I recently wrote about an extraordinarily misleading Kaiser Family study that claimed “1 in 5” Americans have a family member who has been killed by a gun. Kaiser’s inflated findings were based on a small sample size of self-reported answers to questions that offered no useful limiting parameters.

In many ways, another endlessly repeated contention of gun controllers suffers from the same problem: Gun violence is the number one cause of death of children in America. Virtually every media outlet and Democrat repeats this contention — including, recently, the vice president. The claim is meant to conjure up distressing images of frolicking kids in parks and schools being gunned down by assault weapons. //

According to the CDC, the number one killer of children between 1-14 are accidents — vehicular, suffocation, and drowning. Twice as many kids under 12 died in cars than from guns. Also, if these studies began at birth rather than starting at one, the leading killer of all children would be diseases and genetic abnormalities. Surely a one-year-old is as much a “kid” as a 19-year-old. (And if you begin at fetal viability, by far the leading killer of young people would be late-term abortions — more than 8,000 viable unborn, and probably more than 50,000 performed after 15 weeks.)

At Amazon, we’re trying to improve the health care experience for customers. We started by building Amazon Pharmacy, with a broad selection of medications sent to you with reliable, free delivery. We then added RxPass, a new Prime benefit from Amazon Pharmacy, which for $5/month lets Prime members get as many medications as they need from a list of 60 medications frequently used to treat many common conditions—and shipping is free. We also recently launched Amazon Clinic, which offers a convenient, personalized, and affordable way to get medical advice and treatment for over 20 conditions (like migraines, allergies, sinusitis, and more) simply by messaging with a clinician—no appointments, no travel.

Today, we’re excited to announce that One Medical has joined Amazon and our mission to make it dramatically easier for customers to get what they need to stay healthy. With One Medical, customers can connect with clinicians 24/7 via video chat or messaging if that’s most convenient. Or, customers can choose to make an appointment same day or within days to visit any of One Medical’s offices in many U.S. cities. If you need a specialist, One Medical works closely with lots of hospital systems and can help you get a referral and an appointment quickly. //

For a limited time, to celebrate One Medical joining Amazon, you can now join One Medical with a discounted annual membership of $144 for the first year (a 28% discount), the equivalent of $12 per month, for new U.S. customers.

It’s yet another state-level example of Republican politicians selling out their own voters to bloated and harmful special interests.

Indiana’s term-limited governor, highly unpopular with his GOP base, is pushing an overfunded public health plan that could steal local control from county officials. It’s yet another state-level example of Republican politicians selling out their own voters to bloated and harmful special interests.

The lame-duck governor and several top Republicans in the Republican-controlled legislature are clearly angling to get hired by Big Pharma after leaving public office, thereby using this sweetheart deal to eventually line their own pockets from one of the state’s largest lobbying interests.

The federal government’s onerous regulations on HSAs have limited their availability to all but the luckiest American workers.

Our health care system is an insurance-run, government-dictated bureaucratic racket.

More than a dozen years ago, as Democrats began the process that led to Obamacare, Barack Obama noted that “the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out there.” He then called for doctors and ethicists to participate in “a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place” about all of this spending on vulnerable patients at the end of their lives.

Canada shows the end results of the type of “conversation” Obama sought. A recent lengthy Associated Press story demonstrates how Canada has normalized euthanasia and a culture of death, in some cases as a way for the health system to save on expensive medical care.

The country’s single-payer health system has destroyed the ethical boundaries that should require doctors to work their utmost to save patients’ lives, and instead now sees physicians broaching “death with dignity” as a way for the health care system to save a buck. The AP obtained a recording from one patient with a degenerative brain condition, who recorded hospital personnel talking to him about his care. The recording shows the hospital’s director of ethics telling the patient his care could cost “north of $1,500 per day.” When the patient asked about the plan for his long-term care, the physician-ethicist replied, “My piece of this was to talk to you, [to see] if you had an interest in assisted dying.”

For a supposed “ethicist” to mention the fees needed to care for a vulnerable patient—and then, when the patient said he felt pressured by the discussion, to go further by broaching the topic of euthanasia—violates every principle of ethics, in the medical profession and otherwise.

