07-25-2021, 12:14 PM
(07-25-2021, 10:32 AM)SHRacerX Wrote: This is a great post. Brother, I feel for you. The past 30 months have been a virtual shit show about facts and misinformation. We used to have honest, unbiased, REPORTING (not the political activists of today, but honest reporting) of information that was important to society.
What is a citizen to do? They are surrounded by news sources, social media, and their own physicians and families all shouting different things. Mission accomplished, social engineers, we are clearly divided.
Two points I wish to respond to about your post:
The first, is the point about hospitals stating "covid-like symptoms" and calling it covid for billing purposes. 100% accurate. Why did they do that? It wasn't just money and greed, though that is the root of it, but it had to do with their loss of their greatest source of income: elective surgeries. Hip and knee replacements pay everyone in the hospital very well. I have no problem with that as it helped to balance out the poor reimbursement on things such as a COPD stay. It wasn't meant to offset the loss of those surgeries, but that is exactly what the inflated covid reimbursement became. And therefore(to your last point), you got vastly inflated numbers of covid cases, and fatalities. Don't believe me? Look at the number of deaths attributed to the flu. It was barely a number. Some tin foil hat moron said "See! Masks work! It almost eliminated the flu!" Good grief.
The consequences of those inflated numbers was the fear-mongering that lead to massive shutdowns and economic crippling. And the worst is yet to come. On a recent flight (my first since covid), there were virtually no restaurants open in the Philly and Boston airports. Charlotte? Booming. Why the difference? State leadership, I suppose, and I was told they couldn't get anyone to work those jobs. If we think everyone taking handouts that are perfectly capable of working won't come back to bite this country in the ass, just wait.
That all being said, the bottom line is covid is real, and is a serious threat to anyone that is elderly or immune compromised. The nation had a huge dilemma: Do they shut down to protect a specific group that likely is retire? Right or wrong, they shut down to help protect those at most risk. There is a flu shot, and it helps protect the elderly who are most at risk of death from the flu because they can't handle the stress on their bodies. There is a pneumonia vax. There is a shingles vax. These are designed to protect people. The fact that the covid vaccine is based on something called messenger RNA technology instead of a piece of the virus only makes it safer and more effective. This technology has been around for about a decade or more and the scientist that developed it won the Nobel Prize for medicine. It is being used for a number of rare diseases and represents a huge step in medicine. There is a covid vaccine based on this technology and is accessible to everyone. I look at it as maybe everyone doesn't need to get it but all those at risk absolutely should. I got it because of my job and the fact that I take care of my folks.
I don't consider myself one of those at risk, but if my getting the vaccine helps to open our country back up, I am glad to do my part.
Hospitals get paid for services rendered. Not deaths.
