Health Insecurity and the Survival of American Democracy

Posted on | November 16, 2021 | Comments Off on Health Insecurity and the Survival of American Democracy

Mike Magee

Social Epidemiology, is a branch of epidemiology that concentrates on the impact of the various social determinants of health on the citizens of a nation. This field of study lives at the intersection of health care services, political science , the law, and history.

What makes this field of study so timely and relevant at the moment is the linkages it exposes between health and the construction or destruction of a functional democracy .

This was familiar territory for Eleanor Roosevelt. She spent the greater part of World War II creating what she labeled in 1948 “Humanity’s Magna Carta” – aka the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR.)”

Embedded in the declaration was a broad and inclusive definition of health. It reads “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” The Marshall Plan, for reconstruction of war torn Germany and Japan, embodied these principles, and successfully established stable democracies by funding national health plans in these nations as a first priority.

Although our nation signed the UDHR, it carried no legal obligations or consequences. In fact, the U.S. medical establishment’s bias was  to embrace a far narrower definition of health – one that targeted disease as enemy #1. They believed that in defeating disease, health would be left in its wake.

In contrast, neighboring Canada took the UDHR to heart, and as a starting point asked themselves, “How do we make Canada and all Canadians healthy?” Where our nation embraced profiteering and entrepreneurship, leaving no room for solidarity, Canada embraced the tools of social justice and population health.

By 1966, the U.S. had passed Medicare providing health insurance to all citizens over 65 years of age. Canada, that same year passed their program (also called “Medicare”) which covered all Canadian citizens.

The United Nations, in the same year published their “International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights” (ICESCR). Article 12 was explicit. It reads:

1.The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

2. The steps to be taken by the States Parties to the present Covenant to achieve the full realization of this right shall include those necessary for:

“the reduction of the stillbirth-rate and of infant mortality and for the healthy development of the child”;

“the improvement of all aspects of environmental and industrial hygiene”;

“the prevention, treatment and control of epidemic, endemic, occupational and other diseases”;

“the creation of conditions which would assure to all medical service and medical attention in the event of sickness.”

The U.N.’s idealism was tempered by realism. They highlighted what is called a “reasonableness standard” using the tag phrase “highest attainable standard” as a goal for each nation to pursue. They recognized as well that a nation’s cultural, economic and social conditions would evolve, affecting the speed with which certain goals designed to meet basic human needs, such as food, shelter, education, health care, and gainful employment, could be met.

In 2005, I gave a speech to a group of international leaders at the Library of Congress titled “Why health is political.” It focused on the social context of health, power politics, and the domain of law. At the time, more than 70 nations had ratified ICESCR, Article 12. In doing so, they pledged to avoid retrogressive measures, reject discriminatory policies, hold unhealthy polluters at bay, and establish proactive planning to address health disasters. The U.S. was (and remains today) missing in action. Then and now, we remain the only industrialized country in the world without a plan for universal health coverage.

FDR had slated health security to be part of his “Second Bill of Rights”, but died in 1944. The AMA and Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PMA) then short-circuited the effort by successfully labeling Truman as a representative of the “Moscow party line.”

The challenges today remain much the same. The American culture lacks a communal identity, favors individualism and tribalism, has a weak labor movement, distrusts its own government, and often treats its own Constitution as an exercise in semantics.

ICESCR, Article 12, celebrates human rights as universal, indivisible, interdependent, and interrelated. Where our tradition is individualistic and transactional, their philosophy is holistic, and commits to addressing human needs in order to break the bondage of fear and want that can dominate in uncaring or ineffectual authoritarian societies.

The UDHR was a universal declaration of the General Assembly of the United Nations that created no technical binding legal obligations on its signatories.

In contrast, the ICESCR is a covenant– “a treaty which, under the rules of international law, creates legal obligations on all states that ratify it.” It was published on December 16, 1966. President Carter did finally sign the covenant on October 5, 1977, but elected not to pass it on to the Senate which must give its “advice and consent” before the U.S. can ratify any treaty.

As of 2021, over 170 nations have ratified the covenant. The United States is not one of them.

