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2023-03-25 07:00 by Karl Denninger
in Health Reform , 854 references Ignore this thread
No Cure, No Pay *
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Who's got the nuts to put this on the table in the upcoming elections for CMS and HHS?

No cure, no pay.

Not less pay, no pay.

How different would the last three years have been if Trump had stood up in March of 2020 and given this speech:

We have a novel virus circulating in our nation and indeed the world.  We understand little of it at the present time, but this is America, the land of innovation, and I'm convinced we have the capacity to understand what this virus is doing and how to stop it from being lethal.

We will not learn that in a day, and there are no certainties in life.  We are all mortal, myself included.  But, what we know from history, both here and elsewhere, is that incentives matter and driven men and women will find answers.  We have set foot on the moon and conquered atomic power for peaceful generation of electricity despite both appearing, at first glance, to be impossible.

But since incentives must never make failure profitable under the Emergency Authorities delegated to myself in the event of a public health emergency I am issuing the following constraints:

  • No medical provider will be paid by the Federal Government, and no private insurance concern that is regulated and authorized under federal jurisdiction, including but not limited to PPACA, otherwise known as Obamacare, VA and similar entities, for failure to reach a successful conclusion of a Covid-19 case.  Success means you leave medical care under your own power in essentially the same condition before you were stricken by this infection.  Death is the most-obvious failure -- but not the only one. Death within one year after infection from a covid-related cause, as but one example, is a presumptive failure.  CMS, the VA and all auditing agencies under Obamacare will be directed to examine all such events under which payment is made.

  • The Federal Government will act with all of its authority to facilitate the use by the medical arts of any and all available medical interventions applied to or upon willing patients to prevent, lessen or treat this disease, subject to the above.  No State government, licensing board or other entity shall interfere with the clinical judgment of a physician or other entity in this regard, provided that informed consent is obtained from the person with the illness.

  • The Federal Government will require, and all medical providers shall document via electronic means, which was introduced as a requirement for charting with the PPACA, all such contacts, all interventions, treatments or preventatives that are applied, and the resulting outcomes.  That data, de-identified, will be placed into a public-facing database that is searchable by any member of the public, including but not limited of course to clinicians, hospitals, doctors, nurses and laypeople.  Any attempt to obstruct, delay or otherwise tamper with this data flow and access shall be treated as computer tampering under existing United States federal law and prosecuted.  We trust that the people of this nation, the finest on the planet, will be able to sift through that which works, that which does not, and make decisions on an ever-refined basis until the risk of this novel virus fades.  I call upon Congress to mandate this on a permanent basis and will veto every bill that comes across my desk until it is passed.  We have the capacity to empower everyone, from the lowliest service industry worker up the line, to evaluate and choose countermeasures and treatments for all manner of disease and disorder.  We can do this and we will do this -- right now for this virus, and forevermore for every medical malady that befalls humankind in this nation.

  • For the duration of this public health emergency any countermeasure in the form of a drug that currently requires a prescription and is desired to be used by a member of the public for his or her own personal use shall be made available over the counter at all licensed pharmacies.  This shall not be construed to permit the dispensation of opioids, their analogs, or other scheduled drugs that have substantial addictive capacity, such as methamphetamine analogs used for ADHD and similar.  Pharmacists shall check for drug interactions or known contra-indications should a member of the public desire such a drug and warn against any known interactions or cautions but may not refuse to dispense the drug.  A pharmacist who so dispenses an amount suitable for personal use is immune from all sanction, civil or criminal, for so doing and the outcome of such use and shall label all such dispensations as "at personal risk" conspicuously on the bottle.  Any pharmacist refusing to dispense, or any corporate entity refusing to so permit shall be personally, severably and corporately liable for manslaughter should the person seeking that drug subsequently die from Covid-19.  