The AP investigation makes clear this story does not present an aberration.

The AMH Rabbi Erica and Mark Gerson L’Chaim Prize Initiative for Outstanding Christian Medical Missionary Service.

Thanks to the generous support of our Co-Founders, Rabbi Erica and Mark Gerson, AMH has established the Gerson-L’Chaim (“To Life”) Initiative. This initiative was launched in 2016 with our initial Rabbi Erica and Mark Gerson L’Chaim Prize for Outstanding Christian Medical Missionary Service. The annual L’Chaim Prize of $500,000 is the world’s largest annual award dedicated to direct patient care; the recipient is selected by a panel of leaders in African clinical medicine. The Initiative includes the L’Chaim Prize, an annual $500,000 award given to the winner’s institution to support transformational medical projects. AMH’s Mission Hospital Teaching Network is also a component of the L’Chaim Initiative. The MHTN brings together like-minded institutions committed to significantly expanding their training capacity. AMH’s MHTN includes signature 10-year, $2.5 million grants to hospitals in Kibuye and Malawi to enhance sustainability and expand medical educational programs.

The Biden administration’s proposal would generate a public health emergency industry that China will be well-positioned to exploit.

Even as Democrats attempt to revive their stalled reconciliation legislation to impose prescription drug price controls, another group within the health care sector has come forward with a better solution. Their proposal, which would use competition to bring down prices, has the potential to benefit consumers — with fewer side effects than blunt government force.

A consortium of hospitals recently announced plans to build a factory that can manufacture insulin within two years. Once their plant gets up and running, the non-profit consortium said it would sell the insulin at a cost of $30 a vial — a fraction of what pharmaceutical companies currently charge. //

The Biden administration has its “solution” to the problem of high drug prices: Government-imposed price controls. Its proposal, incorporated as part of the $5 trillion spending spree being considered by Congress, would allow the federal government to “negotiate” (i.e., dictate) the prices of certain drugs. Companies who refuse to “negotiate” would be penalized with a 95 percent tax — a penalty so onerous that some companies could stop selling their drugs in the United States entirely. //

Price controls also would create other harmful effects on innovation. The Congressional Budget Office concluded that one version of Democrats’ price control legislation would result in approximately 60 fewer drugs during the first three decades following its enactment. Other estimates have suggested as many as 100 fewer drugs within the course of the first decade alone. In either case, these price controls would mean diseases not treated, and potentially lives not saved.

Over half of states have rolled back public health powers during the pandemic, which experts say permanently weakens states’ abilities to protect their constituents’ health.

“Both the fundamental legal authorities of public health, as well as the people who are practicing, are being threatened in ways we’ve never seen before,” said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. He warned that even more legislative rollbacks would take place this year across the country, as well as court rulings limiting public health authorities.

This stripping of public health powers doesn’t just mean that unpopular covid restrictions will end, he said. These curbs often cripple public health’s ability to fight other scourges.

are 5 levels of emergency department services represented by CPT codes 99281 – 99285. The ED codes require all three key components (history, examination and medical decision-making) to be met and documented for the level of service selected.

But now, many doctors, their medical associations and members of Congress are crying foul, arguing the rule released by the Biden administration in September for implementing the law favors insurers and doesn't follow the spirit of the legislation.

"The Administration's recently proposed regulation to begin implementing the law does not uphold Congressional intent and could incentivize insurance companies to set artificially low payment rates, which would narrow provider networks and potentially force small practices to close, thus limiting patients' access to care," Rep. Larry Bucshon, R-Ind., who is a doctor and helped spearhead a letter of complaint this month, told us in a written statement. //

Nearly half of the 152 lawmakers who signed that letter were Democrats, and many of the physicians serving in the House signed. //

The provisions in the new rule "do not reflect the way the law was written, do not reflect a policy that could have passed Congress, and do not create a balanced process to settle payment disputes," the lawmakers told administration officials in the letter.

Christian Health Service Corps is a community of Christian doctors, health professionals and health educators committed to serving the poor in places that have little or no access to healthcare

A little-discussed but transformative patient protection policy put into place by the Trump administration is proving to be an extremely effective tool in unwinding the tangled mess of American medical pricing. Under the orders, hospitals must provide the federal government with records on all the prices they negotiate with private insurers.

