But she says she might have avoided “months of illness and lost days of work” had she been able to see a doctor sooner. She was sick for three months.

Kinsey’s experience is just one way the pandemic has delayed medical care for Americans in the last several months. A poll of households in the four largest U.S. cities by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health finds roughly one in every five have had at least one member who was unable to get medical care or who has had to delay care for a serious medical problem during the pandemic (ranging from 19% of households in New York City to 27% in Houston).

We had people come in with heart attacks after having chest pain for three or four days, or stroke patients who had significant loss of function for several days, if not a week.

There were multiple reasons given. Many people reported, like Kinsey, that they could not find a doctor to see them as hospitals around the U.S. delayed or canceled certain medical procedures to focus resources on treating COVID-19.

Other patients avoided critically important medical care because of fears they would catch the coronavirus while in a hospital or medical office.

“One thing we didn’t expect from COVID was that we were going to drop 60% of our volume,” says Ryan Stanton, an emergency physician in Lexington, Ky., and member of the board of directors of the American College of Emergency Physicians.

“We had people come in with heart attacks after having chest pain for three or four days,” Stanton says, “or stroke patients who had significant loss of function for several days, if not a week. And I’d ask them why they hadn’t come in, and they would say almost universally they were afraid of COVID.”

Stanton found that to be particularly frustrating, because his hospital had made a big effort to communicate with the community to “absolutely come to the hospital for true emergencies.”

He describes one patient who had suffered at home for weeks with what ended up being appendicitis. When the patient finally came to the emergency room, Stanton says, a procedure that normally would have been done on an outpatient basis “ended up being a very much more involved surgery with increased risk of complications because of that delay.”

The poll finds a majority of households in leading U.S. cities who delayed medical care for serious problems say they had negative health consequences as a result (ranging from 55% in Chicago to 75% in Houston and 63% in Los Angeles).

Dr. Anish Mahajan, chief medical officer of the large public hospital Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, says the number of emergencies showing up in his hospital have been down during the pandemic, too, because patients have been fearful of catching the coronavirus there. One case that sticks in his mind was a middle aged woman with diabetes who fainted at home.

“Her blood sugar was really high, and she didn’t feel well — she was sweating,” the doctor recalls. “The family called the ambulance, and the ambulance came, and she said, ‘No, no, I don’t want to go to the hospital. I’ll be fine.’ “

By the next day the woman was even sicker. Her family took her to the hospital, where she was rushed to the catheterization lab. There doctors discovered and dissolved a clot in her heart. This was ultimately a successful ending for the patient, Mahajan says, “but you can see how this is very dangerous — to avoid going to the hospital if you have significant symptoms.”

He says worrisome reports from the Los Angeles County coroner’s office show the number of people who have died at home in the last few months is much higher than the average number of people who died in their homes before the pandemic.

“That’s yet another signal that something is going on where patients are not coming in for care,” Mahajan says. “And those folks who died at home may have died from COVID, but they may also have died from other conditions that they did not come in to get cared for.”

Like most hospitals nationwide, Harbor-UCLA canceled elective surgeries to make room for coronavirus patients — at least during the earliest months of the pandemic, and when cases surged.

In NPR’s survey of cities, about one-third of households in Chicago and Los Angeles and more than half in Houston and New York with a household member who couldn’t get surgeries or elective procedures said it resulted in negative health consequences for that person.

“Back in March and April the estimates were 80[%] to 90% of normal [in terms of screenings for cancer]” at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, says Dr. Jeffrey Drebin, who heads surgical oncology there.

“Things like mammograms, colonoscopies, PSA tests were not being done,” he says. At the height of the pandemic’s spring surge in New York City, Drebin says, he was seeing many more patients than usual who had advanced disease.

“Patients weren’t being found at routine colonoscopy,” he says. “They were coming in because they had a bleeding tumor or an obstructing tumor and needed to have something done right away.”

In June, during patients’ information sessions with the hospital, Drebin says patients typically asked if they could wait a few months before getting a cancer screening test.

“In some cases, you can, but there are certainly types of cancer that cannot have surgery delayed for a number of months,” he explains. With pancreatic or bladder cancer, for example, delaying even a month can dramatically reduce the opportunity for the best treatment or even a cure.

Reductions in cancer screening, Drebin says, are likely to translate to more illness and death down the road. “The estimate,” he says, “is that simply the reduction this year in mammography and colonoscopy [procedures] will create 10,000 additional deaths over the next few years.”

And even delays in treatment that aren’t a matter of life and death can make a big difference in the quality of a life.

For 12-year-old Nicolas Noblitt, who lives in Northridge, Calif., with his parents and two siblings, delays in treatment this year have dramatically reduced his mobility.

Nicolas has cerebral palsy and has relied on a wheelchair most of his life. The muscles in his thighs, hips, calves and even his feet and toes get extremely tight, and that “makes it hard for him to walk even a short distance with a walker,” says his mother, Natalie Noblitt. “So, keeping the spasticity under control has been a major project his whole life to keep him comfortable and try to help him gain the most mobility he can have.”

Before the pandemic, Nicolas was helped by regular Botox injections, which relaxed his tight muscles and enabled him to wear shoes.

As Nicolas says, “I do have these really cool shoes that have a zipper … and they really help me — because, one, they’re really easy to get on, and two, they’re cool shoes.” Best of all, he says they stabilize him enough so he can walk with a walker.

“I love those shoes and I think they sort of love me, too, when you think about it,” he tells NPR.

Nicolas was due to get a round of Botox injections in early March. But the doctors deemed it an elective procedure and canceled the appointment. That left him to go months without a treatment.

His muscles got so tight that his feet would uncontrollably curl.

“And when it happens and I’m trying to walk … it just makes everything worse,” Nicolas says, “from trying to get on the shoes to trying to walk in the walker.”

Today he is finally back on his Botox regimen and feeling more comfortable — happy to walk with a walker. Even so, says his mom, the lapse in treatment caused setbacks. Nicolas has to work harder now, both in day-to-day activities and in physical therapy.

‘Warp Speed’ Officials Debut Plan for Distributing Free Vaccines

Despite the president’s statements about military involvement in the vaccine rollout, officials said that for most people, “there will be no federal official who touches any of this vaccine.”

Katie Thomas reported that Federal officials outlined details Wednesday of their preparations to administer a future coronavirus vaccine to Americans, saying they would begin distribution within 24 hours of any approval or emergency authorization, and that their goal was that no American “has to pay a single dime” out of their own pocket.

The officials, who are part of the federal government’s Operation Warp Speed — the multiagency effort to quickly make a coronavirus vaccine available to Americans — also said the timing of a vaccine was still unclear, despite repeated statements by President Trump that one could be ready before the election on Nov. 3.

“We’re dealing in a world of great uncertainty. We don’t know the timing of when we’ll have a vaccine, we don’t know the quantities, we don’t know the efficacy of those vaccines,” said Paul Mango, the deputy chief of staff for policy at the Department of Health and Human Services. “This is a really quite extraordinary, logistically complex undertaking, and a lot of uncertainties right now. I think the message we want you to leave with is, we are prepared for all of those uncertainties.”

The officials said they were planning for initial distribution of a vaccine — perhaps on an emergency basis, and to a limited group of high-priority people such as health care workers — in the final three months of this year and into next year. The Department of Defense is providing logistical support to plan how the vaccines will be shipped and stored, as well as how to keep track of who has gotten the vaccine and whether they have gotten one or two doses.

However, Mr. Mango said that there had been “a lot of confusion” about what the role of the Department of Defense would be, and that “for the overwhelming majority of Americans, there will be no federal official who touches any of this vaccine before it’s injected into Americans.”

Army Lt. Gen. Paul Ostrowski said Operation Warp Speed was working to link up existing databases so that, for example, a patient who received a vaccine at a public health center in January could go to a CVS pharmacy 28 days later in another state and be assured of getting the second dose of the right vaccine.

Three drug makers are testing vaccine candidates in late-stage trials in the United States. One of those companies, Pfizer, has said that it could apply for emergency authorization as early as October, while the other two, Moderna and AstraZeneca, have said they hope to have something before the end of the year.

