DeSantis Sues to Promote Florida COVID Deaths

GOP Governor Ron DeSantis is weaponizing Florida’s court system to attack the vaccines that would have saved the lives of the Floridians he sacrified to COVID. Mr. DeSantis wants a grand jury to investigate the rare cases of heart inflamation attributed to vaccinations, when such conditions are seven times more frequent among those suffering from COVID. Since anti-vaccine rhetoric is killing more Republicans than Democrats, you’d think self-serving MAGA hacks like Ron DeSantis would avoid bad-mouthing vaccines.

The governor is backed up by quack-medicine-loving Dr. Joseph Ladapo, the state’s surgeon general, a “well-educated COVID crank.” As a physician, Dr. Ladapo never treated COVID patients, and his public health research record is in doubt. Florida pays Dr. Ladapo $362,000 a year, 52% more than his more-qualified predecessor, a salary bumped by an additional no-show job as a University of Florida professor.

The Ron DeSantis “investigation” into the extensively-reviewed vaccines seems designed to keep the governor’s name in the headlines and capture the Qanon faction from Trump ahead of the 2024 presidential campaign.

More:

“DeSantis seeks grand jury investigation of COVID-19 vaccines,” Freida Frisaro, Associated Press

“Gov. DeSantis, Surgeon General Ladapo go after COVID vaccines; request statewide grand jury,” Isaac Morgan, Florida Phoenix

Related:

“After vaccines became available, a partisan gap in deaths emerged,” Philip Bump, Washington Post

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In Mid-Pandemic, Trump Challenges Obamacare in Court

On Thursday, in a literal 11th-hour brief, an hour before a midnight deadline, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to invalidate the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, and strip healthcare from 23 million Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thursday also marked the largest single-day increase in diagnosed Coronavirus cases in the U.S. to date, the day when the CDC admitted that coronavirus cases may be 10 times higher than reported.

More:

“Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court to Strike Down Affordable Care Act,” Sheryl Gay Stolberg, New York Times

“Trump administration asks Supreme Court to strike down Obamacare,” Meagan Flynn and Tim Elfrink, Washington Post

“Trump, Intent on Self-Destruction, Asks Supreme Court to Kill Obamacare,” Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine

Update:

“Obamacare Versus the G.O.P. Zombies,” Paul Krugman, New York Times

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Marketing to Doctors

A while back, John Oliver explained how Big Pharma markets to doctors so they’ll prescribe brand name drugs to patients. As we face another year of corporate deregulation and health care uncertainty, it bears another look:

GOP Health Plan: ‘Nothing, zero, nada.’

GOP candidate Donald Trump told a Pennsylvania press event/rally that he’ll implement the Republican health care policy and “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare.”

Barack Obama:

“They spend like an hour, ‘we’re going to repeal Obamacare.’ Okay. And then what are you gonna do? Well, then we’re going to repeal it and we’re going to give you something great. Okay. What? Well, something.”

“You watch the press conference and what you realize is they got no plan. They want to repeal because ideologically they’re opposed to the idea of helping these 20 million people get health insurance. It’s not like they don’t even have a pretense of a plan. They don’t even have a semblance of a plan. There’s not even a hint of a plan. Not even a mote. Not even a—there’s no plan. Nothing, zero, nada.”

“Obama: GOP Doesn’t Have ‘A Pretense Of A Plan’ To Replace Obamacare,” Allegra Kirkland, TPM Livewire

More:

“Trump’s Health Plan: Pay Your Own Medical Bills Using Money You Saved,” James Hamblin, The Atlantic

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TRUMPcare

GOP presidential contender and TV reality star Donald Trump has revealed his healthcare policy. Like other Republicans, Mr. Trump wants to trash the Affordable Care Act for three good reasons: It has enrolled 20 million people who didn’t have insurance coverage before, cost less than projected, and (most importantly) everyone calls it “Obamacare.”

The Donald consulted the finest minds at Trump University Medical School and formulated a healthcare system that would cost a fortune while leaving millions of Americans without medical care. Obamacare covers people even if they have preexisting conditions; TRUMPcare kicks those 60 million losers to the curb. TRUMPcare allows insurance sales across state lines, fostering even greater corporate consolidation. The Donald’s plan also relies on health savings accounts, which won’t work for people who don’t earn enough to save. TRUMPcare would lower costs through tax deductions, which are great for the rich, instead of tax credits, which benefit people of all income levels.

It’s certainly a meaty proposal. In fact, TRUMPcare is the Trump Steaks of health policy.

GOP Healthcare Plan

Before leaving DC for their usual four-day weekend, the Republican-dominated Congress voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) and replace it with … nothing. Don’t panic, you still have health insurance; the president quickly vetoed the GOP bill.

While this is the first time the Senate passed such a bill, the GOP-dominated House has voted to repeal the ACA sixty-two times.

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Just What the Doctor Ordered: No TV Drug Ads

Pharmaceutical marketers spend almost $5 billion a year on U.S. television commericals and magazine ads.

“On Tuesday, the American Medical Association called for a ban on consumer advertisements for prescription drugs and medical devices, an attempt to help customers make the best, most affordable health care choices, the group said. The AMA claims drug advertisements create high demand for the expensive treatments that patients see on TV and online, when alternative low-cost medical solutions may be available and more effective.”

— “American Medical Association wants to ban ads for prescription drugs,” Loren Grush, The Verge

A Growing America

“Adults who are obese now outnumber those who are merely overweight, according to a new report in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

A tally by researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis estimated that 67.6 million Americans over the age of 25 were obese as of 2012, and an additional 65.2 million were overweight.”

GOP Healthcare Plan

Republicans have bloviated about the evils of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) for years now, even with the program’s obvious success. They’re promised an alternative, but never delivered.

But GOP insurgents have elevated an awkward phrase in the 900-pages of ACA legislation into a Supreme Court case, and a decision in King vs Burwell is expected in late June or early July 2015. If Republicans win that case they lose, since that would really hammer the residents of Red States and put GOP governors in a bind. So surely the Grand Old Party has come up with Health Plan B, right?

Nope.

PMS

“The symptoms aren’t the same for every woman, but again, many of us experience some combination of them. And the incredible part is that almost as soon as a woman’s period begins, the symptoms in many cases vanish: energy levels bounce back, the aches, pains, and bloating go away, and mood lifts again.

An even smaller subset of women, about one in 20, experience even worse symptoms, particularly depression and anger. These women meet the criteria for a condition called premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD, which is now included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It’s basically a very extreme form of PMS.”

— “PMS affects 75 percent of menstruating women — but scientists are still baffled by it,” Julia Belluz, Vox

More:

“Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder: Evidence for a New Category for DSM-5,” Epperson, Steiner, Hartlage, et al., Am J Psychiatry. 2012 May; 169(5): 465–475 via NCBI

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