Healthcare going forward

[KaraBulut]

Well Americans. Another battering ram likely being taken to healthcare in the US.

Supreme Court to review Obamacare’s no-cost coverage of cancer screenings, heart statins and HIV drugs | CNN Politics

The Supreme Court said Friday it will review the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act’s no-cost coverage mandates for certain preventive care services, putting the landmark health care law in front of the justices again just as President-elect Donald Trump – who tried to repeal the law...

amp.cnn.com

Something else to think about:

PrEP costs over $1,000 a month (the extremely high cost of which is another discussion). Most gay men with insurance didn't have to worry about this because the ACA said that anything that is considered a preventative treatment must be covered by insurance. Insurance companies paid for PrEP, even though the people taking the HIV anti-virals didn't have HIV. The research said antivirals could prevent HIV infection, so the treatment was preventative.

If SCOTUS knocks out the requirement for preventative treatments, guess what...?

 

[rareboy]

Yup.

And this is one of the reasons that the insurance companies want this overturned.

And then they will deny AIDS claims.

I would note though that in Ontariostan up to age 24, OHIP will cover Prep but after 24 you either need to have an insurance plan to cover it...or pay about $250/mo. for the generic.

 

[KaraBulut]

...
I would note though that in Ontariostan up to age 24, OHIP will cover Prep but after 24 you either need to have an insurance plan to cover it...or pay about $250/mo. for the generic.

So that I make sure I am understanding... The province's public plan doesn't pay for PrEP after age 24?

For decades, the public health people have been pointing out that tertiary care is much more expensive than primary care, and that preventative care is dollar for dollar much cheaper than waiting until someone gets sick.

But in this new world where vaccines are the enemy, I guess we'll have to have to get back to the days of polio wards for kids for people to remember why we wanted to prevent diseases instead of waiting until people got sick for their healthcare to be covered.

 

[rareboy]

So that I make sure I am understanding... The province's public plan doesn't pay for PrEP after age 24?

For decades, the public health people have been pointing out that tertiary care is much more expensive than primary care, and that preventative care is dollar for dollar much cheaper than waiting until someone gets sick.

But in this new world where vaccines are the enemy, I guess we'll have to have to get back to the days of polio wards for kids for people to remember why we wanted to prevent diseases instead of waiting until people got sick for their healthcare to be covered.

Yes. And of course it was the apparently loathesome Trudeau that tried to implement a much broader based pharmacare program...while Polievre and the Conservatives have fought against it..

I suspect that the Cons will strip it out entirely. Meds have always been an issue in Ontario. Until 65 or if you have supplementary insurance, they are out-of pocket...which was the trade-off for lower costs and the coverage through other drug programs for low income households.

In fairness, I would note that even before decrepitude set in, my partners Crohn's meds Remicade would be $3K per month but was covered under ODP.

The distinction is that in the Presbyterian Conservative health ministry committe rooms in Ontario, there is a not so rare notion that there are other alternatives to preventive therapies for HIV/AIDS like condoms.

 

[Kulindahr]

I suspect that the only thing that Trump really wants out if it is for it to be relabelled TrumpCare.

If he wants that he needs to modify it in a way that will improve benefits for his supporters -- like make the first $5k of medical expenses a tax credit, so their copays and deductibles don't keep them from using their insurance.

 

[cityboy-stl]

I still point out, Trumpcare or no, they still have not come up with even a shred of a plan to replace the ACA. Not even an outline "concept" of a plan. If republicans stay on the trajectory they're going and repeal Obamacare in full, or tear it apart in pieces, the bottom line, end result will be that everything goes back to the way it was before Obama. They have nothing to put in its place that anyone has seen. It will take them years to come up with something. The insurance industry gets what it wants, republicans get what they want, the public gets screwed. Stick it to Obamacare, stick it to Obama for doing it. People can just die in bankruptcy for all they care.

 

[rareboy]

If he wants that he needs to modify it in a way that will improve benefits for his supporters -- like make the first $5k of medical expenses a tax credit, so their copays and deductibles don't keep them from using their insurance.

He has no desire to modify it in any way that benefits his supporters, unless you are talking about the billionaires' club.

 

[rareboy]

 

[rareboy]

Americans might want to be ready for any of these diseases to land on its shores with the cessation of Medical Aid programs in developing countries.

Or is this when the billionaire class steps up to take over this.

'Killed an American': Expert puts Trump on notice over President causing 'serious damage'

Donald Trump was warned by an expert on Saturday that the President is causing great harm to the world and the U.S. Atul Gawande, a former professor at the Harvard School of Public Health and former United States Agency for International Development official, took to social media over the...

www.rawstory.com

 

[rareboy]

Meanwhile, with Trump shutting down communications by the CDC, Americans need to be ready to share more regional and local news coverage about the spread of diseases.

Kansas tuberculosis outbreak is now America's largest in recorded history

Kansas public health officials say the state's ongoing tuberculosis outbreak is the largest since the CDC started reporting TB cases in the 1950s.

www.cjonline.com

Welcome to the 19th century, America.

