Category Archives: 2020 Election Issues

Administration’s war on the public health experts

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Blame, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Credibility, Crisis, Crisis Management, Data Control, Data Integrity, Data Interpretation, Data Management, Expert, Expert Opinion, False Hope, False Narrative, Health Policy, Honesty, Integrity, Misinformation, Misinterpret, Mislead, Misleading, Mistrust, Mixed Message, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Safety, Public Trust, Responsibility, Scientists, Transparency, Trust, Truth, Wishful Thinking • Leave a comment

https://www.axios.com/trump-public-health-experts-cdc-fauci-e1509d14-0cf1-4b1c-b107-7753bf95395d.html

Trump's war on the public health experts - Axios

A pandemic would normally be a time when public health expertise and data are in urgent demand — yet President Trump and his administration have been going all out to undermine them.

Why it matters: There’s a new example almost every day of this administration trying to marginalize the experts and data that most administrations lean on and defer to in the middle of a global crisis.

Here’s how it has been happening just in the past few weeks:

  • The administration has repeatedly undermined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most recently, Trump has criticized the CDC’s school reopening guidelines, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos declared that “kids need to be in school,” and the administration has reportedly ordered hospitals to bypass the CDC in reporting coronavirus patient information.
  • It has repeatedly undermined Anthony Fauci. Trump distanced himself on Wednesday from an op-ed attack by White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, but longtime Trump aide Dan Scavino also called the infectious diseases specialist “Dr. Faucet” in a Facebook post accusing him of leaking his disagreements. And the White House gave a opposition research-style list of the times Fauci “has been wrong” to the Washington Post and other media outlets.
  • Trump himself undermined public health experts generally with his retweet of former game show host Chuck Woolery’s “everyone is lying” tweet — which blamed “The CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors, not all but most, that we are told to trust.”
  • Trump has made numerous statements suggesting, over and over again, that we wouldn’t have as many COVID cases if we just tested less. (From his Tuesday press conference at the White House: “If we did half the testing we would have half the cases.”)

The impact: The result is that the CDC — which is supposed to be the go-to agency in a public health crisis — is distracted by constant public critiques from the highest levels. And Fauci, “America’s Doctor,” is the subject of yet another round of stories about whether Trump is freezing him out.

  • “The way to make Americans safer is to build on, not bypass, our public health system,” Tom Frieden, a former CDC director under Barack Obama, said in a statement to Axios about the efforts to sideline the agency.
  • “Unfortunately, as with mask-up recommendations and schools reopening guidance, the administration has chosen to sideline and undermine our nation’s premier disease fighting agency in the middle of the worst pandemic in 100 years,” Frieden said.
  • And Fauci, in an interview with The Atlantic, said of the efforts to discredit him: “Ultimately, it hurts the president to do that … It doesn’t do anything but reflect poorly on them.”

The other side: The White House insists there’s no problem. “President Trump has always acted on the science and valued the input of public health experts throughout this crisis,” said White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews.

  • Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh closed ranks with the experts as well. “President Trump has said repeatedly that he has a strong relationship with Dr. Fauci, and Dr. Fauci has always said that the President listens to his advice,” he said.
  • And Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Michael Caputo declared that “the scientists and doctors speak openly, they are listened to closely, and their advice and counsel helps guide the response.”
  • “Frankly, when it comes to this tempest in a teapot over Dr. Fauci, I blame the media and their unending search for a ‘Resistance’ hero, for turning half a century of a brilliant scientist’s hard work into a clickbait headline that helps reporters undermine the president’s coronavirus response,” Caputo said.

Between the lines: Murtaugh deflected several times when asked whether there was a deliberate strategy to marginalize the CDC and the experts: “The President and the White House have consistently advised Americans to follow CDC guidelines. The President also believes we can open schools safely on time and that we must do so.”

  • However, one administration official said there were parts of the CDC school reopening guidelines that were impractical, and noted that kids can also suffer long-term harm by staying out of school too long.

Our thought bubble, by Axios White House reporter Alayna Treene: The responses make it clear that the White House and the Trump campaign don’t want to advance the narrative that they’re deliberately battling with America’s health experts, or that there’s any kind of strategy behind it.

The bottom line: When the history of this pandemic is written, it will show that the public health experts who were trying to fight it also had to deal with political fights that made their jobs harder.

 

 

 

 

 

1.3 million Americans filed first-time unemployment claims last week

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Economic Crisis, Economic Recovery, Employee Furlough, Employee Hiring Freeze, Employee Layoffs, Employee Pay Cuts, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Job, Job Market, Job Search, Job Security, Leadership Decentralized, Market Outlook, National Strategy, Out of Pocket Expenses, Pandemic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Social Distancing, Underinsured, Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance, Uninsured • Leave a comment

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/16/economy/unemployment-benefits-coronavirus/index.html

1.3 million people filed for first-time unemployment last week

It’s still not easy to remain employed in the US, nearly four months after the coronavirus pandemic began upending the economy.