The Value of the “Right” to Health Depends On The Definition of “Health.”

Posted on | November 8, 2021 | 2 Comments

Mike Magee

In my course this Fall at the University of Hartford, titled “The Right to Health Care and the U.S. Constitution”, we have concentrated on the power of words, of precedent, and the range of interests with which health has been encumbered over several hundred years.

The topic has been an eye-opener. On the most basic level, it is already clear that the value of this “right” depends heavily on your definition of “health.”

We’ve highlighted three definitions worth sharing here.

The first is attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1948, as lead for the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, she defined health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” She also made clear at the time that each of us, as responsible citizens, bore a level of personal responsibility for our own health. By virtue of the choices we make, and the behaviors we exhibit, we raise or lower the chances of being “healthy.”

The second voice highlighted was also a woman. She is a physician from Norway, born on April 20, 1939 in Oslo, the daughter of a physician and politician. She received her Medical Degree from the University of Oslo and went on to earn a Masters in Public Health at Harvard. She served three separate terms as Norway’s Prime Minister, never having fewer than 8 women in her 18-member cabinet. Her name is Gro Brundtland. In 1998, she was confirmed as director general of the World Health Organization (WHO).

In one of her first WHO directives in 1998, she took on the definition of health which she described as “Part Goodness and Part Fairness.” She went on to explain,

“Goodness in the sense that our professionals are well trained and qualified; our institutions well outfitted and safe; our processes engineered to perfection; our teamwork a reflection of training and excellent communication.”

“ Fairness in the sense that these skills and capabilities are fairly and equitably distributed to the broadest population possible.”

The third featured definer of heath was a Catholic Cardinal from Chicago during those early Brundtland years. His name was Joseph Bernardin. He had terminal cancer and was ultra-focused on health delivery when he addressed the Annual Meeting of the American Medical Association. He said, “There are four words in the English language that have common English roots. They are heal, health, whole, and holy. To heal in the modern world, you must provide health. But to provide health, you must keep the individual, the family, the community and society whole. And if you can do all that, that is a holy thing.”

As the Earth and its inhabitants entered the new millennium, it was clear that the delivery of health care – whether local, national or global – was a complex human endeavor. Even if you declared it a “universal right” as the UN and the WHO did, you would still need responsive programs, trained professionals, equal access, continuity of care, funding, compassion, understanding, and partnership. And even these would not be enough without forward planning, anticipation, scientific discovery and reliable funding.

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, it rapidly revealed the cost of lack of U.S. planning, investment and capacity. Specifically, the complex supply chain, including materials, human capital, and science failed. More alarming than these however was the damage and confusion that flowed directly from flawed leadership at the top. What Trump revealed was that trust, truth, and integrity were critical elements when it came to health delivery.

Weaknesses in this regard have been with us since the birth of this nation. But they have never quite been called out with such penetrating clarity as they were by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., when he addressed the crowd at the Poor People’s Campaign on March 25, 1966, and said, “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”

As I said to my students, we could learn a great deal by pondering whether Dr. King was right, and if so, why? At the time, President Lyndon Baines Johnson was struggling to make real his “Great Society.” The three-prong “Martyr’s Cause (as he labeled his efforts to honor JFK’s death), included implementation of The Civil Rights Act, The War on Poverty, and Medicare. All three, integrated and interdependent, were necessary if justice was to prevail as promised in the U.S. Constitution.

Mark and Sheryl’s “Meta”-Mania.

Posted on | October 29, 2021 | 1 Comment

Mike Magee

At the 2010 World Economic Forum, marketing powerhouse Fleishman-Hillard reported that “3 out of 5 chief executives believe their corporate brand and reputation represent more than 40% of their company’s market capitalization.”

But what happens when your brand becomes synonymous with misbehavior, dishonesty, deceit, and deception? For C-suites behind the management curve, or ones ethically compromised, choice number one is to abandon the brand. But timing is critical.

