photo: PDA’s Dr. Bill Honigman, MFA Rally at AMA Convention in Chicago, 2019.
Pictured left to right, Jim Carpenter, Dr Bill’s wife Carrie, Dr. Bill and Jim’s friend.

By Dr. Bill Honigman, Healthcare Human Rights, Coordinator – Progressive Democrats of America

COVID & MFA REALITY CHECK

1,070,729 Total COVID19 deaths in US to date*

428,291 US COVID19 deaths prevented with MFA**

*Harvard University Daily Tracker

**Lancet Comm, Feb 2021

Hello again everyone, I’m Bill Honigman (he/him), retired Emergency Room physician and PDA Healthcare Issue Team Leader from unceded Tongva and Kizh land in Orange County CA, with a brief update on the ongoing COVID19 Healthcare crisis for Sunday November 13th 2022.

This is now our 144th consecutive weekly PDA Online Sunday Town Hall that began when #COVID19 first hit the U.S. in the spring of 2020.  And once again today, sadly, we must report that the United States continues as the world leader among nations in total number of confirmed deaths due to the coronavirus.

The Harvard University daily tracking center is reporting the U.S. COVID19 total death toll today at 1,070,729, which means according to the Lancet Commission Report of 2021, that an estimated 428,291 Americans have now died from COVID19 unnecessarily, and would still be alive today if we had a system of Universal Healthcare like #SinglePayer expanded and improved #MedicareForAll (MFA).

Specifically, that’s an estimated 765 more Americans whose COVID19 deaths just this week could have been prevented but weren’t, thanks to status quo politicians and their wealthy corporate contributors, refusing the will of the people to have Universal Healthcare, where ALL the people get ALL the care.

This week, world new cases and death rates due to COVID19 continued at relatively low levels but with plateauing still in the U.S. and Russia, and increasing numbers in South Korea and Japan, and this week also some rising numbers in Italy and Brazil.

OurWorldInData.org is reporting now that only a stagnant 68.2% of world population have received at least one dose of the COVID19 vaccine, with only 23.6% of those who happen to live in low-income countries, primarily of the global south, having received a first dose of a COVID19 vaccine so far.

The U.S. still has only 69.1% of its population with a completed initial series.

The Johns Hopkins Resource Center which ranks countries by percentage COVID19 vaccinations as first dose only, this week has the U.S. again at No. 50, in this category, still just behind Tuvalu and Panama, and just ahead of Kuwait and Belgium.

And the U.S. worst state for COVID19 vaccination continues to be Wyoming, again this week tied with Alabama, at only 52.6% of their respective populations fully vaxxed.  Live free and die early, red states.

This week the US Dept. of Health and Human Services extended the public health emergency (PHE) status for the COVID19 pandemic for another 90 days.  This is the 12th such extension since the PHE was first issued in January of 2020.  The designation allows for improved telehealth, fast-tracked vaccines and treatments, and preserved coverage specifically for millions of Medicaid beneficiaries nationwide.

And this, in the context of more dominance now due to the Omicron so-called “escape variants,” notably now, BQ.1 and BQ1.1 are now believed to account for more than 40% of COVID19 cases according to the CDC.  And notably as well, flu more generally, and RSV especially in children, are now causing critical shortages in Emergency Room bed capacities across the country.

Also, the CDC reports the rate of flu vaccinations are down, whether due to anti-vaxx sentiment or lower capacities at pharmacies and other Healthcare facilities due to staffing and personnel shortages created by the strain to the system, or to their corporate bottom line, of COVID19.

One such breaking point has created a looming strike once again by nurses in CA against HMO behemoth, Kaiser Permanente.  This time it’s the California Nurses Association (CNA), at Kaiser facilities impacting some 21,000 nurses in Northern CA, and about 1,200 nurses at the Los Angeles Kaiser Permanente Medical Center specifically, calling for the workplace action on November 21 and 22.

According to a statement from CNA just 3 days ago, they are primarily striking to protest, “a refusal to address their ongoing concerns about workplace health and safety, and chronic short staffing.”

Sounds like a resource and systems financing issue to me.  Do you think Kaiser’s corporate bottom line is interfering with their model of Healthcare maintenance?  Absolutely!

And do you think improved and expanded MFA will eliminate that kind of wasteful and abusive resource allocation?  Hell yes, it will!

With the midterms now behind us and more COVID19 and other public health threats ahead of us, it’s time to re-focus on getting the people what they want and need, Healthcare as a human right, and MFA.

Thanks again and onward!

RSVP HERE for the next PDA Sunday Progressive Town Hall, Sundays, 4pm ET.

Watch the previous PDA Healthcare Emergency Town Halls here.

Watch the previous PDA Sunday Progressive Town Halls here.