https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV1fzBl2oII&ab_channel=RT
Sunday, October 11, 2020
'He Won't Support Medicare for All. He Got Medicare for One': Trump Touts Disastrous Healthcare System That He's Trying to Make Even Worse
"How many fathers, mothers, grandparents, daughters, and sons would be alive right now if they would have received even a fraction of the care the president received?"
by
Jake Johnson, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/10/06/he-wont-support-medicare-all-he-got-medicare-one-trump-touts-disastrous-healthcare
As his administration actively works to strip insurance coverage from tens of millions of Americans fortunate enough to still have it, President Donald Trump late Monday once again urged the public not to fear the virus that has killed more than a million people across the globe because the U.S. has the "best" healthcare in the world—neglecting to mention he was provided a level of care that is systematically denied those who are unable to afford it.
In a video shot shortly after his return to the White House Monday evening following a brief stint in a specially designed presidential suite at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Trump told Americans who have contracted the coronavirus that "you're gonna beat it" and claimed that the U.S. has the "best medical equipment, we have the best medicines."
"The president might be the only patient on the planet ever to receive this particular combination of medicines," Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a professor of medicine at George Washington University, told CNN on Monday.Entirely absent from the president's brief remarks was any acknowledgement that the treatment he received at Walter Reed—known to include Regeneron's experimental antibody therapy, Gilead's obscenely expensive and publicly funded drug remdesivir, and the steroid dexamethasone—is not readily available to the vast majority of Americans who are at risk of catching and falling seriously ill from Covid-19.
Epidemiologist Dr. Seema Yasmin added that "of course, this is the president of the USA. He is going to get the kitchen sink thrown at him medically, offered all there is—whether it's authorized under emergency use or not, in the case of the antibody treatment."
"But then there are 210,000 Americans who have died over the past few months because the pandemic response has been so bad," said Yasmin. "And they certainly didn't get access to this kind of treatment."
Trump's comments came as his administration is waging a legal battle against the Affordable Care Act which, if successful, would eliminate healthcare coverage for the millions of people currently insured by the law's expansion of Medicaid as well as those who have purchased insurance on the exchanges. And far from supporting an expansion of Medicare coverage to everyone in the U.S., Trump has repeatedly proposed slashing funding for the program and vowed to continue targeting it if reelected in November.
"Millions could lose coverage outright and protections for preexisting conditions could be overturned if the Trump administration's argument prevails at the high court," notes Vox's Dylan Scott. "Millions of people now have Covid-19 as a preexisting condition. The president says he wants to protect them. But four years into office, he still hasn't laid out a plan to do it."
"While in the hospital, Trump received top-notch medical care, including experimental remedies not yet available to the public and 24/7 monitoring from a full team of doctors and nurses," said Urquiza, co-founder of the public awareness campaign Marked by Covid. "This is a level of care available to the president. Thousands of others, like my dad, were told to go home and only come back when they couldn't breathe."In a statement following Trump's release from Walter Reed, Kristin Urquiza—whose father died of Covid-19 in late June—slammed the president's "dangerous advice" to millions of potentially vulnerable Americans and added, "It's more clear than ever before that Trump cares about no one but himself."
"My father is among the 210,000 people and counting who have died from this virus, perhaps because they are denied this level of care," Urquiza added. "How many fathers, mothers, grandparents, daughters, and sons would be alive right now if they would have received even a fraction of the care the president received? If the hospital could have admitted my father out of an 'abundance of caution,' would my dad still be here? We all deserve that opportunity, but only Trump had it."
The impact the coronavirus pandemic has had on America's already dysfunctional for-profit healthcare system has repeatedly bolstered arguments for a single-payer system under which millions of Americans would not have lost their insurance after losing their jobs because of the ongoing economic crisis.
As Common Dreams reported over the weekend, the high-quality and publicly-funded healthcare immediately available to the president, first lady, and Republican members of Congress who have tested positive for the coronavirus in recent days once again made the case for Medicare for All, according to advocates and progressive lawmakers.
"There is nothing radical about the wealthiest nation on Earth caring for its people," Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) tweeted late Monday. "Healthcare is a human right. We need to protect the Affordable Care Act from Donald Trump and the Republicans who stand with him and move urgently to pass Medicare for All."
"Medicare for All," added Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), author of the Medicare for All Act of 2019 in the House, "means that the world class medical treatment the president is receiving is available to everyone."
'Major Breach of Public Trust': Siding With Big Pharma, Trump Overrules FDA on Stricter Covid-19 Vaccine Standards
"Political manipulation of science—this is exactly what so many of us were worried about," said one public health expert.
by
Jake Johnson, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/10/06/major-breach-public-trust-siding-big-pharma-trump-overrules-fda-stricter-covid-19
Taking the advice of profit-driven pharmaceutical corporations over that of his own public health agencies and experts, President Donald Trump is blocking the Food and Drug Administration from imposing tougher safety requirements on the authorization of a coronavirus vaccine after drug company executives privately voiced disapproval with the push for stricter federal standards.
Politico reported late Monday that the White House's "decision to halt release of new standards for emergency authorization of a Covid-19 vaccine came after officials close to [Trump] told the FDA that the pharmaceutical industry had objected to the tougher requirements."