 

[KaraBulut]

It's not a HIPAA violation if you a) leak the private medical records of children being treated for gender dysphoria and b) you've voted in White Christian Nationalists for key positions in the Federal government:

Feds drop charges against Texas doctor accused of leaking transgender care data

Dr. Eithan Haim of Dallas had faced four counts for wrongfully disclosing the individually identifiable health information of underage patients at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston.

www.texastribune.org

Federal prosecutors dropped their charges against a Dallas surgeon accused of leaking the records of underage patients’ gender transition-related care in what some conservative activists are calling a win for anti-transgender activism.

The request for dismissal, submitted by Jennifer Lowery, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, did not specify why the four counts of wrongful disclosure of individually identifiable health information against Dr. Eithan Haim were dropped.

Haim, a self-described whistleblower, was charged after he provided conservative activist Christopher Rufo with the records of children receiving gender transition-related care at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, the largest pediatric hospital in the United States.

Rufo published the material in a May 2023 article, however the records have since been removed from the piece. While transgender care for minors was legal in 2022 when the records were sourced, the hospital publicly had said it would end providing the care after Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the parents of children undergoing transition-related care be investigated for child abuse. The Texas Supreme Court later ruled Abbott had no grounds to order the Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate the families.

 

[rareboy]

While the damage so far is possibly repairable...four years of this will see the US falling way behind Europe and Asia ...and even possibly the Gulf states and others in medical research and clinical trials.

Scientists, except for the ones who will stick around for Trump's Mengele style research agenda will be getting the fuck out of the US.

What the Hell Is Going on at NIH?

Scientists sound the alarm about Trump’s unprecedented “Big Brother” research crackdown.

www.motherjones.com

 

[KaraBulut]

The reckoning may come sooner:

Tests identify H5N9 avian flu at California duck farm

www.cidrap.umn.edu

 

[rareboy]

It was always so simple. Just disable Medicare payments.

 

[rareboy]

Just a friendly PSA...particularly for all the border states.

 

[KaraBulut]

Missed in all the panic over tariffs: Trump included medications and medical devices in the tariffs. He also rescinded Biden's executive orders on controlling medication costs.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5119696-trump-tariffs-oil-semiconductors/

President Trump on Friday vowed to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductor chips, pharmaceuticals, steel and aluminum and oil and gas.

“We’ll be doing pharmaceuticals. Importantly in drugs and medicines, etc. All forms of medicine and pharmaceuticals,” Trump said. “And we’ll be doing, very importantly, steel, and we’ll also be doing chips and things associated with chips.”

A few years ago, Congress had created a tax loophole that allowed pharmaceutical companies to open manufacturing facilities in Puerto Rico- a US territory with lower labor costs. Congress started phasing out that loophole in 1996, which enabled India, Israel and China to dominate pharmaceutical manufacturing. Most of the drugs that we consume in America are made in other countries.

Trump's tariffs will hike drug costs in America- particularly generic medications- by 25%.

 

[rareboy]

^ And the crazy thing as I pointed out is that the US and Canada trade pharmaceutical products of about the same value.

Makes no sense, but Trump knows that people have to have meds and so will just have to suck up a 25% additional tax.

 

[KaraBulut]

^ And the crazy thing as I pointed out is that the US and Canada trade pharmaceutical products of about the same value.

Makes no sense, but Trump knows that people have to have meds and so will just have to suck up a 25% additional tax.

When I worked in border states, there were tour buses that took seniors across the border to Canada to buy cheaper drugs.

Group health insurance costs for US corporations have shot up. Individual premiums have also increased. The insurance industry says that the cost increases are because of drug prices. Putting a tariff on drugs is just going to accelerate the process that is driving up insurance costs.

 

[TX-Beau]

Toad doesn't give a fuck about anyone. We all need to stop pretending that costing people money is any kind of motivator for him. He doesn't even need the horde anymore, and he'll do whatever the people paying him tell him to do, plus a bunch of crazy shit that in the end is going to cost even them.

 

[KaraBulut]

Toad doesn't give a fuck about anyone. We all need to stop pretending that costing people money is any kind of motivator for him. He doesn't even need the horde anymore, and he'll do whatever the people paying him tell him to do, plus a bunch of crazy shit that in the end is going to cost even them.

It's worse than that.

I remember when I was younger hearing older men arguing about whether the US should return to the gold standard or the silver standard. Ditto for the great days of a wartime economy and how America should go to war because there were lots of jobs when we were at war.

When I took college history and economics classes and learned what these things were, I realized that these old men had no clue what they were talking about. They had some idealized view of "the good old days" and had little understanding of economics or the cost of war.

Trump's narcissism makes him think that he's the smartest guy in the room and that experts don't know anything. Tariffs are just one of a number of things that he thinks he knows better than anyone else . He's the captain on the bridge convinced he and only he knows the way and he's going to crash us all onto the rocks. Then he'll be the first person to get in the lifeboat to escape. He'll find someone or something else to blame the mess on because it's never the narcissist's fault.

He does care about his popularity ratings. He cares about the stock market because there's enough equally dumb Americans who believe that Presidents can make the stock market go up. Trump is also a pussy, so when it all blows up, he'll back off and then try to distract us with some new crazy thing. Just like he did with renegotiating NAFTA into the USMCA which he now has decided was a mistake.