The Supreme Irony of Dr. Trump.

Posted on | July 14, 2020 | 3 Comments

Mike Magee

What a strange irony. Trump decides, full-bravado, to challenge China to a trade war just months before China unwittingly hatches a virulent pandemic that collapses our  deeply segmented health care system and our economy simultaneously. And rather than cry “Uncle”, our President then fires the WHO just as their experts are heading to China to attempt to unravel the mystery of covid-19.

And here at home most Americans awaken, forced to acknowledge the absurdity that our case rate and mortality from Covid-19 have made us a pariah worldwide. Our convoluted health system of third-party payers, and the pretzel positions our politicians weave in and out of as they try to justify it, reform it, then un-reform it is defenseless. Congressional loyalists continue to find solace in telling themselves, “Well, we still have the best health care in the world.

In point of fact, we’re not even close to having the best health care in the world. As legendary Princeton health economist Uwe Reinhardt prophetically remarked two years prior to COVID-19, “At international health care conferences, arguing that a certain proposed policy would drive some country’s system closer to the U.S. model usually is the kiss of death.”

It is at times of crises like these that system weaknesses expose themselves. The inability to swiftly and efficiently test a population for COVID-19, share those results, and rationally plan a coordinated and effective response is a reflection of the gross inadequacies of our health care system. So is a leaky and disjointed supply system that can’t manage demand for the basics required to protect health professionals.

In a review of my book, CODE BLUE: Inside the Medical Industrial Complex last year, John Rother, President and CEO of the National Coalition on Health Care wrote, “Code Blue will make you mad, but it will also make you better informed and better able to understand what we need to do as a country to fix it. I can’t think of a more persuasive book on the need for change.”

The need for change that John forecasted not only included matters of justice, planning, and equitable distribution of health care resources, but also the capacity to respond to a global public health disaster of the magnitude of COVID-19.

God Bless Anthony Fauci, and his continued back and forth with Trump, but is our system so fragile that the fate of Americans rests on a single individual having the temerity to speak truth to power in the face of executive incompetence?

A half-century of systematic underfunding of public health, planning and prevention in deference to entrepreneurial scientists in pursuit of profit and patents over patients and families, ends here – in crisis.

We will survive this “Code Blue” calamity, but we need to assure through new leadership and deliberate action that it will never happen again – never.

For now:

1. Ignore Trump and Pence.
2. Encourage your local leaders and each other.
3. Vote with your head, not your heart (or your gut), in the next cycle.

Comments

"Available Everywhere Now"
"Code Blue INDEX online"

 

  Ralph Snyderman
Prospective Health Blog
BIOGRAPHY   Meredith Magee Donnelly
Homegrown Friends
BIOGRAPHY   Eric Dishman
NIH Precision Medicine
BIOGRAPHY   Barbara Ficarra
Health in 30
BIOGRAPHY   William L. (Larry) Minnix, Jr.
Larry's Letters
BIOGRAPHY     Eric Dishman
Precision Medicine, Euthanasia, Abortion, Communism, Trillions of Dollars, Losing Freedom, and Town Hall Mobs BIOGRAPHY   Michael Millenson
Yearning for Universal Coverage Is Not Universal
BIOGRAPHY