Coronavirus vaccine study by Pfizer shows mild-to-moderate side effects

Pfizer Inc said on Tuesday participants were showing mostly mild-to-moderate side effects when given either the company’s experimental coronavirus vaccine or a placebo in an ongoing late-stage study.

The company said in a presentation to investors that side effects included fatigue, headache, chills and muscle pain. Some participants in the trial also developed fevers – including a few high fevers. The data is blinded, meaning Pfizer does not know which patients received the vaccine or a placebo. Kathrin Jansen, Pfizer’s head of vaccine research and development, stressed that the independent data monitoring committee “has access to unblinded data so they would notify us if they have any safety concerns and have not done so to date.”

The company has enrolled more than 29,000 people in its 44,000-volunteer trial to test the experimental COVID-19 vaccine it is developing with German partner BioNTech. Over 12,000 study participants had received a second dose of the vaccine, Pfizer executives said on an investor conference call.

The comments follow rival AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine trials being put on hold worldwide on Sept. 6 after a serious side effect was reported in a volunteer in Britain.

AstraZeneca’s trials resumed in Britain and Brazil on Monday following the green light from British regulators, but remain on hold in the United States.

Pfizer expects it will likely have results on whether the vaccine works in October. “We do believe – given the very robust immune profile and also the preclinical profile … that vaccine efficacy is likely to be 60% or more,” Pfizer’s Chief Scientific Officer Mikael Dolsten said.

Rushing the COVID-19 Vaccine Could Have Serious and Fatal Side Effects

Jason Silverstein noted that States have been told by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention they should prepare for a coronavirus vaccine by “late October or early November,” according to reports last Wednesday. But an untested coronavirus vaccine may have serious and fatal side effects, could even make the disease worse, and may very well have an effect on the election.

What’s the worst that could happen if we give an untested vaccine to millions of people?

We received a reminder today, when one of the leading large coronavirus vaccine trials by AstraZeneca and Oxford University was paused due to a “suspected serious adverse reaction.” There are eight other potential coronavirus vaccines that have reached Phase 3, which is the phase that enrolls tens of thousands of people and compares how they do with the vaccine against people who only get a placebo. Those eight include China’s CanSino Biologics product that was approved for military use without proper testing back in July, and Russia’s coronavirus vaccine that has been tested in only 76 people.

If the CDC distributes an untested coronavirus vaccine this Fall, it would be the largest drug trial in history—with all of the risks and none of the safeguards.

“Approving a vaccine without testing would be like climbing into a plane that has never been tested,” said Tony Moody, MD, director of the Duke Collaborative Influenza Vaccine Innovation Centers. “It might work, but failure could be catastrophic.”

One concern about this vaccine is that it’s tracking to be an “October surprise.” From Henry Kissinger’s “peace is at hand” speech regarding a ceasefire in Vietnam less than two weeks before the 1972 election to former FBI Director James Comey’s letter that he would reopen the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, October surprises have always had the potential to shift elections. But never before have they had the potential to catastrophically shift the health of an already fragile nation.

If there is an October surprise in the form of an untested coronavirus vaccine, it won’t be the first time that a vaccine was rushed out as a political stunt to increase an incumbent president’s election chances.

What happened with the last vaccine rush?

On March 24, 1976, in response to a swine flu outbreak, President Gerald Ford asked Congress for $135 million for “each and every American to receive an inoculation.”

How badly did the Swine Flu campaign of 1976 go? Well, one of the drug companies made two million doses of the wrong Swine Flu vaccine, vaccines weren’t exactly effective for people under 24, and insurance companies said, no way, they didn’t want to be liable for the science experiment of putting this vaccine into 120 million bodies.

By December, the Swine Flu vaccination program was suspended when people started to develop Guillain-Barré Syndrome, a rare neurological condition whose risk was seven times higher in people who got the vaccine and which paralyzed more than 500 people and killed at least 25.

What else can go wrong when vaccines are rushed

“Vaccines are some of the safest medical products in the world, but there can be serious side effects in some instances that are often only revealed by very large trials,” said Kate Langwig, Ph.D., an infectious disease ecologist at Virginia Tech.

One of the other possible side effects is known as vaccine enhancement, the very rare case when the body makes antibodies in response to a vaccine but the antibodies help a second infection get into cells, something that has been seen in dengue fever. “The vaccine, far from preventing Covid-19, might turn out to make a patient’s disease worse,” said Nir Eyal, D.Phil., a bioethics professor at Rutgers University.

We do not know whether a coronavirus vaccine might cause vaccine enhancement, but we need to. In 1966, a vaccine trial against respiratory syncytial virus, a disease that many infants get, caused more than 80 percent of infants and children who received the vaccine to be hospitalized and killed two.

All of these risks can be prevented, but safety takes patience, something that an American public which has had to bury more than 186,000 is understandably short on and Trump seems to be allergic to.

“To put this into perspective, the typical length of making a vaccine is fifteen to twenty years,” said Paul Offit, MD, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Offit’s laboratory developed a vaccine for rotavirus, a disease that kills infants. That process began in the 1980s and wasn’t completed until 2006. The first scientific papers behind the HPV vaccine, for example, were published in the early 1990’s, but the vaccine wasn’t licensed until 2006.

An untested vaccine may also prove a deadly distraction. “An ineffective vaccine could create a false sense of security and perhaps reduce the emphasis on social distancing, mask wearing, hand hygiene,” said Atul Malhotra, MD, a pulmonologist at the UC San Diego School of Medicine.

Other issues with inadequately tested vaccines

Even worse, an untested vaccine may have consequences far beyond the present pandemic. Even today, one poll shows that only 57% of people would take a coronavirus vaccine. (Some experts argue that we need 55 to 82% to develop herd immunity.)

If we don’t get the vaccine right the first time, there may not be enough public trust for a next time. “Vaccines are a lot like social distancing. They are most effective if we work cooperatively and get a lot of people to take them,” said Langwig. “If we erode the public’s trust through the use of unsafe or ineffective vaccines, we may be less likely to convince people to be vaccinated in the future.”

“You don’t want to scare people off, because vaccines are our way out of this,” said Dr. Offit.

So, how will you be able to see through the fog of the vaccine war and know when a vaccine is safe to take? “Data,” said Dr. Moody, “to see if the vaccine did not cause serious side effects in those who got it, and that those who got the vaccine had a lower rate of disease, hospitalization, death, or any other metric that means it worked. And we really, really want to see that people who got the vaccine did not do worse than those who did not.

And finally, don’t forget to get your Flu vaccine, now!

What would a Biden economy look like, and what will healthcare go from here? Also, When Should We Get Vaccinated for the Flu?

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As I listened to the Democratic convention, I was horrified by the hate against President Trump, and the in general. My wife doesn’t want me to say it, but the average citizen, especially the socially and history ignorant citizens are basically stupid and believes those of the liberal democrats. As an Independent I don’t believe. But I thought that I would skip the updates regarding the Corvid pandemic and consider the economy and healthcare with former Vice President Biden in control. Oh, Horror!

The Week Staff wrote that if you’re wondering what a Biden presidency would mean for the economy, look to Biden’s last financial crisis, said Jeffrey Taylor at Bloomberg. In 2009, as vice president, Biden approached the crisis from a middle-class, Rust Belt viewpoint, aggressively pushing for an auto bailout while championing tighter restrictions on banks and arguing against Wall Street in key debates. While today’s situation is obviously different from the Great Recession, Biden sees “common threads” that could help him pursue an agenda focused on addressing income inequality and promoting public works. His top priority is a massive $3.5 trillion infrastructure, manufacturing, and clean-energy program “that appears likely to grow substantially if he is elected.” He plans to pay for the program by raising the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent and increasing taxes on wealthy real-estate investors. In the wake of the pandemic, Biden has “edged away from the moderate economic approach he advocated last year,” but he is still not likely to “embrace punitive demands from the Left.”

“There is nothing ‘moderate’ about Biden’s tax plan,” said Mark Bloomfield and Oscar Pollock at The Wall Street Journal. For taxpayers with income above $1 million, Biden wants to tax capital gains as ordinary income. Combined with an upper-income tax increase, that would make top capital gains tax surge from the current 20 percent to 43 percent, exceeding the rate in “every one of the 10 largest economies.” We are not going to compete with China by adopting “tax policies that discourage those who are best able to invest, take risks, and start companies.”