Take Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement this week that Facebook is now “Meta.” As reported in Forbes, “Mark Bayer, president of Bayer Strategic Consulting, noted that, ‘A name change now—when Facebook is under intense scrutiny—reinforces the perception the company is trying to elude responsibility for its lengthening list of misdeeds. Even if disconnected from the current crisis, the name change will be seen as a clumsy PR move. It’s a gift for comedy writers everywhere.’ ”

Zuckerberg on the record comments this week didn’t exactly chart new ground. He timidly contended that “Over time, I hope that we are seen as a metaverse company. I want to anchor our work and our identity on what we’re building towards.”

Metaverse? The term was coined in 1992 by writer Neal Stephenson in his dystopian novel Snow Crash.  It is an invented word (the prefix “meta” meaning beyond and “universe”) to a vision of how “a virtual reality-based internet might evolve in the near future.”

“Metaverse” is all the rage today, referenced by the leaders not only of Facebook, but also Microsoft, and Apple, and many other inhabitors of virtual worlds and augmented reality. The land of imaginary 3D spaces has grown at breakneck speed over the past three decades, and that was before the self-imposed isolation of a worldwide pandemic.

In rebranding Facebook “Meta”, Zuckerberg is banking on futurists who say that the metaverse remains a future-facing concept that has not yet approached its full potential. But everyone from gamers to academics say it is gaining ground fast, and igniting a cultural tug of war.

Zuckerberg is far from the only enthusiat. Jason Warnke of giant consulting firm Accenture sees the “metaverse” as a power enhancer and multiplier. He says “…we believe we now have the opportunity to bring our people together in ways never before possible in the physical world.”

Not so fast, says Esther O’Callahan, the Gen-X founder of the online recruitment firm Hundo, who must feel just a bit violated this week. She says the term is“… owned by young people who care more about community than profit and use it for the good of the real and virtual world. And if that sounds ludicrously naive and optimistic about it – I am and I’m not sorry!”

Karinna Nobbs, CEO of The Dematerialized, envisions the coming metaverse as a societal builder referring to it as “the next significant third space.” In doing so, she is appropriating a term made famous by sociologist Ray Oldenburg in his 1989 book, “The Great Good Place”. In it, the author advocates for investment in public spaces, outside of home and work that encourage congregation, civic engagement and relationship building. Karinna sees her virtual company as a “third space” to converge and nurture the emerging digital fashion ecosystem.”

Not surprisingly, many health entrepreneurs must be viewing Zuckerberg’s Meta-mania with concern. They have been all over the metaverse as well, with new ventures attracting investor demand, selling marginal moves in telemedicine, robotics, behavioral health, consumer wearables and the like.

Deloitte & Touche LLP report that digital health investment has quadrupled in the past four years, including $21.6 billion in 2020. They see health tech invasion of the metaverse as “a prescription for disruption by a growing base of health technology investors armed with funding from special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs).” Investors are literally betting on an idea since SPACS go public without any existing business operations. They play to profit, not to disrupt.

Of course, so does Facebook, manipulating algorithms to juice up profitability, even as they have disrupted what had previously appeared to be a rather stable form of government, democracy.

Rebranding might distract, and even excite some Facebook fans. But it is no more likely to be a successful rebranding strategy than Phillip Morris’s morphing into Altria while simultaneously targeting with e-cigarettes the same crowd that got Mark and Sheryl into so much trouble – teens.

Trust Versus Secrecy – TSMC vs. Pfizer in Pandemic Times.

Posted on | October 20, 2021 | 6 Comments

Mike Magee

This week’s Tom Friedman Opinion piece in the New York Times contained a title impossible to ignore: “China’s Bullying Is Becoming a Danger To The World and Itself.” The editorial has much to recommend it. But the item that caught my eye was Friedman’s full-throated endorsement of Taiwan’s “most sophisticated microchip manufacturer in the world,” Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).

TSMC owns 50% of the world’s microchip manufacturing market, and along with South Korea’s Samsung, is one of only two companies currently producing the ultra-small 5-nanometer chips. Next year, TSMC will take sole ownership of the lead with a 3-nanometer chip. In this field, the smaller the better. (For comparison, most of China’s output is 14 to 28 nanometers.)