Trump's stonewalling of more stringent federal standards comes amid widespread concerns that the president's politically motivated push for approval of a coronavirus vaccine before November 3 could result in a product that is insufficiently tested and unsafe. Late Monday, shortly after his release from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the president declared that "vaccines are coming momentarily"—a timeline scientists have rejected."The White House cited the private-sector opposition as a chief reason for blocking the guidelines, which aim to hold companies' vaccines to a higher bar for safety and effectiveness and would likely push any authorization beyond Election Day," according to Politico. "The fact that the president was siding with drug makers over his own regulators in shelving the guidance... adds a new dimension to concerns about White House interference in the FDA."
During the presidential debate last week with Democratic nominee Joe Biden, Trump dismissed more cautious vaccine timelines suggested by experts in his own administration as "very political" and said pharmaceutical executives have personally told him that "they can go faster than that by a lot."
"I've spoken to Pfizer, I've spoken to all of the people that you have to speak to, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and others," the president said.
When Biden said he trusts scientists over Trump, the president responded, "You don't trust Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer?"
As Common Dreams reported last month, the CEO of pharma giant Eli Lilly insisted that the drug industry can police itself as it works to develop an effective coronavirus vaccine—a claim watchdog group Accountable.US dismissed as "like the wolf saying he'll guard the henhouse."
"This is an absolutely egregious breach of public trust and clear politicization of what should be a vaccine approval process based on science and public health," Eli Zupnick, spokesperson for Accountable Pharma, said in a statement Tuesday. "The timeline for vaccine approval should be dictated by what's in the best interests of patients and the country, not what is best for President Trump's political future."
"The White House must retract this interference with the scientists and public health experts at the FDA," Zupnick added, "and must stop undermining the already eroded public trust in their vaccine approval process."
As the New York Times reported Monday, "a main sticking point" for the Trump White House has been the FDA's "recommendation that volunteers who have participated in vaccine clinical trials be followed for a median of two months after the final dose before any authorization is granted."
"Given where the clinical trials stand, that two-month follow-up period would all but preclude any emergency clearance before Election Day," noted the Times, which reported that White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows—a former Republican congressman with no public health or scientific expertise—has been leading the charge against the stricter FDA standards.
"This administration is a menace to public health," tweeted Jonathan Reiner, professor of medicine and surgery at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences.
Joseph Sakran, a public health expert and trauma surgeon at Johns Hopkins Medicine, said the Trump White House's blocking of tougher vaccine safety guidelines is further "political manipulation of science—this is exactly what so many of us were worried about."
The Arrogant Narcissist: And They Think It's Confidence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcdd1I_6CnU&ab_channel=SurvivingNarcissism
'Shameless Stunt': Trump Reportedly Attempting to Raid Medicare Trust Fund to Pay for Drug Discount Cards With His Name on Them
"There it is: Trump wants to steal billions from Medicare to pay for an illegal voter bribery scheme weeks before the election."
by
Jake Johnson, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/10/09/shameless-stunt-trump-reportedly-attempting-raid-medicare-trust-fund-pay-drug
Less than a month away from the November election, Trump administration officials are reportedly rushing to implement the president's recent proposal to send $200 prescription drug discount cards to nearly 40 million Medicare recipients—an $8 billion plan that would be financed by dipping into the Medicare trust fund.
Politico reported Thursday that the administration is "seeking to finalize the plan as soon as Friday and send letters to 39 million Medicare beneficiaries next week, informing seniors of Trump's new effort to lower their drug costs, although many seniors would not receive the actual cards until after the election." While the design of the cards has yet to be finalized, officials are reportedly discussing ways to put Trump's name on them.
"There it is: Trump wants to steal billions from Medicare to pay for an illegal voter bribery scheme weeks before the election," tweeted Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J.).The plan would cost $7.9 billion, according to Politico, with $19 million going toward letters touting the initiative, which advocacy groups and Democratic lawmakers are denouncing as an obvious and potentially unlawful campaign ploy that would provide little relief for the millions impacted by obscenely high drug prices.
Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, echoed Pascrell in a statement to Politico. "It's a shameless stunt that steals billions from Medicare in order to fund a legally dubious scheme that's clearly intended to benefit President Trump's campaign right before Election Day," said Pallone.
In a speech on healthcare in Charlotte, North Carolina late last month, Trump proclaimed that his administration would "in the coming weeks" be mailing out $200 medicine discount cards to tens of millions of Medicare recipients, an announcement that reportedly caught some officials at the Department of Health and Human Services off guard.
Politico reported that Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is pressuring officials to have the plan ready to go before Election Day, heightening internal concerns that the discount cards are little more than an attempt to assist Trump's reelection campaign with taxpayer dollars."Nobody's seen this before, these cards are incredible," said the president, who is badly trailing Democratic nominee Joe Biden among senior voters in recent polls. "Biden won't be doing this."
"This is a solution in search of a problem and a bald play for votes in the form of money in pockets," one unnamed HHS official told Politico.
Margarida Jorge, campaign director for Lower Drug Prices Now, said in a statement that "sending $200 gift cards to seniors before the election is a poor substitute for continuing to let drug corporations jack up their medicine prices afterwards."
"Yet again, President Trump is trying to bribe his way to re-election," said Jorge. "Americans need serious reforms that check Pharma's power to charge whatever they want and to increase prices any time. We don't need more PR stunts designed to distract us from the reality that President Trump has done more to help the drug corporations with big tax breaks than he has to help seniors struggling to afford medicine."
Donald Trump Is Either A Tax Cheat Or A Bad Businessman—Likely Both
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNMjlR8w_I0&ab_channel=SenatorBernieSanders
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