OK, so last April the panic over the Swine flu began. Everyone predicted that it would come roaring back in the fall and winter and all the flapping gums expressed a need for an expedited vaccine.
So, where is it? People are starting to get sick in flocks and there is an inadequate supply of vaccine for folks who want it.
This is FEMA and Katrina all over again. The government simply does not have the capability to respond to disasters of the moment or the ones that they know are coming months in advance.
So President Bush rightfully got blasted for Katrina and when will the press start putting the blame on the new Adminstration for its failure to secure and expedite the H1N1 vaccine.
The press needs to be all over this. President Obama has declared it a National Emergency and yet with six months planning, we are dreadfully short of the vaccine. By the time it is ready, the crisis will be over.
Yeah, keep pushing that government option for health care.
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14 comments:
Hmm, I wondered how long it would take for people to wrongly connect the vaccine shortage with healthcare reform. I didn't think it would be an otherwise thoughtful journalist.
The existing private system that many folks seem to think is so wonderful (you know, the one that is the most expensive in the world even though we don't even rank in the top 25 in life expectancy) is bearing witness to the vaccine shortage ... not the evil government.
If the White House took over the drug companies today and made them pump out more vaccine 24/7, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck would really have something to talk about, wouldn't they?
Brown:
I'm not saying I don't believe you, but I'd like a source on America not ranking in the top 25 life expectancy.
My point was that the media jumped all over George Bush (rightfully so) for the lack of response to the a Hurricane in New Orleans.
The difference is there was only a week or two to prepare for that. We have had since April for the government to line up sources and make plans for a flu outbreak.
The Health Secretary has been continually assuring everyone that the vaccine would be in good supply and available in time.
Well, not so much. I just want the same scrutiny of that situation as we had of FEMA and George Bush in Katrina.
I believe that health insurance, like car insurance ought to be sold and offered nationwide, no state boundaries.
I'm not opposed to reform, we need it. I'm just not convinced that the Republicans and Democrats or President Obama are sufficiently qualified to make those reforms.
Jim, numbers come from World Health Organization. Here's a link to this and related stats;
http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthy_life_table2.html
Thanks again for the blog. It keeps our brains sharper.
Sue
Thanks Sue:
How much of this table on life expectancy, which is simply an average of how long people live is a function of the health care system, or the result of choices.
We have a high murder rate among young men, that could certainly affect the numbers and would not have anything to do with health care.
We have also been involved in wars that have cost us thousands of young men and women, that too would help skew the numbers downward from say, Switzerland.
Our obesity rate (something I'm familiar with) is certainly related to health care, but it also involves choices by people, not necessarily because our health care system is deficient.
So, the numbers are interesting, but I'm not buying that our health care system is somehow less effective than the folks listed above us, at least based on life expectancy.
I'm also not a big fan of the World Health Organization, which has a political agenda of its own.
Oh, and unlike what Brown said, we do rank in the top 25...
Actually I wasn't quoting the World Health Organization, which lists the U.S. at number 24 (Whoo-hoo, we're number 24!)In 2007, according to the Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics -- hardly pinko-commie organizations -- the U.S. ranked 42in life expectancy.
The horror that was Katrina was the result of decades of neglecting the levees designed to keep water out of New Orleans neighborhoods in the event of a hurricane. That wasn't necessarily Bush's fault -- he just "dithered," to use Dick Cheney's new favorite word, while thousands of Americans waited to be rescued on highway overpasses or slept en masse at the football stadium while FEMA fumbled play after play.
So if thousands of people drop dead in the U.S. because they tried to get a flu shot and were denied, then yes, HHS, Obama and everybody else in Washington deserves a good media skewering.
The fact that two "respected" organizations have widely differing statistics on the position of the U.S. in life expectancy just proves one of the main axioms of most journalists.
Figures lie and liars figure.
And again I ask, as I did in a comment in the previous posting:
How much of life expectancy is a result of poor health choices, a violent society, participation in wars in which a young people die well before their time, car accidents, murders of young people, and not so much a matter of poor health care?
Just asking.
The problem here is not with the government, but with the for-profit vaccine manufacturers who don't get the kind of profits they like from flu shots. Bring on socialized medicine!!
Jim has a point with the life expectancy thing.
But in all other studies, the US continues to lag behind other developed nations when it comes to healthcare cost, healthcare accessibility, healthcare quality (just read a story that said more than 200,000 Americans now fly to another country for procedures), and healthcare fairness, where we rank dead last on nearly every study.
Thanks to my mother and the man you always see in a mirror, I never get sick. Id like to, (just to see what its like) but I don't. I took up smoking but that has not worked as of late. Thanks.
Whether people are dying in the U.S. because they eat too many Cheetos or because they have crappy genes, the fact is that the U.S. spends far more per capita on healthcare than any other developed nation -- and gets less for it.
It is also a fact that our present system is structured so that rich people and people who belong to powerful unions (like autoworkers and teachers)get access to healthcare while the working poor and nonworking poor are screwed. That does not strike me as being very American or Christian.
Anyone who thinks the current system is fine the way it is should not have a problem with trading plans with a Wal-Mart employee ... or a recent cancer survivor who pays for his own insurance.
Brown:
By your definition (American = Health care) I guess we can assume the Founding Fathers placed that in the Constitution somewhere. I looked, but can't find guaranteed health care anywhere in there. (That's a small joke).
I am acquainted with many autoworkers and am married to a newly retired teacher. None of them would classify themselves as "rich." At least not "rich" in the monetary or common meaning of the term.
Now, if you want to argue that Congress should have the same general health care as the average citizen, I'm with you there. But, as you are certainly aware, our legislators have a Cadillac health system far beyond their means.
As far as Christian, I'm with you there. I believe we all have an responsibility to help our fellow man and do what we can to help others as we are taught by our Savior.
What I don't agree with is that the federal government is the best vehicle to provide such a "Christian" solution.
What I do know in heart and mind is that the current crop of legislators will NOT do the right thing. They will do what is expedient and self-serving (and I mean Republicans and Democrats) and that whatever they say will be the end result of any bill will actually be the opposite, in my humble opinion.
I believe there exists a staggering need for health care reform, but what I am sure of is that what is being proposed in Washington, D.C. right now, is not it.
But I appreciate the dialogue.
How does somebody quit smoking? Id like to and have tried, but it is very rough. Thanks James.
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