U.S. Silicon Valley companies like Apple, Qualcomm, Nvidia, AMD, and recently Intel contract with TSMC rather than produce chips on their own. In addition the key machines and chemicals necessary to produce the chips are willingly supplied to TSMC by U.S. and European manufacturers. TSMC’s secret sauce, according to Friedman, is “trust.” As he writes, “Over the years, TSMC has built an amazing ecosystem of trusted partners that share their intellectual property with TSMC to build their proprietary chips.”

“Trust me” is not a phrase often associated with intellectual property. Consider, for example, Washington Post’s reporting the very same day as Friedman’s under the banner, “In secret vaccine contracts with governments, Pfizer took hard line in push for profit, report says.” The article reveals documents in a Public Citizen report that confirms that Pfizer has been maximizing their vaccine profits “behind a veil of strict secrecy, allowing for little public scrutiny… even as demand surges…”

As I describe in my book “Code Blue: Inside the Medical Industrial Complex”(Grove/2020), Pfizer’s focus on intellectual property as a commercial weapon has a history that extends back a half-century.

In the 1980’s Pfizer CEO, Ed Pratt was ideally positioned to lead the global charge on intellectual property (IP) protections. Pratt was chairman of the powerful US Business Roundtable and also the formal adviser to Reagan’s US trade representative, Bill Brock. Pratt’s first move was to form a task force on intellectual property with his chief ally, IBM CEO John Opel. Their recommendation to Brock that a position be created within the Office of the US Trade Representative for a director of international investment and intellectual property sailed through.

The challenge remained in linking intellectual property protections to ongoing multilateral-trade negotiations that currently involved 123 nations. This was a leap, because trade agreements normally helped prevent monopolies, while intellectual property protections were viewed by many nations as supporting monopolistic companies. Rather than fight the battle head-on, Pratt and his followers finessed the whole discussion by advocating for the creation of a collection of regulatory policies that prohibit product piracy.

In 1983, Pratt and Opel approached the leaders of 10 other large US-based multinationals, including General Electric, General Motors, DuPont, Johnson & Johnson, and Monsanto, requesting their participation on the Intellectual Property Committee and creating a united front across industries.

At Bill Brock’s request, Pratt worked tirelessly to build a multi-sector global coalition of major corporations to engage the United Nations and World Trade Organization. Domestically, he worked the chambers of commerce, business councils, business committees, and trade associations. As one analyst recounted, “With every such enrollment, the business power behind the case for such an approach became harder and harder for governments to resist.”

During Reagan’s first term as president, the term “piracy” became popularized and connected to American ideas that were being stolen by greedy foreign nations, denying companies like Pfizer and IBM their “rightful rewards.” The messaging was reinforced by generous underwriting of well-funded think tanks across the political spectrum, from the American Enterprise Institute to the Brookings Institution. Pfizer supported a comprehensive public affairs strategy with press releases, speeches, white papers, conferences, op-eds, and special briefings designed to strengthen the connection between free trade and intellectual property.

It took more than a decade to accomplish the goal, but when the eighth round of the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade was signed in 1994, it had 123 signatories, and established the World Trade Organization with intellectual property protections for multinational corporations. During the years that the battle was engaged, Pfizer developed resources in government relations, investor relations, media relations, public affairs, and shareholder relations that have continued to facilitate maximizing profitability, including now from their current Covid vaccine in the middle of a worldwide pandemic.

The Lone Star State Battling Cry – “Divest in Texas.”

Posted on | October 6, 2021 | 2 Comments

Mike Magee

re·vanch·ism

/rəˈvän(t)SHˌizəm/

noun

1. a policy of seeking to retaliate, especially to recover lost territory.

“a recipe for deep future resentment, revanchism and renewed conflict”

_______________________________________________________

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has been on a tear lately, and his central theme appears to be “revanchism.” Faced with declining demographics, he is retaliating against enemies and newcomers alike, aligning himself with slippery politicians and vigilantes. As they say in Texas, “He’s on a first name basis with the bottom of the deck”, and the game he’s playing appears to be “South Africa – 1950.”

