Malfeasance: wrongdoing, especially by a public official.
After just about 12 months of fear of a respiratory virus that attacks mostly the elderly and has shut down the United States economy and created extreme government overreach with forced business and school closings and restrictions, the Covid-19 vaccines should be delivered at blistering speed. As there were lines of people for hours waiting for Coronavirus testing, there should be a list of appointment times, one after another, of patients receiving the vaccines. Both doses. Most politicians are telling the American people to look forward to July when most are vaccinated. That is the United States version of WARP SPEED.
Medical Tourism
Medical tourism is a popular though well-kept secret by media not wanting persons to discuss the failures of state-run managed health care. Why would anyone leave their home country nor the United States for cheaper healthcare after March 2012 when Obamacare was passed? A study in 2017 looked at Medical tourism questions and found patients leaving the US for cost and insurance not covering procedures. If a patient is forced to buy the insurance and the company has no competition or allowed to devise policies to compete, patients will be forced to look elsewhere.
Accessible applies more particularly to patients from countries where the waiting list is long, particularly to National Health Service patients in the UK and in Canada. In the UK, private health care may be available locally, but is expensive.
The UK and Canada are examples of evil landlords. They are both in the top 5 destinations for medical tourists because the medical facilities can accept cash by patients outside their country’s socialized medical services, but their citizens can’t skip in line if they want to pay cash.
Canada’s rank as number one in the 2020 edition of the Medical Tourism Index comes as no surprise as the second-largest country in the world boasts of a robust tourism industry that attracts more than 14 million Americans each year.
This has, however, created long waitlists for major medical services in the country, which has also set off a rise in outbound medical tourism in the country.
If governments create situations where concierge medicine becomes common and needed, why would we trust the governments to oversee vaccine distribution?
Vaccine Tourism
As reported in the Minnesota Star Tribune on March 6, an estimated 15,000 patients have left Minnesota to find the Covid-19 vaccines. These Minnesota citizens who many are at high risk for Covid-19 hospitalization, ICU stays, or death, have had to go as far as Florida, Arizona, or Missouri to find Covid vaccinations. Many have crossed the state line into North Dakota. One family’s story told is of a 38 year old who has Down’s Syndrome and respiratory problems – an obvious high-risk patient in his age group. His mother found him the Vaccine in the small southern North Dakow town of Lisbon.
Lisa Zubar, a 57 year old retired nurse with Multiple Sclerosis, had to go to Missouri to find the vaccine.
“Are we the United States or just a bunch of individual states?” Zubar asked. “The goal of the federal vaccine program should be to help all Americans.”
Mrs. Zubar is asking the correct questions. I have my own Everything Is Medical video discussing how Wokeness and Social Justice has harmed the distribution of vaccines to the neediest. But today it is evident that the CDC, Dr. Fauci, and the federal government, Trump and now Biden, are failing.
The Star Tribune sites poor state rules and national standards no one can use. The exchange of patients seeking vaccines affects all states.
Over the past few weeks, for instance, so many Minnesotans poured into North Dakota for shots that one of the state’s largest pharmacy chains, Thifty White, changed its policy to limit doses to in-state residents only.
Government induced Black Market
If government is going to create a drug or alcohol shortage, people will search out these things. The Federal Government through the recommendations of the CDC has created a tiered distribution plan which has been inefficient and mismanaged in Minnesota and many other states. If your risk of dying from a Covid infection is high, you look in dark alleys or other states for the vaccines.
“It speaks to the failure of our vaccine distribution system that people are being set up in this ‘hunter-like’ game,” said Tetyana Shippee, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health. “In the end, individuals with the most privilege — those with jobs and resources that enable them to drive great distances and those tech-savvy enough to use these new technologies — will be the ones who are most likely to benefit.”
That is the only quote from the professor of public health at the University of Minnesota in the article. The journalist did not ask or report Professor Shippee’s advice for correcting this mess. Many in “public health’ will be pointing to “Medicare For All”, but can’t come up with a simple vaccine distribution plan. See my 3 part North Dakota vaccine video series. Covid-19 vaccine distribution is not rocket science.
Professor Shippee blames “privilege” for the ability to get a vaccine. Her finger pointing refers to the Woke playbook. The “failure” of the Covid-19 vaccine distribution, as if it is a unique entity in the history of the world, is the failure of government. This should give everyone cold sweats when the possible focus will turn shortly to “Medicare For All”.
Indian Reservations showing results
Sovereign Indian Nations are doing better than the federal government and treating all comers.
“Vaccine wasn’t limited to people who were enrolled members or who had a way to prove they had Native Nation blood,” said tribal public health medical director Dr. Carson Gardner.
“Anybody who lives here on White Earth lands and met the other criteria was offered vaccine. We discussed that at length and decided that was the right thing to do.”
And because White Earth is a sovereign nation, it has the authority to set its own parameters for who is eligible to be vaccinated.
Usually severely short changed by the federal government, the success of Indian Nations to disperse the Covid-19 vaccine is not its reliance on the federal government, but its independence.
Malpractice of Government
To say Malpractice, one must assume that there is a standard of care for government practice. A measure which criticism can be compared. There is not. Perhaps malfeasance is a better term.
To date, more than 15,000 Minnesotans have crossed state lines to get shots, according to data from the state Department of Health. And slightly more than 26,000 people from other states have traveled to Minnesota to get vaccinated.