Another 1.3 million people filed first-time jobless claims on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week ending July 11, according to the Department of Labor. That’s down 10,000 from the prior week’s revised level.
On an unadjusted basis, more than 1.5 million people filed first-time claims, up almost 109,000 from the week before. The seasonal adjustments are traditionally used to smooth out the data, but that has tended to have the opposite effect during the pandemic.
Weekly first-time unemployment applications have been on the decline for more than three months since their peak in the last week of March. But last week’s drop was less than expected.
“Overall, filings remain high and are declining at a stubbornly slow pace,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief US economist for High Frequency Economics, noting that the risk of mounting permanent job losses is high. “The pace could slow even further or reverse in coming weeks in response to a surge in virus cases and related closures of businesses.”
Continued claims, which count workers who have filed claims for at least two weeks in a row, stood at more than 17.3 million for the week ending July 4, down 422,000 from the prior week. These claims peaked in May at nearly 25 million.
In addition, about 928,500 million people in 47 states filed for first-time pandemic unemployment assistance last week, down almost 118,000 from the week before. And almost 14.3 million people claimed continued pandemic benefits across 48 states for the week ending June 27. That’s up nearly 406,000 from the prior week.
The pandemic program was created by Congress in March to respond to the coronavirus outbreak. It provides temporary benefits to workers who typically aren’t eligible for payments, including freelancers, independent contractors, the self-employed and certain people affected by the coronavirus. It expires at the end of the year.
Looking at all workers participating in an array of unemployment programs, just over 32 million Americans claimed jobless benefits the week ending June 27, down about 433,000 from the prior week.
That total includes those in the traditional and pandemic unemployment programs, as well as the pandemic emergency unemployment compensation program, which has nearly 936,500 filers. Lawmakers created it in March to provide those who have exhausted their benefits with an additional 13 weeks of payments. It also expires at the end of 2020.

 

 

Cartoon – False Narratives Today

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Campaign, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Deception, Deceptive Advertising, Economic Crisis, Economic Recovery, Economy Reopening, Ethics, False Hope, False Narrative, Marketing, Misinformation, Misinterpret, Mislead, Misleading, Public Perception, Public Trust, Spin, Today, Unethical, Wishful Thinking • Leave a comment

Cartoon – Unethical vs. Ethical Advertising | HENRY KOTULA

Cartoon – We’re way beyond Rational Thinking

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Blame, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Defamation, Denial, Economic Crisis, Economic Recovery, Economy Reopening, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-Based Plan, Evidence-Based Policy, Failure, False Hope, False Narrative, Health Policy, Hidden Agenda, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Mislead, Misleading, Mistrust, Mixed Message, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Rational Thinking, Scapegoat, Social Distancing, Transparency, Trust, Truth, Wishful Thinking • Leave a comment

Management Cartoon # 7684: We're way beyond rational thinking. You ...

Cartoon – Crisis Leadership Today

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-Based Plan, Evidence-Based Policy, Health Policy, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership, National Strategy, Partisanship, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Rational Thinking, Today, Transparency, Trust, Truth • Leave a comment

Cartoon – Before Rational Thinking Sets In | HENRY KOTULA

Cartoon – Coronavirus Leadership

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Coronavirus, Credibility, Data Interpretation, Economic Crisis, Economy Reopening, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-Based Plan, Evidence-Based Policy, False Hope, False Narrative, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Intuition, Leadership, Leadership Intent, Mislead, Misleading, Mistrust, National Strategy, Options, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Safety, Slippery Slope, Social Distancing, Transparency, Trust, Truth • Leave a comment

Prof. Diego Kuonen on Twitter: "Ignore what the data say ...

GOP senators in close races mislead on preexisting conditions

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Community Rating, Essential Health Benefits, Guaranteed Issue, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Insurance Industry, Health Policy, High Deductible Health Plans, High Premiums, HIPAA, Medicaid, Medicaid Expansion, Preexisting Conditions, Supreme Court, Underinsured, Uninsured • Leave a comment

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/07/15/gop-senators-close-races-mislead-preexisting-conditions/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3XOi91b1jsLf-grP_iIXALJiIvlZNItPE1ZDO0_ql4Wlw8m3GicyoHIH8

2018 midterms: Republicans mislead voters about preexisting ...

“Steve Daines will protect Montanans with preexisting conditions.”