The formal establishment of apartheid in South Africa occurred in 1948, though racial injustice had been baked in centuries earlier. Violence and intimidation, embedded in legislation supported by a 15% white minority, led to the creation of the African National Congress (ANC) which launched what they called their “Defiance Campaign.” By 1962, their party had been outlawed, and their dynamic leader, Nelson Mandela, imprisoned.

And yet resistance continued to grow, inside and outside the country. Religious leaders, like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, took to the street, organizing huge, peaceful rallies. In 1976, images of Black children being attacked and killed in Soweto township during a protest spread like wild fire around the world. 176 died and thousands were injured. In response, the United Nations called on its member states to divest and impose economic sanctions. Only 2 leaders did not. (More on that in a moment.)

Minority rule, oppression, vigilantism, and disenfranchisement are eventually loosing propositions as Greg Abbott is learning. A majority of 52% now say his state is moving in the wrong direction. The list of grievances is long and continues to grow. Catholic bishops decried his inhumane handling of immigrant families this year. Baptist minister Rev. Frederick Haynes III spotlighted the Republican legislature’s voter suppression law recently suggesting they were “dressing up Jim and Jane Crow in a tuxedo.” Only 39% approve of his handling of the pandemic, and many Texans find the renewed endorsement of “vigilante justice” for unfortunate women and girls seeking abortions to be a disturbing and dystopian new reality. By the way, 1 in 5 Texans lack health insurance, and Texas is one of twelve Republican led states that continue to refuse federal offers to expand Medicaid coverage of their citizens.

Modern day demographics in the Lone Star State suggest that the territory is no longer dominantly white, rural, or conservative. Texas population has grown by 40% (over 8 million new residents) in the past 20 years. Since 2010, over 95% of these new entrants are people of color. For every 1 white entrant in the past ten years, Texas accepted 3 Blacks, 3 Asians, 3 multiracial citizens, and 11 Hispanics. The cities and suburbs that have grown nearly 20% in the past 10 years, now include 70% of the statewide population. Rural areas have grown only 1%.

New entrants are finding jobs in firms attracted by liberal zoning, low taxes, and cash incentives. Firms like HP, Tesla, Oracle and Amazon say they are big fans of 3P management (People/Planet/Profit). But how will this new “creative class” of techies and scientists like living in a state that wants to embrace a 4^th P – Prejudice?

The current Republican crowd may be gutsy, but let’s face it, Abbott is no Reagan. And even “The Great Communicator” himself, has been somewhat sullied by brush up’s with history.

For example, by 1983, all but two UN member national leaders had supported divestment of South Africa – Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Reagan in fact doubled down in 1986, placing Mandela on the terrorist watch list (where he remained until 2008), and said, “The South African government is under no obligation to negotiate the future of the country with any organization that proclaims a goal of creating a communist state…”

This was five years after tipping his real hand to Walter Cronkite in an interview, describing South Africa as “a country that has stood by us in every war we’ve ever fought, a country that, strategically, is essential to the free world in its production of minerals.”

Professor Steven Pedigo director of the LBJ Urban Lab at the University of Texas, is an expert in urban economic development, regional cooperation and placemaking. Pedigo has developed strategies for more than 50 cities and regions in the United States and believes the Republicans reliance on “gerrymandering, voter suppression, and relentless cultural warfare” is a “fatal miscalculation.”

With Abbott riding “abortion” the way Reagan once rode “communism”, and with Rev. Frederick Haynes III channeling Desmond Tutu, how long will it be before “Divest in Texas” becomes the new Lone Star State battling cry?

The Legality of Vaccine Mandates – A 7 Minute Summary.

Posted on | September 30, 2021 | 5 Comments

Mike Magee

Later this Fall, I am teaching a 4-part course titled “The Right to Health Care and the U.S. Constitution.” In preparing for it, I’ve struggled to remain one step ahead of my future students – some of whom are lawyers.

The course itself crosses the boundaries of law, medicine, political science and history. Facts and figures and dates all matter of course, but not nearly as much as the clarion voices from past and present.

For example, there is Alexander Hamilton,  on October 27, 1787 in Federalist #1 who wrote: “It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.”

