The pandemic has been very very good to the Medical Industrial Complex. This is contrary to the public messaging that had Governor’s daily scolds as a way of reminding us Covid is killing the world and that once you get Covid, hospitals will be overrun and you will not get care because they cannot help you. The news put story after story showing crowded waiting rooms, hallways filled with patients and the daily count rising as if at any moment Covid will come through the door and kill you like a home invader.
Meanwhile smaller hospitals on the brink of closing for lack of funding did just that, close. Hospitals outside major cities were overrun while others were not. Tents were erected, special boats sailed in, larger public arenas were commissioned to be overflow sites and then within weeks they packed their tents, sailed away and the arenas closed awaiting a new use as a massive injection site. The Javitz Center was open and closed in a week for such use, much like a badly reviewed Broadway play as there were simply not enough vaccines available in which to run such a massive scale operation that was to run 24/7. They should have tried slot machines.
Much of the political jockeying and manipulation was based in truth as Hospitals that are run by major corporations were ill prepared for this virus. They had insufficient PPE and of course space and equipment needed to handle a major uptick in admissions. The lack of information, consistent data and of course actual understanding of Covid and how to treat it led to many Medical Personnel overworked, utterly confused and abandoned as they tried to piece together everything from their own PPE to how to treat a virus that seemed to manifest itself as a different disease with each admitted case. Sounds like AIDS in the nascent days but then again media and news on that plague was centered slightly differently.
But to put it in perspective this was Hudson County the largest densest county in NJ where I live. And this was the info at the worst at three hospitals:
These CarePoint Health hospitals have admitted one of the highest rates of COVID-19 cases, approximately one out of every 82 positive cases in the country, according to CarePoint Health. Out of the more than 95,000 positive cases in New Jersey, the three hospitals had nearly 1,200 admissions through April 18.*** this works out to .12 of cases.. not 12.. 0.12. That is not as overwhelming as one was led to believe during the height of pandemonium.
And the same said for staff related Covid illness. As they found in one with 1,100 staff only 14-15 tested positive. Meaning again 0.1 percent. And yes the health care workforce were unprepared and lost workers and some to suicide which also crossed into the other fields of care. But this mental health issue is not one they faced alone. And the total of Covid deaths by healthcare workers was 3,000 in 2020. By December 26, 2020 the total deaths recorded by the CDC from Covid was 22,574. Total deaths 81,394. So that was 0.27 percent of deaths from Covid. And we can agree that the secondary totals that included death from Covid related causes increases that count and we will never have fully accurate numbers. That again parallels AIDS as many died from the secondary illnesses that were the result of contracting HIV. Again putting this in perspective: The Institute of Medicine report estimated 98,000 Americans were dying annually due to medical errors. Estimates of annual patient deaths due to medical errors have since risen steadily to 440,000 lives, which make medical errors the country’s third-leading cause of death.
So we applauded these workers as heroes. As many went out nightly to honk horns, bang pots and clap for the front line workers, the back of the house was cutting staff, closing doors and cashing checks. The bailout was a money maker and many wealthy hospitals found themselves cashing in on that as if the slots had finally pulled a winner.
This from The Washington Post discusses how many facilities turned this nightmare into gold thanks to the Cares Act bailout. The idea was intended to offset all costs of treating infected patients, including purchasing ventilators, masks, gowns and other personal protective equipment. Congress further authorized hospitals to use the money to compensate for a drop in revenue when they shut down elective surgeries and non-emergency treatments to prepare for the anticipated deluge of covid-19 patients. The money, referred to as the Provider Relief Fund, helped many poorer hospitals avert cash crunches, layoffs and bond rating downgrades. And many hospitals did close as they had already received negative ratings by Moody’s prior to Covid; however, the idea was that in fact, this lifeline was to prevent it. And what resulted was even with the targeted aid, recipients included well-endowed academic medical centers and major urban hospitals. Only $14 billion took profitability into consideration, HHS documents show. HHS restricted those payments to hospitals with 3 percent or lower profit margins.
Wealthy hospitals also benefited because HHS used a broad definition of lost revenue. If a hospital earned less than in the year before, or simply less revenue than it had budgeted for, it could chalk up that difference to the pandemic and apply the relief funds to it. The implications garnered little attention at the time as they were overshadowed by the concerns about how HHS was doling out the money rather than how it could be used.
And then we have today and testing issues that still have to be addressed as with contact tracing. Those two issues are again in the new stimulus package but it has not prevented hospitals for well doing what they do best – overcharging. And this article from The New York Times found that many hospitals are charging excessive fees for the basic Covid test even within themselves. Say you are getting one from your Physician or their own Urgent Care within the building but the ER facility will process said test and the costs then double down. Or in this case in New York, Lenox Hill, one of the city’s oldest and best known hospitals, repeatedly billed patients more than $3,000 for the routine nasal swab test, about 30 times the test’s typical cost.
And this is not uncommon as the Times has found out. They has been asking readers to submit bills so that we can understand the costs of coronavirus testing and treatment. So far, more than 600 patients have participated. Their bills have revealed high charges and illegal fees, as well as patients who face substantial medical debt for coronavirus treatment. State-run testing sites in New York do not charge patients or collect health insurance information for the coronavirus nasal swab tests. A study published last year found that a swab test at a hospital can run from $20 to $850. Some independent laboratories have charged more, billing $2,315.
And while it appears that may be the case across the country, it is not one consistently applied across the country. Emergency room fees are common in the American system but rare in the world of coronavirus testing. At The Times’s request, the data firm Castlight Health analyzed insurance claims for 1.5 million coronavirus tests.
It found that less than 4 percent of coronavirus tests are billed through emergency departments. The vast majority of those tests are associated with large claims that have many charges, suggesting the nasal swab was incidental to a more complex visit.
And this brings me to of course my favorite target of this the biggest hero of the time, Andrew Cuomo. As more comes out about this asshole I cannot say enough about how America drank that down like a milkshake from Shake Shack. Sorry he was no better than Trump and with that, we have a crisis that transcended just the White House. Some Governor’s really stepped up and the numbers and losses prove that by just doing the work, the work gets done. We have a crisis right now, Covid is with us. There are variants in place and the sheer lack of vaccines along with testing and tracing will mean this will continue. Yesterday I watched several drunk morons board the PATH, they were unmasked and they gradually found one and then a young girl had lost hers so the idiot boy with her removed his shirt. That is when I departed the car for another one. A woman followed me as another man also was naked faced. These people are assholes and idiots. Again ignorance is not bliss it’s ignorance. I have already shared my thoughts on the non-vaxxers as my exchange with Barista Brian on Friday seemingly played out in a skit on Saturday Night Live. I found it funny, but then why should I?
Off the Rack Publishing 