So South Korea has tested 190,000 people, we’ve tested maybe 5,000. When asked why we have tested only 5,000, a Republican stated, “Government red tape. This it what happens when you let government run heath care.”
The only problem: The South Korean healthcare system is run by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and is free to all citizens at the point of delivery. The system is funded by a compulsory National Health Insurance Scheme that covers 97% of the population.
Government-run health care seems to work well for them. If it doesn’t work well for us, well, you’ll have to look at who’s currently running our government for the answer to that question.
– Badtux the Health Care Penguin
I just read that a UCLA campus and a University in Wa. State have both come up with their own tests. It shouldn’t be too much longer for the rest of us. As I understand it, Donny wanted the test kits to come from some source under his business empire, since there were kits already manufactured in other countries that were working.
This is truly the “tRump flu” now. His inaction and apathy have allowed it to spread far and wide.
I do hope this really bites him in the ass come November.
Above all his other failings, he just isn’t competent as a leader.
w3ski
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Our system might have worked. But for the last three years, experienced people have been leaving in disgust & the only people who would join the government these days are eschatological ideologues.
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Not that it’s any new concept to you, but the underlying dynamic is Repigs campaigning on a premise of “Government doesn’t work, so let us run the government!” Then they deliberately destroy government functions. Giving them another opportunity to scream about how “government doesn’t work! Give US power, instead of those left-wing idiots who are trying to use the government to solve problems.” Blather (sic), rinse and repeat.
At Naked Capitalism, one of the phrases in vogue is “self-licking ice cream cone.” Politically speaking, the zeitgeist you describe is another example of that.
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Back when I worked at the CDC, one of my editing assignments was to clean up a document called, IIRC, The National Biosurveillance Strategic Plan. It was one of the few semi-intelligent efforts of the younger Bush’s administration. It basically described how fragmented the existing public health surveillance system was, how crappy communications were between various state and federal agencies, and called for more collaboration and less silo-ing. It would have been a good foundation for the Obama administration to build on. Instead, they shit canned it. It had aWol’s fingerprints on it so it had to vanish. Obama et all did try to improve the CDC but when Trump came in we all know what his approach was (and still is). If it’s a good idea, if it makes sense, Trump wants nothing to do with it.
As for COVID-19, I have two thoughts. One is that as the testing expands to include more people who are asymptomatic it’s quite possible we’ll learn that this “novel” virus isn’t so novel after all and is far more common than anyone thinks now. The other is the opposite will happen — very few additional cases will be found and most people will feel like idiots about worrying about how many cases of Charmin they stockpiled. Of course, if the number of cases remains low, it’ll be a toss up between crediting the public health responses aimed at containment and bitching that all the social distancing was nonsense.
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