The White House Has Erected a Blockade Stopping States and Hospitals From Getting Coronavirus PPE
The White House Has Erected a Blockade Stopping States and Hospitals From Getting Coronavirus PPE
By David Wallace-Wells
...Over the last few weeks, it has started to appear as though, in addition to abandoning the states to their own devices in a time of national emergency, the federal government has effectively erected a blockade — like that which the Union used to choke off the supply chains of the Confederacy during the Civil War — to prevent delivery of critical medical equipment to states desperately in need. At the very least, federal authorities have made governors and hospital executives all around the country operate in fear that shipments of necessary supplies will be seized along the way. In a time of pandemic, having evacuated federal responsibility, the White House is functionally waging a war against state leadership and the initiative of local hospitals to secure what they need to provide sufficient treatment.
Yesterday, a letter published by the New England Journal of Medicine highlighted the extraordinary measures that had to be taken to secure the delivery into Massachusetts of equipment that had been bought and paid for. The NEJM, which featured the letter in its COVID-19 Notes series, is far from a platform of partisan alarm or hysteria — it is among the most sober and high-minded professional journals in the country. It’s worth reading the correspondence, written by an executive running a small health system, at some length:...
Those measures do not seem unusual, horrifyingly enough. Last month, 3 million masks ordered by the state of Massachusetts were seized by the federal government. Last week, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that the governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, was arranging secret chartered flights of supplies as a way of outmaneuvering federal interference. “The governor has clearly outlined the challenges this administration has faced as we’ve worked around the clock to purchase PPE for our health-care workers and first responders,” a spokesperson for the governor told the paper. “The supply chain has been likened to the Wild West, and once you have purchased supplies, ensuring they get to the state is another Herculean feat,” he continued. “These flights are carrying millions of masks and gloves our workers need. They’re scheduled to land in Illinois in the coming weeks and the state is working to ensure these much-needed supplies are protected and ready for distribution around the state.” A source “knowledgeable about the flights” told the paper that the governor didn’t want to be more open about the shipments “because we’ve heard reports of Trump trying to take PPE in China and when it gets to the United States.”
...This is not just the federal government telling states they are on their own, as it has done repeatedly over the last few weeks — a sign that the president, often thought to harbor authoritarian impulses, will invariably choose to unburden himself of responsibility even when seizing it would offer remarkable new powers — and itself a moral outrage demonstrating incredible political sadism, given that states lack the resources of the federal government to pay for this stuff. That’s in part because, in many cases, states are legally barred from deficit spending, which means in times of crisis, especially those producing huge budget shortfalls through collapsing tax revenue, they are functionally unable to respond at all. In such situations, the federal government is designed to serve as a backstop, but over and over again throughout this crisis, the White House has said states will get little to no help — that they are entirely on their own. (The federal medical stockpile isn’t meant for the states, as Jared Kushner has said, as though the country is anything more than its states.)...
Which may be one reason why no explanation has been given. We don’t know where these supplies are going. We don’t know on what grounds they are being seized, or threatened with seizure. What business do the DHS and FEMA have with ventilators and PPE purchases by governors and local hospitals? “This is like a story out of the last days of the Soviet Union,” David Frum wrote on Twitter of the NEJM letter. “This is what it means to be a failed state,” wrote the essayist Umair Haque, echoing him. In the absence of an explanation, it is hard to come to any conclusion other than that this is simply mafia government, exerting control for the sake of control, not in spite of but because of the crisis-led demand, and squeezing the American people, as they die in hospital beds and attend — with inadequate protection — to the sick and scared.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/hospitals-face-a-white-house-blockade-for-coronavirus-ppe.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
What’s the Federal Government going to do with this stuff? We don’t know. There is no stated policy.
And this is VERY wrong.
-Laelth
This has to be seen to be believed, although most of us probably suspected this all along.
Murdering, crazed, sociopathic, dysfunctional, criminal pieces of shit.
What the ever loving fuck? This is evil! It's sadistic! It is flat out homicidal! What kind of government does this to it's own people? How are we putting up with this shit? I am so frustrated and beyond angry over this, I don't know what to do with myself.
OH YEAH - I know the reason, but it's not justifiable . . .
Millionaires and Billionaires control the industry - they always just want more money.
I started paying into our Health Care system in 1970 - when I got my first paycheck . . . . yeah, it's a regular mandatory deduction off every check.
Our services are just "provided" - no $$, no paperwork - They ID you, treat you, then off ya go - nothing to sign, nothing coming in the mail.
from WIKI
"Canada's provincially-based Medicare systems are cost-effective because of their administrative simplicity. In each province, each doctor handles the insurance claim against the provincial insurer. There is no need for the person who accesses healthcare to be involved in billing and reclaim"
We just carry on . . .
My apologies . . . .
I'll delete it if you wish.
W