Most would agree that our society has yet to “decide” on this “important question.”

By Federalist #45, James Madison had taken a more conciliatory tone, an early Joe Biden if you will, as he reassures reluctant states here:

“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.”

As the current battle over vaccine mandates well illustrates, the tussle between federalists and states over respective “rights” has never been fully resolved.  Consider for example the politicization of life-saving vaccines. The power to mandate vaccines was litigated and resolved over a century ago. Justice John Marshall Harlin, a favorite of current Chief Justice Roberts, penned the 7 to 2 majority opinion in 1905’s Jacobson v. Massachusetts. It’s impact was epic.

In 1905, Massachusetts was one of 11 states that required compulsory vaccinations. The Rev. Henning Jacobson, a Lutheran minister, challenged the city of Cambridge, MA, which had passed a local law requiring citizens to undergo smallpox vaccination or pay a $5 fine. Jacobson and his son claimed they had previously had bad reactions to the vaccine and refused to pay the fine believing the government was denying them their due process XIV Amendment rights.

In deciding against them, Harlan wrote, “in every well ordered society charged with the duty of conserving the safety of its members the rights of the individual in respect of his liberty may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to such restraint, to be enforced by reasonable regulations, as the safety of the general public may demand … liberty for all could not exist under the operation of a principle which recognizes the right of each individual person to use his own [liberty], whether in respect of his person or his property, regardless of the injury that may be done to others.”

Slam dunk, except for two things:

1.In 1927, the Jacobson decision provided judicial cover for Buck v. Bell. That case centered around a young Virginia girl who supporters of the Eugenics movement accused of being a product of a long line of “mental deficients.” They asked the courts to impose involuntary sterilization. In his decision, Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes wrote, ““The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes (Jacobson v Massachusetts, 197 US 11). Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” Based on that decision, 24 states moved forward and sterilized 60,000 women in the next three years.

2. A state’s right to legislate compulsory public health measures does not require them to do so. In fact, as we have seen in Texas and Florida among others, they may decide to do just the opposite – declare life saving mandates (for masks or vaccines) to be unlawful. At least 14 states have passed laws barring employer and school vaccine mandates and imposing penalties in Republican controlled states already. 

So state powers are clearly a double-edged sword when it comes to health care.

Questions anyone?

Does the Federal government have the power to come to the rescue?

NO. Judgments thus far refer specifically to states rights. These include the 1922 decision, Zucht v. King, where the decision supported a local public school district’s right to require vaccination for admission to school. In this decision, Judge Louis Brandeis wrote, “a state may, consistently with the federal Constitution, delegate to a municipality authority to determine under what conditions health regulations shall become operative.”

Can the federal government forcibly require or compel you to get vaccinated in the U.S.(with exceptions for religion and disability)? 

NO.

Isn’t that what they are doing with a mandate?

NO. A vaccine mandate means the government is “setting a condition on you returning to society or participating in a particular activity.”

If a state doesn’t mandate masks, distancing, or vaccines, and a business decides to, is that legal?

With appropriate exceptions for religion and disability, when the intent is to protect employees and customers, legal scholar, Professor James Hodge,  director of the Center for Public Health Law and Policy at Arizona State University, believes YES, although this remains to be adjudicated.

If a business asks me if I’m vaccinated on entry, is that a HIPAA violation?

NO. HIPAA regulations restrict hospital and health care workers, not store clerks.

Doesn’t the First Amendment give me the right to reject vaccines?

NO. According to legal scholars: “Freedom to believe in a religion is absolute under the First Amendment. However, freedom to act in accordance with one’s religious beliefs ‘remains subject to regulation for the protection of society.’”

Didn’t the FDA “Emergency Use Authorization” require vaccine mandates?

NO. This authorized sale and distribution of the vaccine, but did not require anyone’s use of it.

Is President Biden doing all he can, within the powers of the Executive Branch, to protect Americans from the pandemic?

Legal expert, Georgetown Law professor Lawrence Gostin, says YES. “While states have near plenary power to protect the public’s health, the federal government’s powers are limited…(Biden) is acting fully lawfully pursuant to those powers.