Finally, no party in this nation shall violate your Constitutional right to free assembly, engage in interstate travel, worship or commerce -- not now, and not ever in the face of this or any other disease, disorder or virus.  The Department of Justice will bring immediate prosecution against any and all actors who attempt to do so and place all such persons under immediate arrest.  This does not prohibit a state or local health authority from enforcing a quarantine upon an actually-ill and contagious individual but no person shall be deemed guilty by association or inference in that regard and any intent or attempt at mass-declarations are hereby deemed void and whatever federal force is necessary to prevent that from occurring will be used.  We will vigorously enforce the law against all corporate and State actors who take any action whatsoever in violation of the Constitutional Rights of the citizens of this nation, without exception.  There shall be no forced medical treatment in this nation -- not now and not ever.  This is not Nazi Germany and never shall be.  If you have the absolute right to engage in risky personal sexual practices that could kill you, and the Supreme Court has found that indeed you do, then you have the right to refuse any medical treatment or prophylaxis; if other persons are threatened by your mere presence as a result of your decision to refuse or accept some medical intervention they have every right to take the protective measures they deem fit for their person but have no right to force it upon you.  If a prophylaxis will protect you then it will protect those who choose it, and those who do not are free to make that decision just as we allow people to consume any amount of alcohol they wish even though we know that in excess it is dangerous and even lethal.  In a free society individuals make these decisions and accept the consequences.  This is America, that is the precept on which it was founded, and for as long as I am President that principle shall be upheld and enforced with every authority at my command.

America is the finest nation this planet has ever known.  I took an oath to defend and protect the Constitution from all enemies, foreign or domestic; that oath was neither a suggestion or mere political theater.  May God bless America for as long as we respect the foundational principles of our great nation, and for as long as I hold this office I shall do exactly that.

Trump was no man and unfit to be President.  He was a scared mouse believing that a virus was an evil cat about to eat him and everyone else.  That was false, known false within weeks as soon as Diamond Princess occurred and not a thing has changed since.

That speech above, perhaps with a declaration that if we found that another nation was the source due to malfeasance or worse they would be held fully accountable for the final toll of cost in both treasure and money, is what a person who is fit to be President would have delivered.

Trump's failure to do so cost over one million American lives, most of which should not have been lost.  Biden's failure to correct this course publicly before the election and immediately upon taking the office confirms he is no more fit than Trump and equally liable. 

This may have been speculation in March of 2020 but no longer is; it is all now known to be fact.  While retrospection cannot change the past it must guide our future and any person who wishes to sit in the left seat of this nation from the election of 2024 forward must deliver this speech's equivalent right here, right now.

Where is the candidate that will deliver this speech and demand it be backed with force of law, not just a threat to do so by Executive Order, down the road?  Were this to be policy there would be no market for "cancer treatments" that don't actually cure cancer.  You'd have to find answers to whatever is going on or you don't get paid.

The doctor who puts you on Statins and then 10 years later we find no change in all-cause mortality would have all of the funds paid by any PPACA or government program (e.g. Medicaid, Medicare, etc.) clawed back along with all the funds paid for the drugs.  No cure, no pay.

Is "Ozempic" the answer to obesity?  I don't know -- but if it isn't, and the all-cause rate of death does not go down in people using it for "weight loss" the same thing happens.  No cure, no pay.

Can you choose to do it anyway?  Sure!  You most-certainly can; this is a free country.

But if there is no cure, then no subsidized, socialized and forced payment scheme will fork up a single nickel, and during the period of time when something new is going on that we do not understand very well, such as Covid, the people choose -- not the government, not the hospitals, not the doctors and not the pharmacists.  Those who try to prevent you from choosing take personal criminal liability if you are prohibited that choice and then die.  If a threat to your person is in fact lethal then you have every right to make the decision as to which countermeasures you will use and which you will not in a free nation.

You choose, and you accept the consequences since, in the end, all such consequences are always personal.

No?  You won't stand up here and now and enforce all of the above?

Then we deserve to fail as a nation, and fail we shall.

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