We’re only at just the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, and already primary care providers are warning that their medical practices might not survive the pandemic.
Primary care Docs have been putting their patients in major financial pinches for decades.
Johns Hopkins now indicates that there are 510,000 confirmed cases so far.
And the US is only 5,000 cases behind Italy, and rapidly catching up
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
Mango Voldamort & the scamming crew will be getting a big payout through hotel bailouts coupled with loopholes in defining ownership & ‘small businesses’. Meanwhile, using it as another excuse to undercut anyone who actually does productive work.
OK, I admit it: Trump was right – I am tired of all the winning!
Trump’s delays and prissy posturing may turn out to be the deadliest factor to this virus.
We had a game plan. It looks like Trump and his team totally demolished and ignored it. Anticipating the effect on healthcare resources is in the damn document.
Much ado about nothing.
Americans like their health-care system and see no need to change it.
Or so I’m told.
The current non-system of fragmented delivery of health care has been a disaster from long before this crisis. Don’t bail it out, resolve it, just as the banks should have been resolved, not bailed out, in 2008. Draft all the doctors, nurses and allied health people and have a National Health Service deliver care. That was the right solution six months ago, and it is quickly becoming the only reasonable option as the current crisis destroys the flimsy non-system we have burdened ourselves with up to now.
We put our faith in the market as the means to direct health care, and indemnity instead of social insurance as the means to direct payment for health care. Stay true to that faith and let creative destruction wipe that nonsense out. Then pick up the pieces and use them to construct a rational system.
But of course that’s not what we’ll actually do. Wherever on the spectrum of disaster this COVID lands, we won’t respond rationally, but will instead try to get back to a “normal” that was and is quite pathological, even before this crisis.
Sounds like it’s time for a national, single payer healthcare system!
Based on NY, LA, CA, FL, AZ updates, we are above 75k corona virus cases already and seem poised to pass China’s total by this evening or tomorrow morning. The infection rate is growing rapidly in Trump 2016 states. I’ve also noticed that in metro areas like Dallas, Tampa and Houston, the Trump counties which border or are close to the hub blue county have about the same number of cases as the blue county (Dallas, Harris, Hillsborough).
You can see in the statewide data of places like New York, Louisiana, California the main urban county’s share of the statewide total is leveling off or dropping even as the statewide total increases.
You said it.
No, anything but that.
This horrific ordeal is magnifying and revealing fundamental flaws in our for-profit health system.
I just had a virtual appt with my allergist via FaceTime. It worked out great.
Glad you didn’t need a skin test!
'Rona has executed a hostile takeover of the United States. Trump/GOP aren’t in charge; the virus is. At the current unchecked rate of growth across much of this country, the corona virus is going to be a bigger red state/red county problem than a blue state/blue county problem.
What’s really odd to see in the unfolding data is that the blue state/county wave of infections is now coinciding with the start of a red state/county wave.
A monitor is an excellent sneeze guard. Messy, but effective.
My dermatologist is requesting that all patients over 65 (72 here) cancel and postpone their regular checkups. I go in twice a year because I have a history of basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma. I would prefer that they not go under. On the other hand, I’m now interested in learning how to use a scalpel and curette.
In the next day or so, when the US passes China as the country with the most COVID cases – and that’s not just active cases, but cumulative – this better be the blazing headline on all news media. We are about to become the hardest hit of all the countries in the world, totally due to Trump’s scoffing and delays. Fox will ignore this event but I sure hope it is rammed into this nation’s consciousness that Trump has turned us into a third world country – well, actually the third world is doing better than we are. If you know someone in the media, please make sure they are prepared for this particular news event.
Especially mine, LOL!
The world. It is an alien invasion. No one is handling this with any grace or assurance. Regardless of the health care system, when it starts to burn, they are going to face the same issues. Some may deal with it better, but better is defined as catastrophic but maybe not as catastrophic as the other guy.