1. The president “is using his executive power to order vaccinations for the federal workforce. (this includes members of the Military.)

2. He is using his spending power through Medicaid and Medicare to ensure vaccine mandates in health care settings.

3. And he is using the Occupational Health and Safety Act to mandate vaccinations in all businesses of 100 or more employees. All of these are comfortably within the president’s power.”

Biden could go farther and attempt, by providing financial rewards to states that mandate vaccines, or through the Commerce Claus to limit non-mandated states interstate travel, to extend compliance, but these would most certainly generate extended legal challenges. Federal Law under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title I of the Americans with Disability Act also require vaccine exemptions for religious and medical reasons be in place. (Nationally, less than 1% have claimed these exemptions.)

As for the states, it’s a messy affair. While Texas Governor Abbott grandstands, the federal District Court in Texas in Bridges et al v. Houston Methodist Hospital refused relief for any of the 117 employees suspended and threatened with termination if they refused to get vaccinated. The decision read: plaintiffs “can freely choose to accept or refuse a COVID-19 vaccine; however, if [they] refuse, [they] will simply need to work somewhere else…Every employment includes limits on the worker’s behavior in exchange for his remuneration. This is all part of the bargain.”

In another recent case, US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Indiana, and the Supreme Court in an appeal, denied relief to eight Indiana University students barred from attendance because they refused to comply with mandated vaccination. Students had chosen not to apply to the university for medical and religious exemption, which if granted would permit attendance if they wore masks.

States nationwide generally require entering students to have proof of up to date vaccines to prevent 11 childhood diseases.

Over a century ago, the fight over vaccines was no less heated than it is today. A New York Times editorial at the time of the Jacobson 1904 decision, tagged the dispute as  “a conflict between intelligence and ignorance, civilization and barbarism”

On the “intelligence” side, Nearly 60 top medical organizations released a joint statement on July 22^nd in support of mandated vaccines for all health care and long-term care workers as a “logical fulfillment of the ethical commitment” to patients.

A Special Event.

Posted on | September 22, 2021 | 7 Comments

A Unique Offering for Students, Professors, and Lifelong Learners.

(Register For Virtual Zoom Access Here.)

Join me, in person or virtual, on 4 consecutive Thursdays this Fall.

Together we’ll examine 250 years of history and case law, to expose what our U.S. Constitution says (and leaves unsaid) about Americans “right” to health care. From the Bill of Rights to the Federalist Papers, from McCulloch v. Maryland to Griswold v. Connecticut, from “Comstockery” to Sanger, and FDR’s  “Court Packing,” we’ll cover it all.

You’ll learn about “penumbras” from William O. Douglas, and Due Process within the XIV Amendment; how the AMA chose Reagan as their spokesperson against “socialized medicine”, and how LBJ forced integration of hospital wards on Bible Belt states.

 We’ll do a deep dive into Roe v. Wade and learn how Justice Blackmun arrived at his compromise solution for “Jane Doe” and others, and examine why Texas Governor Abbott is trying to torpedo it a half century later.

We’ll revisit the politicization of the Terri Schiavo “Right to Die” case, and uncover “conflicts of interest” and deficiencies in “informed consent” at the University of Pennsylvania that contributed to the research death of Jesse Gelsinger.

We’ll hear the voices and opinions of students and professors, analyze Justice Roberts’ National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius split decision that preserved the Affordable Care Act…address mandated vaccines and much, much more.

In just four 90-minute packed sessions, you’ll gain a perspective on the current struggle for health care in America.  Most of all, you’ll learn and participate in the process. That’s a promise!

Register Today HERE.

 _____________________________________________________

The Right to Health Care and the U.S. Constitution: Legal, Philosophical, Ethical, Practical 

Wilde Auditorium, University of Hartford and via Zoom

1:30 PM to 3:00 PM

Course fee: $80

Thursdays: Oct. 28, Nov. 4, Nov. 11, and Nov. 18

Get informed with “Dr. Mike,” back by popular demand, on the recent political history and legal controversy surrounding attempts to establish universal health coverage in America.

Full course details

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