Certain industries are sure to be in Biden’s crosshairs, said Anne Sraders at Fortune. “Trump’s fight to lower drug prices will likely be carried on,” meaning “potential headwinds for Big Pharma.” And energy and “environment-sensitive industries” such as oil and gas production could underperform under a Democratic administration. But the naming of Kamala Harris as his vice-presidential nominee “might actually be good for Big Tech” because of her ties to Silicon Valley. For the first time in a decade, Wall Street donors are actually giving more to Democrats than to Republicans, said Jim Zarroli at NPR. Trump “still has friends in finance,” but many investors have “soured on his management style,” which makes it hard for them to make long-term plans.

Whatever the outcome, investors are starting to worry about “stock-market mayhem” surrounding the November election, said Gunjan Banerji and Gregory Zuckerman at The Wall Street Journal. “Markets tend to be volatile ahead of elections,” but pessimism about what might unfold appears “even more intense this time around.” One adviser is urging clients to insure themselves against losses by buying options that will profit if the S&P 500 index plunges more than 25 percent through December; other firms are telling clients to bet on gold. The behind-the-scenes anxiety is unfolding even as markets hit a record high. “October and November tend to be the wildest months of the year” in any case, and market uncertainty could skyrocket if in the days after the election there is no clear winner.

Here’s Where Joe Biden Stands on Every Major Healthcare Issue

Lulu Chang reviewed Biden’s stand on healthcare. The stage is set, the players have been finalized, and the countdown has begun in earnest. In less than three months, voters across the United States will head to the polls (or mail in their ballots) to elect their president.

The Democrats recently finalized their ticket, making history with the inclusion of Kamala Harris as Joe Biden’s vice-presidential pick, making her the first African American and Asian woman to appear on a major party ticket. Over the course of the next several weeks, the Biden and Harris team will make clear their platforms and policy suggestions to win over voters. I’ll discuss Harris’s stand on health in the next section of this post. And of course, in the face of a global pandemic, high on the list of priorities for many Americans is the Democratic nominee’s position on healthcare.

We’ve put together a list of where Joe Biden stands on every major health issue to help you make a more informed decision as you mail in your ballot or head to the polls in a few short months.

Medicare

No Medicare for All
Lower age to 60 (currently 65)
Add a public option

Biden supports making Medicare, the federal health insurance program for folks older than 65 and certain younger Americans with disabilities, more readily accessible to a greater swath of the population. He does not, however, support Medicare for All, which would offer complete health care to all Americans regardless of age without out-of-pocket expenses. Instead, Biden advocates for lowering the eligibility age for Medicare to 60, which would certainly expand the program’s reach.

In addition, Biden wants to add a public option to American healthcare, which was discussed during the writing of the Affordable Care Act, but ultimately passed over. A public option would allow folks to select into government-run insurance—like Medicare—instead of a private insurance plan. This too would allow a greater proportion of the population to access government-run healthcare options. As Biden explains on his campaign website, “If your insurance company isn’t doing right by you, you should have another, better choice…The Biden Plan will give you the choice to purchase a public health insurance option like Medicare. As in Medicare, the Biden public option will reduce costs for patients by negotiating lower prices from hospitals and other health care providers.”

Undocumented Immigrants

Allow undocumented immigrants to buy into a public option

The Biden Plan emphasizes the importance of providing affordable healthcare to all Americans, “regardless of gender, race, income, sexual orientation, or zip code.” But it is not only Americans who Biden seeks to cover under his policies—rather, his plan would allow undocumented immigrants to purchase the public option, though it would not be subsidized.

Affordable Care Act

Strengthen the ACA
Increase subsidies
Bring back the individual mandate

The Affordable Care Act was passed under the Obama administration, so it comes as little surprise that Biden wants to bring back many of the provisions from the bill that were dismantled under the Trump administration. As he notes in his official platform, Biden seeks to “stop [the] reversal of the progress made by Obamacare…[and will] build on the Affordable Care Act with a plan to insure more than an estimated 97% of Americans.”

This would involve increasing tax credits in order to reduce premiums and offer coverage to a greater swath of Americans. In particular, Biden wants to do away with the 400% income cap on tax credit eligibility, and lower the limit on cost of coverage from today’s 9.86% to 8.5%. In effect, that means that no one purchasing insurance would have to spend any more than 8.5% of their income on health insurance.

Biden would also bring back the individual mandate, which is a penalty for not having health insurance. Trump eliminated this element of the Affordable Care Act in 2017, but Biden claims that the mandate would be popular “compared to what’s being offered.”

Are you kidding? Remember the burden on our healthy young newly employed or new business owners!

Prescriptions

Lower prescription drug pricing

The prices of prescription drugs have skyrocketed in recent years, making big pharma companies a common target among presidential candidates. Biden promises to “stand up to abuse of power by prescription drug corporations,” condemning “profiteering off of the pocketbooks of sick individuals.”

The Biden Plan includes a repeal of the exception that allows pharmaceutical companies to avoid negotiations with Medicare over drug prices. Today, nearly 20% of Medicare’s spending is allocated toward prescription drugs; lowering this proportion could save an estimated $14.4 billion in medication costs alone.

Furthermore, Biden would limit the prices of drugs that do not have competitors by implementing external reference pricing. This would involve the creation of an independent review board tasked with evaluating the value of a drug based on the average price in other countries. Biden would also limit drug price increases due to inflation, and allow Americans to buy imported medications from other countries (provided these medications are proven to be safe). Finally, Biden would eliminate drug companies’ advertising tax breaks in an attempt to further lower costs.

Abortion

Expand access to contraception
Protect a woman’s right to choose

Joe Biden has been infamously inconsistent in his position on abortion; decades ago, Biden supposed a constitutional amendment allowing states to reverse Roe v. Wade. As a senator, Biden voted to ban certain late-term abortions as recently as 2003. But his official position as the Democratic nominee is to protect a woman’s right to an abortion, and increase access to birth control across the spectrum.

Under the Biden Plan, the proposed public option would “cover contraception and a woman’s constitutional right to choose.” Biden would seek to “codify Roe v. Wade” and put an end to state laws that hamper access to abortion procedures, including parental notification requirements, mandatory waiting periods, and ultrasound requirements.

Biden would also restore federal funding for Planned Parenthood, reissuing “guidance specifying that states cannot refuse Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood and other providers that refer for abortions or provide related information.”

Surprise Billing

Stop surprise billing

Surprise billing, as the name suggests, allows healthcare providers to send patients unexpected out-of-network bills, often in large sums. Biden’s plan would prevent this practice in scenarios where a patient cannot decide what provider he or she uses (as is often the case in emergency situations or ambulance transport). While ending surprise billing could save Americans some $40 billion annually, it is not entirely clear how Biden would end surprise billing.

The plan suggests that Biden would address “market concentration across our health care system” by “aggressively” using the government’s antitrust authority. By promoting competition, Biden hopes to reduce prices for consumers, and more importantly, improve health outcomes. Next is Kamala’s stand on healthcare.

Kamala Harris’ Stance on Healthcare Is Pretty Different from Biden’s

Katherine Igoe noted that healthcare is also an issue that sees a lot of variety across Democratic candidates, ranging from a single-payer healthcare system (meaning that all health insurance is covered through the government, and everyone is covered) to a more hybrid approach that doesn’t exclude private healthcare companies (half of the American population is currently enrolled in private plans).

At least according to her stance in the past, Harris favors the latter, hybrid approach—and it’s quite different from what Biden has proposed. What is her take, and how may her stance have shifted?

As a presidential candidate, Harris proposed Medicare for All.

The issue is personal for Harris. Citing her mother’s terminal cancer diagnosis, she’s said that her interest in improving coverage comes from that relationship: “She got sick before the Affordable Care Act became law, back when it was still legal for health insurance companies to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions. I remember thanking God she had Medicare…As I continue the battle for a better health care system, I do so in her name.”

