Take health care out of the hands of insurance companies NOW

We are getting robbed. And murdered even. Right now the biggest profiteers off the pandemic are…the insurance companies.

How can this be? They have to pay off all those death and illness claims! Easy. They’re already raising their rates for premiums. So you might be out of work, your employer might be struggling to keep up, but surprise — next year your insurance costs are going to skyrocket.

Don’t worry, you still have a “choice” of which company to pay for the right to mug you.

If this is a war, are there war criminals among us?

At least some people think “war” is the proper metaphor for a pandemic, but these tend to be the same demented loons who think poverty, drugs, crime, and disease all have to be dealt with as a “war”. I think it’s overused and inappropriate myself. But then you see some of the shell-shocked victims and you realize that, at least for some people, this is a battle.

https://twitter.com/SJPeace/status/1242974555905327104

I wouldn’t want to be a doctor or a nurse right now. Those are important jobs, and I don’t think I could handle the pressure.

We aren’t even anywhere near the peak yet, either. This is going to get worse before it gets better.

We aren’t prepared. Hospitals are running out of PPE gear; this New York hospital is improvising gowns with trash bags. That’s got to help patient confidence, I’m sure.

Meanwhile, Jerry Falwell Jr is reopening the Liberty University campus and encouraging students to return. The University of Minnesota Morris has not done that, because we can see the trends in the data and actually think it’s more important that our students stay healthy than that we curry favor with a delusional president.

Even worse, Governor Tate Reeves of Mississippi has explicitly countermanded all the local limitations in his state.

One of the immediate consequences of Reeves’ order is the formal declaration that most of Mississippi’s businesses qualify under it as “essential,” and thus are exempt from restrictions on public gatherings. As of press time, the Jackson Free Press has received reports from businesses in the Jackson area that have, as of today’s executive order, scuttled plans for work-from-home and ordered their employees back to work on-site.

You are hereby ordered to mingle, Mississippians.

I suggest that, after all this is over, that Tate Reeves, Jerry Falwell Jr, and Donald Trump all be held accountable for every death from COVID-19 on their watch. They belong to the “party of personal responsibility”, after all.

Who has the worst take on the pandemic?

It goes without saying that it’s the conservatives, but let’s be more specific. Not so specific as your Aunt Madge who sends you suggestions to drink bleach on Facebook, but a source that aggregates all the nonsense. I think I could make a case that The Federalist is at least among the worst offenders.

That site right now is full of bullshit trying to downplay the coronavirus concerns. For instance, here is a poli sci student arguing, in a rambling incoherent mess of an article, Is Social Distancing Saving Lives Or Ruining Them?. He’s reluctant to give a straightforward answer, but you can tell where he’s leaning.

The current response is quickly driving the United States into a recession, which will result in a great deal of misery for tens of millions of people. Again, balancing lives against money sounds harsh, but everyone does so — and must do so — whether he is conscious of the fact or not. Not to mention, a recession also means higher poverty rates, which lead to higher mortality rates.

More is at stake than lives and money: namely freedom. Even for those of us who are by no means libertarian, the increasingly draconian measures put in place across the nation, especially in California, to isolate people and prevent them from moving at will are raising serious questions about whether Americans are in a dress rehearsal for tyranny.

Which is worse, being dead or living in a country in a recession? Gosh, the jury is out on that one, but maybe a recession, which would lead to higher mortality rates? Yeah, higher mortality rates are worse than lots of people dying.

OK, that guy is just an ass. But what about this rather surprising post from a medical doctor. He has a solution that he thinks wouldn’t hurt the economy so much — it’s always about “The Economy”, you know — a treatment that would solve everything: How Medical ‘Chickenpox Parties’ Could Turn The Tide Of The Wuhan Virus. Yeah, give everyone the disease right away, that’s the ticket! Well, not everyone. Let’s have Voluntary Infection parties in which young people who are most resistant go to some site and mingle and let everyone pick up the disease. He even suggests cruise ships as enticing locations to get people to participate in voluntarily getting a disease that might only kill one or two percent of them.

Hmm. How many doctors and hospital beds are available on your average cruise ship?

The idea would be to ramp up the numbers of immune people very quickly, maximizing the possibility of herd immunity. He hasn’t thought much about how we would cope with massive numbers of sick people all at once. Sick working people. Sick doctors. All intentionally confined to a few locations.

You know chicken pox parties were never a good idea, right? There’d always be some kids who’d die. I wouldn’t be one to claim that’s an acceptable price to pay, but apparently this one MD thinks it’s brilliant.

But I will say that his idea is novel, and for once it’s nice to see a proposal to infect and kill a significant number of young whippersnappers, rather than suggesting that my generation needs to die to protect the economy. It’s still an incredibly stupid idea, to which the only reasonable reply is…OK, boomer.

I was wrong about something. The MD who authored that article about voluntary infection is not an MD. He pretends to be one, but is actually a conservative businessman who is not licensed to practice in his state despite his claim.