Some hospitals banded together to sue the administration (they lost…twice), and the insurers’ trade association wrote a 57-page letter to the government calling the Transparency Rule “unconstitutional” and insinuating that too much transparency would not be helpful to the average health consumer. //

When The New York Times decided to take a deep dive into just what compliance with the policy was revealing, they discovered there may be good reason for medical power brokers to keep their pricing systems hidden from the public eye.

But data from the hospitals that have complied hints at why the powerful industries wanted this information to remain hidden.

It shows hospitals are charging patients wildly different amounts for the same basic services: procedures as simple as an X-ray or a pregnancy test.

And it provides numerous examples of major health insurers — some of the world’s largest companies, with billions in annual profits — negotiating surprisingly unfavorable rates for their customers. In many cases, insured patients are getting prices that are higher than they would if they pretended to have no coverage at all.

As an example, NYT went on to list the comparative costs of a standard colonoscopy at the Mississippi Medical Center: $1463 with a Cigna plan, $2144 with Aetna, and a stunning $782 with no insurance at all.

Naturally, those who follow the logic of free markets understand that subsidies always increase cost.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/08/22/upshot/hospital-prices.html?smid=tw-share

Yesterday, the CDC reported Florida’s COVID data, something that is part of a normal cycle after a weekend, claiming that the Sunshine State saw over 28,000 new cases on Sunday. That would have been a record high, and it helped drive another round of anti-Florida media coverage.

The problem? The CDC’s reporting was false. //

Florida Dept. Health
@HealthyFla
The number of cases @CDCgov released for Florida today is incorrect. They combined MULTIPLE days into one. We anticipate CDC will correct the record.
WSVN 7 News
@wsvn
Florida reported a record-breaking 28,317 new cases of COVID-19 for Sunday to the CDC.
https://wsvn.com/news/local/florida-reports-record-1-day-total-of-28317-covid-cases-to-cdc/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter_wsvn
8:18 PM · Aug 9, 2021

Taryn Fenske
@tarynfenske
Incorrect. Here’s the data: Friday, August 6 (21,500), Saturday, August 7 (19,567), and Sunday, August 8 (15,319).

Scott Travis
@smtravis
Florida still breaking records for daily COVID cases. Single-day high reaches 28,317 https://sun-sentinel.com/coronavirus/fl-ne-florida-covid-cases-still-breaking-records-20210809-uq2u3bhll5bh3npr6paqb53rwa-story.html //

The conspiracy theory that Florida is misrepresenting COVID data was originally started by Rebekah Jones, a grifter who claimed to be a “data scientist” in charge of Florida’s data entry. But her mantle has been picked up by many, including Feigl-Ding, another person who has used wild COVID allegations to raise their profile.

https://redstate.com/sister-toldjah/2021/05/26/fired-florida-coronavirus-data-fraud-rebekah-jones-month-just-went-from-bad-to-worse-n387006

The class-action lawsuit alleges that Sanofi, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and AstraZeneca colluded in the summer of 2020 to restrict offering discounted products to 340B contract pharmacies.

The drugmakers should compete against each other, but instead “they worked together to boost their profits by coordinating to retract a long-standing discount for safety-net hospitals and clinics,” the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York said.

Mosaic argues that last summer the four drugmakers spent millions lobbying the federal government to limit 340B drug discounts for diabetes medicines such as insulin.

However, former President Donald Trump in July 2020 issued an executive order that aimed to ensure 1,000 community health centers would get insulin and injectable epinephrine at the 340B discounted rate.

While 340b is in effect, multiple drugmakers are allegedly moving to restrict the sale of insulin to healthcare providers at the reduced rate under the 340b program.

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch sued the top three insulin manufacturers, saying they were increasing the price of the drug, in some cases nearly 1000%. //

Congress has tried several times over recent years to get the price of insulin down, but failure to do so led the Trump administration to a rules change that would have made it easier for patients in rural communities to have access to insulin and other drugs at lower costs. That rule was paused by the Biden administration in January, and earlier this month the White House upheld the decision to scrap it.