The details can vary, but the basics of Medicare for All would be to vastly expand the government’s role to include everyone’s healthcare needs. By making Medicare more robust, the program would work to reduce costs for the insured, increase coverage to include those who were previously excluded, and expand upon existing plans in an effort to allow people to keep their existing doctors. But unlike other, more extreme proposals, Harris’ plan would subsequently allow private insurers to participate—in a similar way to the current framework of Medicare Advantage. “Essentially, we would allow private insurance to offer a plan in the Medicare system, but they will be subject to strict requirements to ensure it lowers costs and expands services,” she explained.

The candidates’ stances have had to incorporate what governmental influence would do to the private market, and Harris didn’t favor a plan that would abolish private insurance. She had initially expressed support for something along that lines, but then changed that stance; her perspective on the subject has evolved. She’s also proposed a decade-long “phase-in” period for this new Medicare plan to be put in place.

When they were both presidential candidates, Biden and Harris clashed over healthcare—she said his plan would leave Americans without coverage, he dismissed her plan as nonsensical.

Biden’s take on healthcare is vastly different.

Biden worked with President Obama on the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and thus his plans for healthcare would be to expand upon and further develop the ACA, while protecting it from current attacks. People could choose a public plan (i.e., they wouldn’t be mandated to join Medicare) and the government would provide tax benefits. “It would also cap every American’s health-care premiums at 8.5 percent of their income and effectively lower deductibles and co-payments. Biden recently said he also wants to lower the Medicare enrollment age by five years, to 60.”

The plan would separately take on exorbitant pharmaceutical pricing, which is another hot-button issue that hasn’t had any resolution. Multiple bills have been debated in Congress but the House’s recently passed bill is heavily opposed by Republicans.

Harris wasn’t the only one to criticize Biden on his plan, which may still exclude many from coverage. But now that the two are running mates, they may need to come up with a cohesive strategy that incorporates both of their stances (or, Harris may have to adopt a more moderate approach).

Harris has proposed several healthcare solutions for COVID-19.

Harris has been active in proposing economic relief towards individuals, families, and businesses during the pandemic, and healthcare is no exception. She’s proposed the COVID-19 Racial and Ethnic Disparities Task Force Act, which (among other things) would be designed to address barriers to equitable health care and medical coverage. This is one of the area’s in which she’s pledged to act towards racial justice—and it may be another area in which her stance impacts the Biden-Harris platform.

It’s crucial to get a flu shot this year amid the coronavirus pandemic, doctors say

I just received my yearly flu vaccination this past Wednesday and I have been advising all my patients to get their flu shots now! Adrianna Rodriquez that the message to vaccinate is not lost on Americans calling their doctors and pharmacists to schedule a flu shot appointment before the start of the 2020-2021 season.

Experts said it’s crucial to get vaccinated this year because the coronavirus pandemic has overwhelmed hospitals in parts of the country and taken the lives of more than 176,000 people in the USA, according to Johns Hopkins data.

It’s hard to know how COVID-19 will mix with flu season: Will mask wearing and social distancing contain flu transmission as it’s meant to do with SARS-CoV-2? Or will both viruses ransack the nation as some schools reopen for in-person learning?

“This fall, nothing can be more important than to try to increase the American public’s decision to embrace the flu vaccine with confidence,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield told the editor of JAMA on Thursday. “This is a critical year for us to try to take flu as much off the table as we can.”

Here’s what doctors say you should know about the flu vaccine as we approach this year’s season:

Who should get the vaccine?

The CDC recommends everyone 6 months and older get a flu vaccine every year. State officials announced Wednesday the flu vaccine is required for all Massachusetts students enrolled in child care, preschool, K-12 and post-secondary institutions.

“It is more important now than ever to get a flu vaccine because flu symptoms are very similar to those of COVID-19, and preventing the flu will save lives and preserve health care resources,” said Dr. Lawrence Madoff, medical director of the Bureau of Infectious Disease and Laboratory Sciences at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

When should I get my flu shot?

Dr. Susan Rehm, vice chair at the Cleveland Clinic’s Department of Infectious Diseases, said patients should get the influenza vaccine as soon as possible.

CVS stores have the flu vaccine in stock, and it became available Monday at Walgreens.

“I plan to get my flu shot as soon as the vaccines are available,” Rehm said. “My understanding is that they should be available in late August, early September nationwide.”

Other doctors recommend that patients get their flu shot in late September or early October, so protection can last throughout the flu season, which typically ends around March or April. The vaccine lasts about six months.

The CDC recommends people get a flu vaccine no later than the end of October – because it takes a few weeks for the vaccine to become fully protective – but encourages people to get vaccinated later rather than not at all.

Healthy people can get their flu vaccine as soon as it’s available, but experts recommend older people and those who are immunocompromised wait until mid-fall to get their shots, so they last throughout the flu season.

What is the high-dose flu shot for seniors?

People over 65 should get Fluzone High-Dose, or FLUAD, because it provides better protection against flu viruses.

Fluzone High-Dose contains four times the antigen that’s in a standard dose, effectively making it a stronger version of the regular flu shot. FLUAD pairs the regular vaccine with an adjuvant, an immune stimulant, to cause the immune system to have a higher response to the vaccine.

Research indicates that such high-dose flu vaccines have improved a patient’s protection against the flu. A peer-reviewed study published in The New England Journal of Medicine and sponsored by Sanofi, the company behind Fluzone High-Dose, found the high-dose vaccine is about 24% more effective than the standard shot in preventing the flu.

An observational study in 2013 found FLUAD is 51% effective in preventing flu-related hospitalizations for patients 65 and older. There are no studies that do a comparative analysis between the two vaccines.

Is the flu vaccine safe?

According to the CDC, hundreds of millions of Americans have safely received flu vaccine over the past 50 years. Common side effects for the vaccine include soreness at the injection spot, headache, fever, nausea and muscle aches.

Dr. William Schaffner, professor of infectious diseases at the Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, emphasized that these symptoms are not the flu because the vaccine cannot cause influenza.

“That’s just your body working on the vaccine and your immune response responding to the vaccine,” he said. “That’s a small price to pay to keep you out of the emergency room. Believe me.”

Some studies have found a small association of the flu vaccine with Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), but Len Horovitz, a pulmonary specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said there’s a one in a million chance of that happening.

Not only is the flu vaccine safe, but the pharmacies, doctors offices and hospitals administering it are also safe.

Horovitz and Schaffner said hospitals take all the necessary precautions to make sure patients are protected against COVID-19. Some hospitals send staff out to patients’ cars for inoculation while others allow them to bypass the waiting room. Doctors offices require masks and social distancing, and they are routinely disinfected.

“Call your health care provider to make sure you can get in and out quickly,” Schaffner advised. “It’s safe to get the flu vaccine and very important.”

Will it help prevent COVID-19?

Experts speculate any vaccine could hypothetically provide some protection against a virus, but there’s little data that suggests the flu vaccine can protect against the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19.

“We don’t want to confuse people of that … because there’s simply no data,” Schaffner said. “Flu vaccine prevents flu; we’re working on a coronavirus vaccine. They’re separate.”

A study in 2018 found that the flu vaccine reduces the risk of being admitted to an ICU with flu by 82%, according to the CDC.

“People perhaps forget that influenza is something that we see every year,” Rehm said. “Tens of thousands of people die of influenza ever year, including people who are very healthy, and hundreds of thousands of people are hospitalized every year.”

Doctors said it will be even more hectic this year because some flu and COVID-19 symptoms overlap, delaying diagnosis and possibly care.

What can we expect from this year’s flu season and vaccine?

“Even before COVID, what we say about the flu is that it’s predictably unpredictable,” Rehm said. “There are some years that it’s a light year and some years that it’s horrible.”

Flu experts said they sometimes look at Australia’s flu season to get a sense of the strain and how it spreads, because winter in the Southern Hemisphere started a few months ago.

According to the country’s Department of Health surveillance report, influenza has virtually disappeared: only 85 cases in the last two weeks of June, compared with more than 20,000 confirmed cases that time last year.

“Australia has had a modest season, but they were very good at implementing COVID containment measures, and of course, we’re not,” Schaffner said. “So we’re anticipating that we’re going to have a flu season that’s substantial.”