“That would be misleading the public,” a startled member of the Oregon Medical Board staff told VICE. “In Oregon, that is a violation of the Medical Practices Act. That would have to be investigated.”

Par for the course for The Federalist.

Never ever follow the recommendations of ghouls

Where did all these ghouls come from? I don’t remember all these ghouls cheering on the zombies in the apocalypse stories.

So now we’ve got Dennis Prager declaring that people must die in order to win a “war” against the coronavirus.

History shows that we have been willing to lose many to protect our way of life … [if we valued lives] we wouldn’t have fought the Nazis, the Japanese fascists…that attitude that the only value is saving a life, that attitude leads to appeasement. It must. It leads to cowardice. No one can die? Then it’s not a war.

That makes no sense. People are dying, and our goal is to take action to prevent people from dying, but if we don’t sacrifice human beings to the virus, it’s “appeasement”? I really don’t get it. The analogy to WWII doesn’t work at all, and is he really arguing that it would have been cowardice to not allow Nazis to gas people? It would have been really brave to stand back, upper lips stiff, as human beings were murdered, I guess.

I thought our goals would be really clear in a pandemic. It’s not a war, it’s a rescue mission. We should try to prevent people from dying and the disease from spreading. We’re not looking for cannon fodder.

Glenn Beck is still broadcasting, although I haven’t heard as much from him lately. Just as well, he’s joined the pandemic death cult full throttle.

I would rather have my children stay home and all of us who are over 50 go in and keep this economy going and working, even if we all get sick, I would rather die than kill the country. ‘Cause it’s not the economy that’s dying, it’s the country.

It’s a bit of a muddled message. We have to sacrifice our old people to keep the economy going, but it’s not the economy that’s dying. OK then, what is dying? The country. But what is the country?

I used to think our country had a clear meaning — it was stated in our founding documents, even if it wasn’t always practiced.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Oh, right. The people are the country. I think the whole point of a democracy is to establish a framework for people to flourish and practice self-determination as much as is possible. We had this other president four score and seven years later who was also quite clear that this was supposed to be a “government of the people, by the people, for the people”. There have been times when people have been asked to sacrifice their lives to maintain that framework — and also times when they’ve been asked to sacrifice their lives to oppress others — but in general, this country we’re supposed to fight for is a nation of people. Asking people to willingly and gratefully succumb to a disease we’re trying suppress “for your country” makes no sense. Dying does not stop the virus. Asking people to give up on isolating themselves helps spread the virus, the opposite of what we should want.

None of these rationalizations by Prager or Beck makes any sense, because they don’t have a clear concept of what the country is. To Prager and Beck, “country” is synonymous with “Dow Jones Industrial Average”, and that’s what they want me to die for. America is a country where the working people will drag themselves into infectious masses in order to keep the wheels of industry turning, working until we die at our labors. They don’t think beyond keeping the doors on businesses open now, without concern for how those businesses will function when the workers are dead, or prostrate with illness, or permanently lung-scarred. Don’t fall for it.

Shouldn’t we all know by now that Prager and Beck are as dumb as two buckets of testicles, and realize that their advice is the opposite of what we should do?

(I want you to know that it would have been really easy to illustrate this post with a photo of a bucket of testicles, but I decided to spare everyone that graphic. Just keep in mind that Prager and Beck really are that revolting.)

Which America?

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has endorsed noble self-sacrifice as a reason to prop up the economy.

No one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?’ And if that’s the exchange, I’m all in.

I want to, you know, live smart and see through this, but I don’t want to see the whole country to be sacrificed, and that’s what I see.

How brave. I would just ask, which America? The one all America loves? What’s that?

The America that is trying to heal scars of slavery, that believes in giving everyone an equal opportunity, that supports the dignity of labor with unions, that respects the rights of other people outside our borders, and that welcomes new immigrants? That’s the America I grew up with. It was a pretty good promise of an America, flawed but at least we had some ideals, and while we fell far short of meeting them, there was a hope of change.

Or does he mean the America of overpaid CEOs, healthcare run for the profit of insurance companies, white nationalists, border camps, stolen children, drone strikes, greed and inequity? Because I’m not willing to risk my life for that America. I want that America to die, not me. We should be honoring our grandparents rather than treating them as disposable, to help Wall Street bankers.

I think Patrick misspoke. He meant to say the capitalism that all capitalists love, not America.

Please do go die for your “America”, Lt. Gov. Patrick. That will help me as I live for mine.

All it takes is a good man acquiescing to thugs in power

Dr Anthony Fauci did a quick interview. I’ve been wondering why he continues to stand up there, fronting for a mob of science-denying incompetents. He doesn’t answer that question.

Q. You stood nearby while President Trump was in the Rose Garden shaking hands with people. You’re a doctor. You must have had a reaction like, Sir, please don’t do that.