All of this comes at the same time as Chuck Grassley and Ron Wyden spearhead an effort to raise before Congress the issue of the surging insulin prices. Grassley and Wyden released a report that “sheds light on factors that led to the surging list price of insulin—a drug that’s been available for almost a century—which has doubled or in some cases tripled in just the past decade, and provides new insight into how the opaque business practices of pharmaceutical manufacturers and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) impact patients, Medicare Part D, and private health plans.” //

Why the Biden administration would scrap a rule that would make the drug cheaper for Americans is a mystery, but the effect could be catastrophic for patients across the country. The companies in question are now ignoring the ceiling prices that were originally established under rule 340b in what appears to be a violation of the law and would result in several highly inconvenient changes for patients across the country.

Alabama Public Health
@ALPublicHealth
Darth Vader wears a mask to help himself. Thank you for continuing to #WearAMask to help those around you. #MayThe4thBeWithYou //

Dave Rubin
@RubinReport
He also chopped of his son’s hand, murdered dozens of younglings and was the strongman for the most tyrannical regime in the history of the galaxy.

Also his last words were asking his son to take off his mask. //

Steve Deace
@SteveDeaceShow
He slaughtered children. Ravaged entire civilizations. And his final request while seeking redemption was, “Luke, help me take this mask off.”
#MayTheFourthBeWithYou

With cost and accessibility acting as two major barriers to quality care for patients, there is a potential solution to this massive problem: Direct primary care.

The DPC approach, unlike the overly burdensome current system, allows doctors to spend more time with patients instead of filling out paperwork to submit to a third-party payer. And anyone who has been to a doctor’s office in the past few years can attest to the insane amount of time doctors spend filling out mountains of paperwork.

One of the advantages of DPC agreements as opposed to the current health system is that it allows doctors to charge a membership fee for primary care services ranging from $50 to $100 per month for routine health services.

The substantial cost benefits of DPC couldn’t be clearer. According to a study in the American Journal of Managed Care, DPC patients are 52 percent less likely to use services at an expensive hospital than at a traditional private practice.

What’s more, under a DPC model, medical practice overhead can be reduced by as much as 40 percent. This is important because these savings are often passed onto the patients.

Currently, 32 states have approved DPC and 12 states have pending pilot programs that would expand DPC to Medicaid. More than a quarter of a million Americans are using DPC to access quality health care. //

One obstacle to DPC expansion is the quasi-socialist health care system that is filled with corporate cronyism and government overregulation.

Fortunately, the South Carolina Legislature is addressing this issue and introduced legislation that would codify DPC agreements into law. This bill would define DPC and not constitute it as health insurance. By differentiating DPC and health insurance, doctors would be able to continue to offer monthly membership fees in exchange for primary care services.

DPC also removes layers of government red tape and cuts out the health insurance middlemen.

In his insistence that we just didn’t do lockdown right, Emanuel sounds a bit like the old communists who frequent the coffee shops of the Upper West Side of Manhattan muttering about the real communism that never got its fair test. //

The Obama-era Emanuel had sermonized that the 75-and-overs should “stop getting any regular preventive tests, screenings, or interventions.” Even antibiotics would be out, as he wrote in his famous Atlantic article. “Death from these infections is quick and relatively painless. So, no to antibiotics.”

“I will die when whatever comes first takes me,” the then-57-year-old promised cheerfully.

Emanuel Is the ‘Rationer in Chief’ //Emanuel earned his reputation as “rationer in chief” when he wrote, “Other things being equal, we should always save five lives rather than one, but things are rarely equal.” Accordingly, a system he proposed “produces a priority curve on which individuals aged roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated.”

Emanuel conceded that his plan appeared to discriminate against the elderly but explained: “Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination. … Treating 65-year-olds differently because of stereotypes or falsehoods would be ageist; treating them differently because they have already had more life-years is not.” //

Another reason the doctor seems so committed to the lockdown is that he’s now in the business via a newly formed company called COVID-19 Recovery Consulting, which helps “business reopen safely, responsibly, efficiently, and in compliance with the law.” In other words, it makes money helping people emerge from lockdowns — the same lockdowns Emanuel pushes.