The CDC said two types of vaccines are available for the 2020-2021 season: the trivalent and quadrivalent. Trivalents contain two flu A strains and one flu B strain and are available only as high-dose vaccines. Quadrivalents contain those three strains plus an additional flu B strain, and they can be high- or standard-dose vaccines. I made sure that I received the quadrivalent vaccine.

Though some doctors may have both vaccines, others may have only one, depending on their supply chain. Natasha Bhuyan, a practicing family physician in Phoenix, said people should get whatever vaccine is available.

“Vaccines are a selfless act. They’re protecting yourself and your friends through herd immunity,” she said. “Any vaccine that you can get access to, you can get.”

Horovitz said vaccine production and distribution have been on schedule, despite international focus on coronavirus vaccine development. He has received his shipment to the hospital and plans to administer the vaccine with four strains closer to the start of the season.

“I don’t think anything suffered because something else was being developed,” he said. “(The flu vaccine) has been pretty well established for the last 20 to 30 years.”

Producers boosted supplies of the flu vaccine to meet what they expect will be higher demand. Vaccine maker Sanofi announced Monday that it will produce 15% more vaccine than in a normal year.

Redfield told JAMA the CDC arranged for an additional 9.3 million doses of low-cost flu vaccine for uninsured adults, up from 500,000. The agency expanded plans to reach out to minority communities.

What about the nasal spray instead of the shot?

After the swine flu pandemic in 2009, several studies showed the nasal spray flu vaccine was less effective against H1N1 viruses, leading the CDC and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to advise against it.

Since the 2017-2018 season, the advisory committee and the CDC voted to resume the recommendation for its use after the manufacturer used new H1N1 vaccine viruses in production.

Though agencies and advisory committees don’t recommend one vaccine over the other, some pediatricians argue the nasal spray is easier to administer to children than a shot.

Other doctors prefer the flu shot because some of the nasal spray side effects mimic respiratory symptoms, including wheezing, coughing and a runny nose, according to the CDC. Horovitz said anything that presents cold symptoms should probably be avoided, especially among children who are vectors of respiratory diseases.

“Giving them something that gives them cold (symptoms) for two or three days may expel more virus if they’re asymptomatic with COVID,” he said.

So, get vaccinated!!

What the Trump budget says about the administration’s health priorities; The Dems and Bloomberg and More on the Corona Virus

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As Michael Bloomberg continues to attempt to buy the Primaries and the Elections let us look at Trump’s new budget and its effect on health care. University of Pennsylvania Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Simon F. Haeder reported that the Trump administration recently released its budget blueprint for the 2021 fiscal year, the first steps in the complex budgetary process.

The final budget will reflect the input of Congress, including the Democratic House of Representatives, and will look significantly different.

However, budget drafts by presidential administrations are not meaningless pages of paper. They are important policy documents highlighting goals, priorities and visions for the future of the country.

As a health care expert, I find the vision brought forward by the Trump administration deeply concerning. Cuts to virtually all important health-related programs bode ill for nations future. To make things worse, ancillary programs that are crucial for good health are also on the chopping block. To be sure, most of the proposed damage will find it hard to pass muster with Congress. Yet given the nation’s ever-growing debt Congress may soon be amenable to rolling back the nation’s health safety net.

Rolling back the ACA and the safety net

To no one’s surprise, some of the biggest cuts in the proposed budget focus on health care programs. The budget document uses a number of terms to disguise its true intentions. Yet a closer look indicates that terms like “rightsizing government,” “advancing the President’s health reform vision,” “modernizing Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program,” and “reforming welfare programs” all come down to the same end result: cuts to the safety net.

One of the main targets remains the Affordable Care Act, or ACA. In 2017, after several failed attempts to repeal and replace the ACA, the Trump administration has scaled back its open hostility. Instead of asking directly to repeal the ACA, this year’s budget proposal calls for initiatives to “advance the president’s health reform vision,” by cutting more than half a trillion dollars from the budget.

These initiatives come on top of actions the Trump administration has already taken to roll back the Affordable Care Act, including the repeal of the individual mandate penalty, severely limiting outreach and enrollment efforts, and creating a parallel insurance market by expanding the roles of short-term, limited duration and association health plans.

The Trump administration has also targeted Medicaid, the nation’s largest safety net program serving mostly low-income Americans, pregnant women, children, the disabled and those in need of long-term care, as well as its cousin, the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Overall “modernization” for these two programs alone would entail cuts of almost US$200 billion.

Medicare, the program serving America’s seniors, technically would not undergo significant restructuring. However, “streamlining” and “eliminating waste” would reduce the program by more than half a trillion dollars or 6%. All put together, cuts to the ACA, Medicaid and Medicare will exceed a trillion dollars over a decade. Coverage losses, mostly affecting lower-income Americans, would range in the millions of dollars.

Health is more than just medical care

In the U.S, we often equate health with access to medical care. However, researchers have long recognized that medical care contributes only about 10% to 20% to the health of individuals.

One crucial component of good health is access to education. However, the Trump budget includes cuts of more than $300 billion across the entire education spectrum from Head Start to grants that support college education. This just doesn’t make any sense!

Access to food and nutrition also plays a major role in maintaining good health. However, two programs providing important food security to millions of Americans would face significant cuts. For one, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which supplements food budgets for 34 million Americans with an annual budget of $58 billion, is slated for $22 billion in cuts over a decade. There are also cuts exceeding $2 billion over a decade to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), which reaches more than 6 million Americans with an annual budget of $6.4 billion.

Cuts to nutritional benefits would be further compounded by a 15.2% reduction to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The department provides a range of housing assistance programs to needy individuals. Moreover, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program which provides cash benefits to needy families, faces 10% in cuts. Again, this doesn’t make any sense!

A healthy environment and access to clean air and water unquestionably are crucial to living a healthy life. However, the proposed budget would trim spending on the agency tasked with protecting the nation’s environment, the Environmental Protection Agency, by more than 40%, or $36 billion.

A myriad of public health crises has been slowly but steadily harming communities all across the country. Much of the attention has been garnered by the devastating opioid crisis. More recently, the coronavirus and the seasonal flu epidemic have caught the headlines. Yet, there are countless other epidemics harming communities around the country including syphilis, hepatitis C and gonorrhea. Yet the nation’s major public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control, would see its budget decline by 9%.

The Trump administration is also proposing to significantly reduce funding for health-related research programs. One target is the National Science Foundation, which would see a reduction by 6.5%. Moreover, the National Institutes of Health, the nation’s premier medical research agency, is set for 7.2% in cuts. Both agencies play crucial roles in positioning the nation to tackle current and future health challenges. Do any of these budget cuts make any sense?

A blueprint for the future?

Since the Kennedy administration, taxes have generally been cut and only rarely increased. Particularly large tax cuts under the George W. Bush administration, without commensurate budget cuts, have created a systemic imbalance in the federal budget. This imbalance was further exacerbated by the recent tax cuts under the Trump administration.

So far, we have been able to stall the eventual reckoning because of strong economic growth and our ability to borrow heavily. Eventually, it seems inevitable that this massive imbalance will catch up with us.

Faced with the choice to either raise taxes or cut programs, Congress may choose the latter. With defense spending largely untouchable, health programs and other social support systems will likely bear the brunt.

Democrats Get Personal on Healthcare

Shannon Firth reported that the Democratic presidential candidates engaged in one of the most brutal and bruising fights to date, attacking each other’s integrity and physical fitness while still reserving time to tear into each other’s healthcare plans.

The debate took place in Las Vegas, with caucuses in Nevada only a few days away, and was broadcast by NBC/MSNBC.

Ahead of the debate, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, was leading nearly every poll according to RealClearPolitics.

In addition to Sanders, participants included former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, former Vice President Joe Biden, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.

Sanders’ health came under scrutiny in the wake of his October 2019 heart attack and stent placements.

When asked whether he would offer voters “full transparency” around his medical records, he was quick to point out that Bloomberg also has two stents. Sanders then said he had released the “full report” of his heart attack and decades of records from the attending physicians on Capitol Hill. (Last month, though, cardiologist Anthony Pearson, MD, noted that the recent report didn’t include Sanders’ left ventricular ejection fraction, a key indicator of cardiac function.)

