If the COVID-19 is no worse than the common cold, then why did Trump's treatment for three days cost $650,000???

 

According to an Associated Press story today, despite the fact that rural and small town America—after almost from the start has been pretending to be "immune" from the pandemic—has finally been “asked” to face reality. But much like Prince Prospero and his aristocratic friends in his castle high above the suffering all around them, it has for the most part abjectly failed, and is now suffering the consequences. It is such a simple, common sense thing to follow the recommendations of medical professionals and wear face masks, yet because of Donald Trump's failure to lead, this has become a political, rather than a public health. issue.

 

The AP reported that in many parts of the country, especially in western states with Republican “leadership,” health officials, mayors and council members have had to delay or halt implementing even the most basic safety protocols because of physical threats on their persons by fanatics defending their “liberty” against a “fake” crisis:

 

In Boise, Idaho, public health officials about to vote on a four-county mask mandate abruptly ended a meeting Tuesday evening because of fears for their safety amid anti-mask protests outside the building and at some of their homes. One health board member tearfully announced she had to rush home to be with her child because of the protesters, who were seen on video banging on buckets, blaring air horns and sirens, and blasting a sound clip of gunfire from the violence-drenched movie “Scarface" outside her front door.“I am sad. I am tired. I fear that, in my choosing to hold public office, my family has too often paid the price,” said the board member, Ada County Commissioner Diana Lachiondo. “I increasingly don’t recognize this place. There is an ugliness and cruelty in our national rhetoric that is reaching a fevered pitch here at home, and that should worry us all."

 

Many anti-mask diehards insist that the COVID-19 is no worse than the common cold, as if 300,000 people die every year from the sniffles. It is so pathetic that people are too lazy and stupid to do such a simple thing as wearing a mask. In Los Angeles County, we hear reports of people breaking into unoccupied mansions and having parties attended by 150 people in the basement. Stupid! The state of Washington, one of the early hot spots, has dropped to 45^th among all states in total cases and deaths per its population because an early and effective response to the pandemic. On the other hand, in South Dakota, people are dying at a rate on par with the worst-hit countries in the world because it has a governor who has slavishly followed the example of her Fuerher. 

 

In Texas, people are dying because the state refuses to allow its many uninsured or under-insured access to affordable standard health care. When I worked at the airport, the company that employed me only offered a "mini-medical" plan, which wasn't even real health insurance, but an "income replacement" plan which paid only a small lump sum up front, and you paid the rest. Once I went to a specialist for  a preventative medical procedure that I was told would cost $1,540.  After I presented my “insurance” card to the front desk for payment processing, I was asked by a skeptical clerk if I really wanted to do this, since the “plan” would only pay $480 for the procedure.

 

Even before the ACA, such plans were illegal in the state of Washington, and it was actually on the state insurance commissioner's list of health insurance "scams." If you called a doctor’s office and told them the name of your “insurer,” you would likely be told that the doctor wasn’t taking on any new patients for the rest of year—even if it was still January. Your only real “option” was if you got so sick you had to go to the emergency room, because they had to take you whether you had insurance or not. Why was the employer still permitted to offer this as their health care plan if it was technically illegal and a scam? Because the "situs" of the company was in Texas, one of those typically former Confederate low-wage, low-benefit states where such scams are "legal."

 

And here we see Rudy Giuliani bragging about receiving the same expensive COVID-19 treatment that Trump received. How much did Trump's treatment cost the American tax payer? $650,000. For many low-income people, that's how much money they earn in a lifetime. And these two jokers only get "the best" while thousands continue to die every day from something that they have told us is no worse than the common cold or flu?