A: Yes, I say that to the task force. I say that to the staff. We should not be doing that. Not only that–we should be physically separating a bit more on those press conferences. To his credit, the Vice President [Mike Pence] is really pushing for physical separation of the task force [during meetings]. He keeps people out of the room–as soon as the room gets like more than 10 people or so, it’s ‘Out, everybody else out, go to a different room.’ So with regard to the task force, the Vice President is really a bear in making sure that we don’t crowd 30 people into the Situation Room, which is always crowded. So he’s definitely adhering to that. The situation on stage [for the press briefings] is a bit more problematic. I keep saying, is there any way we can get a virtual press conference. Thus far, no. But when you’re dealing with the White House, sometimes you have to say things 1,2,3,4 times, and then it happens. So I’m going to keep pushing.

That’s a lot of words attempting to justify why the White House gets to ignore their guidelines, especially since these press conferences are useless exercises in the leadership spreading misinformation — they could stop doing them altogether, send out an electronic press release, and lie to the people just as effectively.

You used the wrong word, Dr Fauci. You’re not “pushing”, you’re enabling.

Q: You’re standing there saying nobody should gather with more than 10 people and there are almost 10 people with you on the stage. And there are certainly more than 10 journalists in the audience.

A: I know that. I’m trying my best. I cannot do the impossible.

Funny. I’d like Fauci, and the entire scientific community, to stand boldly for scientific integrity and loudly reject the nonsense coming out of the president. I had no idea that was impossible.

Q: What about the travel restrictions? President Trump keeps saying that the travel ban for China, which began 2 February, had a big impact [on slowing the spread of the virus to the United States] and that he wishes China would have told us three to four months earlier and that they were “very secretive.” [China did not immediately reveal the discovery of a new coronavirus in late December, but by 10 January, Chinese researchers made the sequence of the virus public.] It just doesn’t comport with facts.

A: I know, but what do you want me to do? I mean, seriously Jon, let’s get real, what do you want me to do?

SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER. That’s your job. Not standing with an idiot president.

Q: Most everyone thinks that you’re doing a remarkable job, but you’re standing there as the representative of truth and facts but things are being said that aren’t true and aren’t factual.

A: The way it happened is that after he made that statement [suggesting China could have revealed the discovery of a new coronavirus three to four months earlier], I told the appropriate people, it doesn’t comport, because two or three months earlier would have been September. The next time they sit down with him and talk about what he’s going to say, they will say, by the way, Mr. President, be careful about this and don’t say that. But I can’t jump in front of the microphone and push him down. OK, he said it. Let’s try and get it corrected for the next time.

You see, this is why I can’t be expected to ever hold a political position. I would jump in front of the microphone and push him down, and declare his statements incorrect. I’d be fired immediately afterwards, but I’m so tired of the mealy-mouthed apologists standing there timidly, pretending disinformation deserves respect. The occasional eyeroll on camera is not sufficient to merit praise.

In case you haven’t figure it out yet, I have not been at all impressed with Fauci’s performance. The only remarkable job he has done is to play the threadbare merkin dressing up the flaccid performance of the liar in chief.

How about a little corporate corruption, hey, Boeing?

I’ve got a lot of family in the Seattle area, and the Boeing disease used to be devastating — Boeing sneezed, and families all across the region would be sent home to shiver and starve. It’s not quite as bad now, but the corporate giant is still a huge influence on the region, and when they screw up, everyone gets to suffer. And wow, but have they been screwing up, with control of the company in the hands of MBAs who really don’t know what they’re doing.

The latest catastrophe, on top of the 737 MAX disasters, is that they used prior profits to buy back stocks to artificially inflate their value, a game that was illegal before Saint Reagan wrecked the economy. That’s the kind of scheme they teach you in business school, I guess, but it means that right now they’ve got no reserves to weather the storm of airplane crashes.

This mad scramble for cash and the existential urge to “preserve cash in challenging periods” comes after this master of financial engineering – instead of aircraft engineering – blew, wasted, and incinerated $43.4 billion on buying back its own shares, from June 2013 until the financial consequences of the two 737 MAX crashes finally forced the company to end the practice. That $43.3 billion would come in really handy right now.

The sole purpose of share buybacks is to inflate the stock price because they make the company itself the biggest buyer of its own shares. But those $43 billion of share buybacks cost the company $43 billion in cash. Now those buybacks have stopped because Boeing needs every dime of cash to stay liquid and alive, and shareholders, who’d been so fond of those share buybacks, are now getting crushed by the damage those share buybacks have done to Boeing’s financial position.

I suspect airlines are facing dramatic losses of revenue as people stay home on top of that, so few companies are going to buy airplanes. Boy, aren’t those clever financial wizards running the show really great at lining their own pockets, but not so good at running an aerospace company? And yet the Republican government’s solution to economic problems is to hand these kinds of wizards even more money that they will convert into personal wealth at the expense of the company’s worth and health.