In addition, two “leading Vermont cardiologists” had also released reports stating that he is “more than able to deal with the stress and the vigor of being president of the United States,” Sanders said, challenging anyone who doubts his stamina to “follow me around the campaign trail.”

Buttigieg quipped that Sanders was in “fighting shape,” but continued to stress the need for transparency.

When President Obama was in office the standard, he was to release “the read out” after a physical. While President Trump lowered that bar, Buttigieg said it should be raised.

“I am certainly prepared to get a physical, put out the results,” he said, “and I think everybody here should be willing to do the same.”

‘A PowerPoint,’ a ‘Post-It,’ and a ‘Good Start’

When it came to healthcare reform plans, Warren took aim at each of the other candidates.

Buttigieg has a “slogan” dreamed up by consultants, she said. “It’s not a plan, it’s a PowerPoint,” referring to Buttigieg’s “Medicare for All Who Want It.”

Buttigieg’s plan, which includes a public option, would initially preserve the role of private insurers, but later serve as a “glide path to Medicare for All.”

She likened Klobuchar’s plan, which also involves a public option, to a “a Post-It Note, ‘Insert plan here,'” then she took aim at Sanders’ more comprehensive plan. Although she had endorsed it in the first debate, this time she called it merely “a good start” that leaves gaping holes in how it would be implemented.

As candidate’s hands shot, with each rebuke, signaling a request to defend themselves, Warren shared her own vision for healthcare reform.

“[W]e need as much help for as many people as quickly as possible and bring in as many supporters as we can. And if we don’t get it all the first time,” presumably here she’s referring to a complete transition to a single-payer system, “… take the win and come back into the fight and ask for more,” Warren said.

Medicare for All has been a particular point of contention in Nevada, where the powerful Culinary Workers Union has been vocal in opposing any plan that takes away its members’ negotiated healthcare coverage. (The union declined to endorse any candidates in the state’s caucuses.) Asked about it in Wednesday’s debate, Sanders said, “I will never sign a bill that will reduce the healthcare benefits that they have, we will only expand it for them, for every union in America and for the working class of this country.”

Buttigieg, however, suggested that Sanders hadn’t been listening. “This idea that the union members don’t know what’s good for them is the exact kind of condescension and arrogance that makes people skeptical of the policies we’ve been putting forward.”

At another point, Biden took a shot at Bloomberg for having attacked the Affordable Care Act during a 2010 speech.

Bloomberg countered that he was in fact “a fan” of the landmark law. “I was in favor of it, I thought it didn’t… go as far as we should,” he said.

Now, his position is that Obamacare should be preserved and strengthened. “We shouldn’t just walk away and start something that is totally new, untried. People depend on this,” he said. One of his first moves as president would be to “bring back those things” that President Trump eliminated.

Other features of Bloomberg’s plan include a public option, caps on healthcare prices, and elimination of “surprise medical bills.” The overall goal is to achieve universal coverage while preserving private insurance.

Bloomberg To Grieving Family: Elderly Cancer Patients Are Too Expensive

Peter Hasson of the National Interest reported that Billionaire and Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg said in a 2011 video that elderly cancer patients should be denied treatment in order to cut health care costs.

“All of these costs keep going up, nobody wants to pay any more money, and at the rate we’re going, health care is going to bankrupt us,” said Bloomberg, who was then New York City’s mayor.

“We’ve got to sit here and say which things we’re going to do, and which things we’re not, nobody wants to do that. Y’know, if you show up with prostate cancer, you’re 95 years old, we should say, ‘Go and enjoy. Have a nice [inaudible]. Live a long life. There’s no cure, and we can’t do anything.’ If you’re a young person, we should do something about it,” Bloomberg said in the video.

“Society’s not ready to do that yet,” he added.

Bloomberg made the comments while visiting a grieving family whose brother had died after reportedly waiting 73 hours in an emergency room.

His presidential campaign didn’t return a request for comment.

The New York billionaire has faced increased scrutiny over past statements as he has continued to rise in Democratic primary polls.

Fake Facts Are Flying About Coronavirus. Now There’s A Plan to Debunk Them

We have been hearing all sorts of information regarding the Corona Virus and I thought that I would share some of the Fake Facts and some of the truths. Malaka Gharib reported that the coronavirus outbreak has sparked what the World Health Organization is calling an “infodemic” — an overwhelming amount of information on social media and websites. Some of it’s accurate. And some is downright untrue.

The false statements range from a conspiracy theory that the virus is a man-made bioweapon to the claim that more than 100,000 have died from the disease (as of this week, the number of reported fatalities is reported at 2,200-plus).

WHO is fighting back? In early January, a few weeks after China reported the first cases, the U.N. agency launched a pilot program to make sure the facts about the newly identified virus are communicated to the public. The project is called EPI-WIN — short for WHO Information Network for Epidemics.

“We need a vaccine against misinformation,” said Dr. Mike Ryan, head of WHO’s health emergencies program, at a WHO briefing on the virus earlier this month.

The Coronavirus Outbreak
What you should know

Where the virus has spread
Coronavirus 101
Coronavirus FAQs

While this is not the first health crisis that has been characterized by online misinformation — it happened with Ebola, for example — researchers are especially concerned because this outbreak is centered in China. The world’s most populous country has the largest market of Internet users globally: 21% of the world’s 3.8 billion Internet users are in China.

And fake news can spread quickly online. A 2018 study from Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that “false news spreads more rapidly on the social network Twitter than real news does.” The reason, say the researchers, may be that the untrue statements inspire strong feelings such as fear, disgust and surprise.

This dynamic could cause fake coronavirus cures and treatments to fan out widely on social media — and as a result, worsen the impact of the outbreak, says Bhaskar Chakravorti, dean of global business at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. Over the past decade, he has been tracking the effect of digital technology on issues such as global health and economic development.

The rumors offer remedies that have no basis in science. One untrue statement suggests that rubbing sesame oil on the skin will block the coronavirus.

If segments of the public turn to false treatments rather than follow the advice of trusted sources for avoiding illness (like frequent hand-washing with soap and water), it could cause “the disease to travel further and faster than it ordinarily would have,” says Chakravorti.

There could be a political agenda behind the fake coronavirus news as well. Countries that are antagonistic toward China could try to hijack the conversation in hopes of creating chaos and eroding trust in the authorities, says Dr. Margaret Bourdeaux, research director for Harvard Belfer Center’s Security and Global Health Project.

“Disinformation that specifically targets your health system or your leaders who are trying to manage an emergency is a way of destroying, undermining, disrupting your health system,” she says.

In the instance of vaccines, Russian bots have been identified as fueling skepticism about the effectiveness of vaccination for childhood diseases in the U.S.

The World Health Organization’s EPI-WIN team believes that the countermeasure for misinformation and disinformation is simply to tell the truth.

It works rapidly to debunk unjustified medical claims on social media. In a series of bright blue graphics posted on Instagram, EPI-WIN states categorically that neither sesame oil nor breathing in the smoke of fire or fireworks will kill the new coronavirus.

Part of this truth-telling strategy involves enlisting large-scale employers.

The approach, says Melinda Frost, an officer on the EPI-WIN team, is based on the idea that employers are the most trusted institution in society, a finding reflected in a 2020 study on global trust from the public relations firm Edelman: “People tend to trust their employers more than they trust several other sources of information.”

Over the past few weeks, Frost and her team have been organizing rounds of conference calls with representatives from Fortune 500 companies and other multinational corporations in sectors such as health, travel and tourism, food and agriculture, and business.

The company representatives share questions that their employees might have about the coronavirus outbreak — for example, is it safe to go to conferences? The EPI-WIN team gathers the frequently asked questions, has their experts answer them within a few days, and then sends the responses back to the companies to distribute in internal newsletters and other communication.

Because the information is coming from their employer, says Frost, the hope is that people will be more likely to believe what they hear and pass the information on to their family and community.

Bourdeaux at Harvard calls this approach a “smart move.”