“Of course I will always protect those with preexisting conditions. Always.”

“What I look forward to working on is a plan that protects people with preexisting conditions.”

— Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), in an interview with Colorado Public Radio, July 1, 2020

 

Sound familiar? Just like President Trump, these Republican senators say they support coverage guarantees for patients with preexisting health conditions. And just like Trump, their records show the opposite.

The president’s doublespeak — voicing support for these protections while asking the Supreme Court to strike them down — is spreading into some battleground Senate races this year.

 

It’s a classic case of buyer beware: Look under the hood of what Daines, Gardner and McSally are selling, and you’ll find a car without an engine.

THE FACTS

Republicans for a decade have tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature health-care legislation. The Supreme Court has upheld the law twice in the face of challenges from conservative groups. As coronavirus cases reached a new high in the United States, the Trump administration filed a legal brief on June 25 asking the Supreme Court to strike down the entire law, joining with a group of GOP state attorneys general who argue that the ACA is unconstitutional.

Before the ACA, insurance companies could factor in a person’s health status while setting premiums, a practice that sometimes made coverage unaffordable or unavailable for those in need of expensive treatment or facing a serious illness such as cancer.

 

The ACA PROHIBITED THIS PRACTICE through two provisions: “guaranteed issue,” which means insurance companies must sell insurance to anyone who wants it, and “community rating,” which means people in the same age group and geographic area who buy similar insurance pay similar prices. The changes made insurance affordable for people with serious diseases or even those with minor health problems, who also could have been denied coverage before the law’s passage.

Now, about 20 million people covered through the ACA could lose their health insurance if the Supreme Court strikes down the law, among many other consequences bearing directly on the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic.

In addition to the coverage guarantee, the ACA established online health insurance marketplaces and subsidies for participating buyers. The law also directs billions of dollars a year in federal funding to states that have chosen to expand their Medicaid programs under the Obamacare law. Millions of Americans have gained coverage through those provisions.

We asked the Daines, Gardner and McSally campaigns whether the senators support or oppose the GOP lawsuit at the Supreme Court and how they would address affordability issues for patients with preexisting conditions if the ACA falls. None of their campaigns responded to our questions.

 

“Steve Daines will protect Montanans with preexisting conditions.”

Daines voted to repeal the ACA in 2013 and has supported efforts to repeal and replace the law more recently during the Trump administration.

Regarding the GOP lawsuit, a Daines spokesperson was quoted in the Billings Gazette saying the senator “supports whatever mechanism will protect Montanans from this failed law, lower health care costs, protect those with preexisting conditions and expand access to health care for Montanans.”

 

“What I look forward to working on is a plan that protects people with preexisting conditions.” (Gardner)

Gardner has been voting to repeal, defund or replace the ACA since 2011, the year after its passage. This year, his campaign website says nothing about the law, but his official Senate website says, “Fixing our healthcare system will require repealing the Affordable Care Act and replacing it with patient-centered solutions, which empower Americans and their doctors.”

Asked by the Hill whether he supported the GOP lawsuit, Gardner said: “That’s the court’s decision. If the Democrats want to stand for an unconstitutional law, I guess that’s their choice.” In an interview with Colorado Public Radio, Gardner evaded the question six times in a row.

“Of course I will always protect those with preexisting conditions. Always.” (McSally)

In 2015, McSally voted to repeal the ACA when she served in the House. In 2017, she voted to replace the ACA with the American Health Care Act, which would have allowed insurers to charge higher premiums to patients with complicated medical histories.

McSally, now in the Senate, has declined to comment on the GOP lawsuit pending before the Supreme Court. When asked by PolitiFact, “the campaign didn’t specifically answer, but pointed to her general disapproval of the ACA.”

WHAT HAPPENS IF  THE GOP LAWSUIT SUCCEEDS?

Trump told The Washington Post days before his inauguration in 2017 that he was nearly done with his plan to replace the ACA. Three and a half years later, no replacement plan has emerged from the administration and Republicans in Congress hardly agree on what it would look like — or how to preserve the protections for preexisting health conditions.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who is also running for reelection this year, has introduced a 24-page bill called the Protect Act that includes language guaranteeing coverage for preexisting conditions. Daines signed on as a co-sponsor on June 24, the day before the Justice Department filed its brief in the Supreme Court. McSally signed on in April 2019. Gardner is not listed as a co-sponsor.

Experts say the Tillis proposal does not offer the same level of protection for preexisting conditions as the ACA, and they warn that millions of Americans could lose their health coverage if the ACA falls and the Protect Act is the only replacement.

