RUTHFULLY YOURS

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The federal government has become so desperate to get Americans vaccinated against COVID-19 that it plans to hold Medicare and Medicaid payments hostage.

On Wednesday, Joe Biden, the virtual president, announced that nursing homes will receive federal money for Medicare and Medicaid expenses only if their employees are vaccinated.

The “Delta variant”, it appears, justified the step.

“I’m using the power of the federal government as a payer of healthcare costs to ensure we reduce those risks to our most vulnerable seniors,” Biden said. The Department of Human Services will issue the mandate, which will take effect in September, in conjunction with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Biden made his announcement less than two weeks after a left-wing think tank made a wider-ranging proposal along similar lines. On Aug. 6, three members of the Center for American Progress proposed linking Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement for all health-care providers to staff vaccinations. The three made their argument on the center’s website.

“Making COVID-19 vaccination mandatory for providers participating in Medicare and Medicaid would protect vulnerable patients, set a positive example for other employers, and contribute to the national effort to contain the virus,” wrote Jill Rosenthal, Emily Gee and Maura Calsyn. Rosenthal is the center’s director of public health policy, Gee is its senior economist on the subject, and Calsyn is the center’s vice president and coordinator for health policy.

The think tank was created by John Podesta, President Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff and the former chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

While the authors made no mention of making individual benefits dependent upon vaccination, their proposal raises that frightening possibility. Since the federal government adopted part of that recommendation, what would prevent those who need Medicare and Medicaid from eventually being targeted?

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/08/the_good_newsa_covid19_update.html

Now that we have had 18 months to “slow the spread” it is time to take stock of the pandemic. We have learned many good things that the media and our pandemic managers rarely report. Most fundamentally, we do not need to be afraid of COVID-19 anymore. The media and some government health authorities are still pushing hysteria and fear, but that should not prevail. Let’s look at the good news that can calm our fears about COVID-19. There’ll be time at a later date to look at the bad and the ugly of the resolving pandemic.

1) Globally, the survival rate for COVID-19 is 99.8%. Under the age of 70, the survival rate for COVID-19 is 99.97%. This is on par with many influenza seasons. Americans younger than 70 do not have to fear COVID-19 any more than influenza and we know how to protect the elderly.

2) Herd immunity for the alpha strain is here. Sixty-seven percent of the American population have had at least one COVID-19 vaccination. The official number of cases is about 10% of the population, but several antibody studies show that the percentage of those with natural immunity is 4-6 times higher. Dr. Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins professor, estimates that 80-85% of the population is immune from natural immunity and vaccination. Those who deny this must explain how cases and deaths started to decline in January way before there was a significant vaccine effort. COVID-19 will not go away. Instead, we are transitioning now from a pandemic to endemic status and, indeed, some eminent virologists say vaccinating in the middle of a pandemic is making herd immunity more difficult to obtain through the creation of variants.

3) The average age of death from COVID is 78. The average life expectancy in America is 78. This is not to say, “Don’t worry, only old people are dying of COVID-19.” However, this fact should direct and inform our policies to protect the elderly especially. Children and those under age 70 are at much lower risk.

4)  Early outpatient treatment should be adopted immediately for COVID-19. Hydroxychloroquine works. Ivermectin works. It has been estimated 85% of COVID-19 deaths could have been prevented were these medicines used early. America’s Frontline Doctors have an excellent compilation of research. The cost of these treatments is $1/day. A new IV treatment, REGEN-COV, has been approved for early use in COVID-19. Don’t wait to see if you will get sick. Treat early.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-biden-rush-to-the-afghan-exits-taliban-kabul-august-31-11629842701?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Some readers were upset by our editorial last week: “Biden to Afghanistan: Drop Dead.” But that headline looks more sadly accurate than ever after President Biden’s decision Tuesday to stick to his arbitrary Aug. 31 deadline for withdrawing all U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

Unless you’re Nancy Pelosi or a media partisan, there’s no sugarcoating what this means. Mr. Biden is bowing to Taliban demands, reiterated on Tuesday, not to extend the deadline. He is rejecting the advice of such G-7 leaders as Britain’s Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron of France to stay longer to get more people out of the country safely. And he is abandoning thousands of Afghans who fought with the U.S. and NATO to the Taliban’s brand of retribution.

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There was an alternative. Mr. Biden could have sent in enough military force to provide safe zones and retrieve stranded Americans and Afghan allies. He could have done so with a NATO coalition of the willing. The U.S. Army has 31 active duty combat brigades of several thousand soldiers each.

He could have told the Taliban that the U.S. is not negotiating over the deadline and that U.S. forces will remain for as long as it takes to complete the mission of rescuing our people. This would have salvaged some honor and credibility from the botched withdrawal.

Instead Mr. Biden has negotiated with the Taliban from a position of weakness. He has sent too few troops to protect the Kabul airport and retrieve our allies. He sent his CIA director to negotiate with the Taliban, who adopted Mr. Biden’s Aug. 31 deadline as their own and rejected William Burns’s entreaties.

On Tuesday the Taliban escalated by barring Afghans from even going to the airport. “We are not in favor of allowing Afghans to leave,” said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. Yet in his remarks Tuesday at the White House, Mr. Biden raised no objection to this command that could strand thousands of Afghan allies.

The White House and Pentagon say they don’t even know how many Americans are still in Afghanistan. As for the Afghans, James Miervaldis of the nonprofit No One Left Behind tells us via email that “we’ve got a list of 1,200 families (approx 6,000 people) who have their visas in hand. Really curious how the President is going to get them inside the airport and fly out before 8/31.”