It borrows from “advertising techniques from the 1950s,” she adds. “They’re establishing the narrative before anybody else can. They are going on offense, saying, ‘Here are the facts.’ “

WHO is also collaborating with tech giants like Google, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and TikTok to limit the spread of harmful rumors? It’s pursuing a similar tactic with Chinese digital companies such as Baidu, Tencent and Weibo.

“We are asking them to filter out false information and promote accurate information from credible sources like WHO, CDC [the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and others. And we thank them for their efforts so far,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO, in a briefing earlier this month.

Google and Twitter, for example, now actively bump up credible sources such as WHO and the CDC in search results for the term “coronavirus.” And Facebook has deployed fact-checkers to remove content with false claims or conspiracy theories about the outbreak. Kang-Xing Jin, head of health at Facebook, wrote in a statement about one such rumor that it has eliminated from its platform: that drinking bleach cures coronavirus.

Chakravorti applauds WHO’s coordination with the digital companies — but says he’s particularly impressed with Facebook’s efforts. “This is a radical departure from Facebook’s past record, including its controversial insistence on permitting false political ads,” he wrote in an op-ed in Bloomberg News.

[Facebook and Twitter did not respond to requests from NPR for comments. Facebook is one of NPR’s financial sponsors.]

Still, there is no silver bullet to fighting health misinformation. It has become “very, very difficult to fight effectively,” says Chakravorti of Tufts University.

A post making a false claim about coronavirus can just “jump platforms,” he says. “So you might have Facebook taking down a post, but then the post finds its way on Twitter, then it jumps from Twitter to YouTube.”

In addition to efforts by WHO and other organizations, individuals are doing their part.

On Wednesday, The Lancet published a statement from 27 public health scientists addressing rumors that the coronavirus had been engineered in a Wuhan lab: “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin …. Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumors and prejudice that jeopardize our global collaboration in the fight against this virus.”

Dr. Deliang Tang, a molecular epidemiologist at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, says his friends from medical school and his research colleagues in China find it difficult to trust Chinese health authorities, especially after police reprimanded the eight Chinese doctors who warned others about a pneumonialike disease in December.

As a result, Tang’s network in China has been looking to him and others in the scientific community to share information.

Since the outbreak began, Tang says he has been answering “30 to 50 questions a night.” Many want to fact-check rumors or learn about clinical trials for a potential cure.

“My real work starts at 7 p.m.,” he says — morning in China.

And the latest news on the Corona virus: Coronavirus update: 80,238 cases, 2,700 deaths; CDC warns Americans to prepare for disruption

And: Harvard scientist predicts coronavirus will infect up to 70 percent of humanity

More Patients Insured in U.S. and More Can’t Afford Doctors but May-be Americans Don’t Really Want Medicare for All — They Want Japa-nese Health Care and the American College of Physicians

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As the Democrat presidential candidates argue about Medicare for All as well as alternate programs I still wonder if Americans really know what they want for a health care plan at all. Rapport of Reuters Health noted that A growing number of Americans find it too expensive to see doctors even though more people have health insurance, a U.S. study suggests. But just wait Bernie Sanders is going to give us all free health care, free education, free everything, which the big businesses will pay for. Really?

Over the past two decades, the proportion of adults without insurance dropped to 14.8% from 16.9%, the study found. But during this same period, the proportion of adults unable to afford doctor visits climbed from 11.4% to 15.7%.

Out-of-pocket costs made doctors too expensive for the uninsured, but costs also kept people with coverage from seeing physicians even when they had chronic medical conditions requiring regular checkups.

“The quality of private health insurance is getting worse, and the cost of healthcare is rising significantly,” said lead study author Dr. Laura Hawks of the Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School in Boston.

“We know that private health insurance plans increasing rely on high premiums, high-deductible health plans . . . high copays and other forms of cost-sharing,” Hawks said by email. “All these create financial barriers.”

For the study, researchers examined survey data collected from 1998 to 2017 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They wanted to see how access to care changed after the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was implemented 2014.

The proportion of adults 18 to 64 years old who couldn’t afford to see a doctor climbed slowly from 1998 to 2009, then rose more rapidly for several years before improving with the passage of the ACA, researchers report in JAMA Internal Medicine. But even after the ACA took effect, the proportion of adults able to afford checkups never returned to 1998 levels.

Affordability worsened across all racial and ethnic groups, and nearly all income groups, the study found.

Among the uninsured, the proportion of adults unable to afford physician visits climbed from 32.9% to 39.6% during the two-decade study period.

For people with health benefits, the proportion unable to pay for doctor visits rose from 7.1% to 11.5%.

The inability to see a doctor because of costs rose for people with many common chronic health problems including heart disease, high cholesterol and alcohol use disorders.

The study didn’t look at how shifts in the affordability of physician checkups might directly affect health outcomes.

One limitation of the analysis is that researchers lacked data on the affordability of prescription medications, which can also impact health as well as how often people need to see doctors.

“We knew that uninsured adults are much more likely than insured adults to avoid seeing a doctor due to cost, and uninsured adults with chronic conditions such as diabetes or heart disease are much less likely to get regular check-ups,” said Dr. John Ayanian, director of the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study.

Still, the results underscore that the ACA hasn’t insured everyone who needs coverage or made care affordable for all Americans, Ayanian said by email.

This means patients who struggle to pay for checkups need to ask for help.

“For people with chronic conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, or heart disease who have difficulty affording their ongoing care, I recommend they speak to their doctor and pharmacist about ways to save costs, including reduced fees for office visits or switching to less expensive generic medications,” Ayanian said. “Community health centers or hospital clinics may also have special programs to provide care for free or reduced fees for lower-income patients who are uninsured or who have high levels of medical debt.”

Japan provides a model for Americans who want a system that covers everyone with no mandate and no new middle-class taxes

Jon Wallker noted that Bernie Sanders has made a habit of pointing out how much less other countries pay for health care. Throughout the Democratic debates, the Vermont senator repeatedly claimed that the United States is “spending twice as much per capita on health care as any other nation.”

Sanders of course doesn’t mention that his plan wouldn’t come anywhere close to cutting our health care spending in half — doing so would require bringing salaries for doctors and hospital workers down to international norms. His omission is no surprise: Too often, American politicians rely on superficial comparisons with other nations to promote their health care agendas. Moderate Democrats often claim Obamacare should resemble the Swiss health care system, though in reality Obamacare lacked all the regulations that make that system function. Conservatives frequently try to scare people by pointing to highly selective stories of wait times in Canada or Britain, while ignoring the infinite wait time caused by not being able to afford care here.

If we look honestly at all the health care systems in the world to find the one which most closely aligns with voters’ desires, we would probably end up with the Japanese model. It is not the system anyone would design from scratch. It is a relatively complex system that evolved over decades to fit the needs, changing dynamics, and political trade-offs of the country. But for that very reason, it might most closely satisfy Americans’ seemingly endlessly contradicting opinions on reform.

Japan has more than 3,000 insurance plans, yet the benefit is not nearly the costly mess it is in the United States.

The Japanese health care system is based on employer- or union-provided insurance, just like the American one. People not covered by employer insurance are covered by government plans. Seniors basically have their own special coverage. The poor and disabled have special subsidies. Cumulatively, Japan has over 3,000 insurance plans, yet the benefit is not nearly the costly mess it is in the United States.

The thousands of plans in the U.S. individually negotiate with thousands of providers for millions of different prices. This drives up prices and creates massive administrative waste. In Japan, everything is highly standardized by the federal government. All plans need to cover the same set of benefits, reimburse providers the same amounts, use the same forms, and so on. Japanese employers can provide extra benefits on top of the standard baseline and what you pay depends partly on your employer’s risk pool, like in the U.S., but overall the difference between the plans is minor. As a result, Japan’s administrative spending is below that of many single-payer countries like Canada.

In practice, the Japanese system doesn’t seem much different than single-payer systems: In Japan, large companies set money aside in special accounts, and the government then tells them how to pay hospitals. In single-payer systems, large companies have to give money to a special government account, which then gives it to hospitals. However, the difference has real political implications.