“Insurers before the Affordable Care Act had multiple and redundant ways that they could avoid people who had preexisting conditions,” said Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation. The Protect Act prevents some of those practices, but it “leaves enough other loopholes that it would make it very possible and likely for insurers to be able to avoid paying benefits for the conditions they most worry about,” she said.

 

Before the ACA, an insurance company could reject an application outright, say, after reviewing a patient’s medical history. The Protect Act has language barring that practice.

“The second thing they could do is, they could sell you coverage, but they could exclude your preexisting condition. ‘Oh, you have diabetes? I’m not going to pay for any of those benefits,’” Pollitz said. “The Tillis bill says you can’t do that, so that’s good.”

In the days before the ACA, insurers were allowed to charge higher premiums based on a patient’s health status. To prevent this, the Protect Act takes language from the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), rather than the newer ACA.

“The Protect Act inserts old HIPAA nondiscrimination language that prevents employers from varying worker premium contributions based on health status,” Pollitz said. “But the Protect Act also includes the old rule of construction that says nothing limits what the insurance company can charge the employer or individual.”

Pollitz said the “community rating” language in the ACA provides clearer protections in this area. The Protect Act says “nothing … shall be construed to restrict the amount that an employer or individual may be charged for coverage under a group health plan.”

“The bill would reinstate three protections at risk in the Texas case — prohibiting insurers from denying applicants based on pre-existing conditions, charging higher premiums due to a person’s health status, and excluding pre-existing conditions from coverage,” Sarah Lueck, a senior policy analyst at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, wrote in an analysis.

“But it would leave many others on the cutting room floor,” she wrote, because insurers would be able to exclude coverage of benefits such as maternity care, mental health and substance-use treatment; set annual and lifetime limits on insurance payouts; and charge older patients more than younger patients at greater levels than the ACA allows, among other changes.

It’s important to keep in mind that the Protect Act would not replace other parts of Obamacare, such as the online marketplaces and subsidies. Neither would it continue the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, which 37 states and D.C. have now adopted. That includes Arizona, Colorado and Montana.

 

The Pinocchio Test

Voters deserve straight answers when their health care is on the line, especially in the middle of a deadly pandemic.

Daines, Gardner and McSally have voted to end the Affordable Care Act. People with preexisting conditions would have been left exposed because of those votes; insurers could have denied coverage or jacked up prices for sick patients.

The three senators’ comments about the GOP lawsuit are woefully vague, but they can all be interpreted as tacit support. Asked about the case, a Daines spokesperson said “whatever mechanism” to get rid of the ACA would do. McSally’s campaign “didn’t specifically answer, but pointed to her general disapproval of the ACA.” Gardner avoided the question six times in one interview, but in another, he said: “That’s the court’s decision. If the Democrats want to stand for an unconstitutional law, I guess that’s their choice.”

Four Pinocchios all around.

 

 

 

 

MASK UP! It’s Everybody’s Job

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Asymptomatic Transmission, Coronavirus, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Patriotic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Social Distancing • Leave a comment

Image may contain: one or more people and people sitting, text that says 'MAN UPI MASK UP! IT'S EVERYBODY'S JOB Together we can slow and stop the spread. USE A MASK & PHYSICAL DISTANCE. Americans DO THEIR PART! prCieiandBarca'

White House tells hospitals to bypass CDC on COVID-19 data reporting

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Coronavirus, Credibility, Crisis, Crisis Management, Data Governance, Data Integrity, Data Interpretation, Dept of Health and Human Services (HHS), False Narrative, Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Mislead, Misleading, Mistrust, Mixed Message, Silencing, Transparency, Trust, Truth • Leave a comment

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/507321-white-house-tells-hospitals-to-bypass-cdc-on-covid-data-reporting?fbclid=IwAR2Q0n6LNYQa1p6rPQeRGUPi-54i8uTAyRxcmTcZXC6Q9mbVRZx3e1GH518

White House tells hospitals to bypass CDC on COVID-19 data ...

Hospitals will begin sending coronavirus-related information directly to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), not the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), under new instructions from the Trump administration.

The move will take effect on Wednesday, according to a new guidance and FAQ document for hospitals and clinical labs quietly posted on the HHS website.

Previously, hospitals reported to the CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network, which the agency describes as the nation’s most widely used health care-associated infection tracking system.

The CDC tracked information including how many beds are available, the number of ventilators available and how many COVID-19 patients the hospitals have.

Beginning Wednesday, hospitals will report the same data but will bypass the CDC and send it to HHS directly. 

According to HHS, the goal is to streamline data collection, which will be used to inform decisions at the federal level such as allocation of supplies, treatments and other resources.

But the move comes amid concerns that the White House has been sidelining the CDC and after Trump administration officials attacked Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and a member of the White House coronavirus task force.