Rhetorically, American politics is weirdly obsessed with people “losing their employer health insurance,” but we rarely ever talk about how insurance changes almost every year, usually for the worse: higher deductibles, new narrower networks, more co-pays, and so on. Only 44% of Americans say they would prefer a system mostly run by the government and 68% have a favorable view of employer coverage. Yet, at the same time, insurance regulations the government puts on employer coverage are very popular.

This employer coverage also solves the funding problem which plagues reform efforts. Americans don’t seem to understand or simply don’t care just how much they indirectly pay for employer insurance. The type of broad new taxes needed to pay for Medicare for All tend to be very unpopular. Even with very favorable wording, polling by YouGov found just 32% supported paying for Medicare for All with a tax on income over $29,000. (Proponents of M4A claim the net savings from no premiums or coinsurance would outweigh the cost of new taxes.) Even in deep blue Vermont, once local Democrats saw the size of the taxes needed to replace employer premiums — an 11.5% payroll tax and a new income tax of up to 9.5% — they declared their single-payer plan politically infeasible.

The same poll found a per-employee fee proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren to get around this anti-tax problem polls better, with 50% yes and 31% no. Yet what is consistently even more popular is just mandating all employers provide quality insurance, like Japan does. That polls at 69% support.

The Japanese model also provides a solution for Americans’ seemingly conflicting desires for a system that features no new middle-class taxes, no individual mandate, and yet covers everyone. In Japan, people without employer insurance need to buy coverage from their local government. Premiums are subsidized for those with lower incomes. If you don’t pay for insurance, though, there is no direct penalty, except when you do reenter the system you can be made to pay back premiums. Basically, if there is some small group of recalcitrants who want to try to avoid health insurance altogether, just let them and charge them when they do seek treatment.

There are two main ways Japan controls cost. The first is standardized cost-sharing. There are no deductibles, but people have a 30% coinsurance up to a monthly limit. There is no gatekeeping or preauthorization, but if you go to a specialist without a referral, you need to pay extra. Cost-sharing is one mechanism Americans have already come to accept for decades.

The other main tool is the that government aggressively sets low uniform prices with doctors, hospitals, and drug makers. This is why it works. This is also the part of the Japanese system which would generate the greatest industry opposition in the United States — as would Medicare for All for the same reasons. And even a decent Medicare buy-in would likely end up a de facto benchmark rate for providers.

All adopting a Japanese type of system would require is for the U.S. to take what it is currently doing and heavily standardize it. The biggest change would be scrapping the individual non-employer-based market to put everyone on a government plan, but the individual market is the least popular part of our system anyway. The majority of people with employer insurance would still have their same “private coverage,” with the same branding, but now cheaper and better. It would be the least disruptive system to copy, and it even has a precedent here. Hawaii has mandated every employer provide standardized, affordable, high-quality insurance since 1974, thanks to a special waiver from federal laws that prevent other states from copying Hawaii’s model.

The price of the lack of disruption, though, is not addressing many of the financing fairness issues we rarely talk about. Companies with younger workers would still pay less than companies with older workers. People living in high-cost localities would still pay higher premiums than people in low-cost areas. The overall funding would remain roughly as regressive as it currently is.

Polling shows even Democratic voters rank lowering drug prices, lowering what people pay, and ending surprise billing as bigger priorities than Medicare for All. And it is not clear people who claim they favor Medicare for All actually want the level of change it would cause. Polling shows 68% of Democrats incorrectly believe that under Medicare for All people would be allowed to keep their employer coverage, and 61% of Democrats believe the employers/individuals would continue to pay premiums, according to a poll this year by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Meanwhile, moderate Democrats like Joe Biden are offering voters more layers of complexity instead of simple solutions. Instead of just directly mandating all employer coverage be as good and affordable as his proposed public option, Biden simply allows every worker to run the complicated cost calculations themselves to decide if their employer plan is a worse deal for them than the public option. While Japan automatically ensures your coverage is good, Biden makes that task a yearly burden for employees — which is deeply problematic since only 4% of Americans understand basic insurance terms.

It is possible adopting a Japanese-style health care system might even be the fastest way to Medicare for All. South Korea created universal health care via a system very similar to Japan in 1989 and then in 2000 decided to move to a true single-payer system. Of course “have the federal government set prices, heavily regulate employer insurance so it acts basically like Medicare, and making buying subsidized Medicare quasi-optional for everyone else,” isn’t the catchiest slogan. So, it is unlikely voters will ever hear about a path that could give them what they seem to want championed.

ACP Backs Single-Payer Healthcare

Alicia Ault noted that The American College of Physicians (ACP) is backing both a single-payer system and a public option that retains private insurance as the best ways to ensure that all Americans have healthcare.

The ACP’s endorsement comes as part of a broad proposal to overhaul the US healthcare system, published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Rather than continue to react to others’ proposals, the ACP decided, “we are going to stick our necks out and put forward what we think is a better way,” Bob Doherty, ACP senior vice president for governmental affairs and public policy, told Medscape Medical News.

It is a break from previous ACP policy — which never explicitly backed single payer — and with other physician organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Family Physicians, both of which have declined to back a single-payer healthcare system.

The ACP’s board of regents endorsed the overhaul proposal in November, and Doherty said he was confident that it had the backing of the majority of the organization’s 159,000 internists and medical students.

Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) applauded the ACP’s policy shift.

“For a century, most US medical organizations opposed national health insurance,” PNHP cofounders Steffie Woolhandler, MD, and David Himmelstein, MD, write in an Annals editorial. “The endorsement by the American College of Physicians (ACP) of single-payer reform marks a sea change from this unfortunate tradition,” they say.

No Political Endorsement

The ACP timed its announcement to come just before the first major presidential primary contests in Iowa (February 3) and New Hampshire (February 11), but the organization is not backing any candidate’s healthcare proposal.

“We know that election years, particularly presidential election years, create an opportunity to engage in discussion about the future of public policy,” Doherty said, adding that healthcare, and in particular affordability, rank among voters’ top concerns.

After examining health systems in a dozen countries and reviewing policies that have been proposed for the United States, the ACP decided that both single payer and a public option would increase universal coverage, one of the ACP’s long-stated policy goals.

“For us to say single payer is the only way to achieve universal coverage is just not consistent with the evidence,” Doherty said. The coverage goal can also be achieved with a public option, “provided that you had enough marketplace regulation of private insurance that would be competing with the public program,” and if there was automatic enrollment for people who did not have private insurance, Doherty said.

Negotiate Payment Rates

Unlike Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren’s plan to pay for her Medicare for All plan by pegging physician and hospital pay to Medicare rates, the ACP said that would not work.

“There would have to be a process to negotiate for established rates that would be sufficient to ensure that physicians would participate in the program,” Doherty said.

As part of its multipronged overhaul, the ACP is also proposing an elimination of copays and deductibles for high-value services such as primary care, and also for patients with chronic diseases.

A renewed emphasis on primary care would create savings, the ACP posited in its call to action and the four papers outlining its positions on how to overhaul the health system.

“We believe that American health care costs too much; leaves too many behind without affordable coverage; creates incentives that are misaligned with patients’ interests; undervalues primary care and under invests in public health; spending too much on administration at the expense of patient care; and fosters barriers to care for and discrimination against vulnerable individuals,” said ACP President Robert M. McLean, MD, MACP, in a statement.

I believe that the ACP has some interesting reasonable solutions as well as my opinion that President Obama and his experts came up with a great plan except for financial sustainability. As a country we have to realize that any sustainable program will be costly and the cost will be shared by all. Do we all really want Bernie or Elizabeth to be our presidents to drive our country to the edge and convert to socialism? Wake up America!

Musings of a Doc with an MBA

Business strategy and healthcare

Category Archives: Joe Biden

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Trump health officials “not aware” of how he would replace Obamacare; and what about the Vaccines?

What would a Biden economy look like, and what will healthcare go from here? Also, When Should We Get Vaccinated for the Flu?

What the Trump budget says about the administration’s health priorities; The Dems and Bloomberg and More on the Corona Virus

More Patients Insured in U.S. and More Can’t Afford Doctors but May-be Americans Don’t Really Want Medicare for All — They Want Japa-nese Health Care and the American College of Physicians