azar h h s
apparently azar and navarro tried to get admin interested in covid in Jan?
fails
what relation to kushner PPE fail? /corruption?
===
an 11 24
Nearly a year after the Biden administration gave Florida the green light to become the first state to import lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada — a longtime goal of politicians across the political spectrum, including President-elect Donald Trump — the program has yet to begin.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hailed the FDA’s approval of his plan in January, calling it a victory over the drug industry, which opposes importation on the grounds that it would lead to a surge in counterfeit medications.
A Florida health official familiar with the importation program told KFF Health News there was no planned date yet for the state to begin importing drugs. The official asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the program.
Florida applied to create an importation program in November 2020, just months after the Trump administration gave states the option. DeSantis, a Republican, complained publicly for years about the pace of the federal approval process under the Biden administration and in 2022 filed suit against the FDA for what he called a “reckless delay.”
Trump touted his administration’s move to bring medicines over the border in a preelection interview published last month by AARP, the advocacy group for older Americans, which supports allowing Americans to buy drugs from Canada. He vowed to “continue my efforts to protect Americans from unaffordable drug prices” in a second term.
It’s not clear whether his second administration will or can do more to help Florida and other states set up programs, because it’s ultimately up to the states to act. Colorado is the only other state that has an importation plan pending with the FDA.
FDA spokesperson Cherie Duvall-Jones said she could not answer whether Florida had submitted documents the agency requires before the state can start importing medicines. She referred all questions to the state.
After this article was published — and 14 weeks after KFF Health News first contacted Florida officials for comment — Alecia Collins, deputy chief of staff for the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, said the state is “awaiting feedback from the FDA on the last of the [pharmaceutical] labels so we can move forward with the next steps for launching the program.” The FDA did not immediately respond to a follow-up request for comment.DeSantis press secretary Jeremy Redfern said he had been “slammed” since the first week of November and could not answer questions.
Drug companies typically sell medications for far less in Canada than in the United States, as a result of Canadian government price controls. But because of safety and efficacy concerns, federal law prohibits consumers from buying drugs from outside U.S. borders except in rare cases.
Politicians ranging from conservatives such as DeSantis to liberals such as Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont have long pushed for importing lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada.
In 2000, Congress passed a law allowing states to import prescription drugs from north of the border, with the caveat that it could go forward only if the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services affirmed it was safe. That didn’t happen until 2020, when Trump’s HHS secretary, Alex Azar, made such a declaration.
Since 2022, Azar has been chairman of the board at LifeScience Logistics, a Dallas-based company that Florida is paying millions of dollars to set up its drug importation program, including warehousing its medicines.
Azar on Nov. 13 refused to answer questions from KFF Health News about drug importation, saying he wasn’t authorized to speak on the matter.
Florida’s program would not directly assist consumers at the pharmacy. It’s instead aimed at lowering costs for the state Medicaid program and for the corrections and health departments.
Matthew Baxter, a senior director at Ontario-based Methapharm Specialty Pharmaceuticals, which has contracted with LifeScience to export drugs, would not say whether Methapharm has sent any medicines over the border.
The pharmaceutical industry and the Canadian government oppose U.S. drug importation. Drug companies say importation would increase the risk of counterfeit drugs appearing on U.S. pharmacy shelves, while the government in Ottawa has warned it won’t allow medicines to be exported if Canadians could experience shortages as a result.
Florida’s predicted savings would also be relatively minor. DeSantis estimated the program would save state agencies up to $180 million in its first year. Florida’s annual Medicaid budget tops $30 billion.
Florida identified 14 drugs, including for cancer and AIDS, that it would attempt to import from Canada for its state agencies.
Camm Epstein, a health policy analyst in Saratoga Springs, New York, said drug importation is a seemingly simple concept that resonates with the public, which is why DeSantis and others have turned to the idea as a response to rising drug prices. “It riles up the crowd,” he said. “Who doesn’t want to pay lower drug costs?”
But bringing drugs over the border is complicated because of the FDA’s many requirements, including finding companies to work with — a Canadian exporter and a U.S. importer — and following a process that ensures the drugs are authentic, Epstein said.
“This was, at best, a boondoggle,” he said.
Florida has spent tens of millions of dollars to stand up its drug importation program. The state has already paid LifeScience Logistics $50 million to set up a warehouse to store the medicines. DeSantis noted the costs in his 2022 lawsuit against the FDA.
“Plaintiffs have paid their retained importer and distributor over $24 million thus far — and increasing at the rate of $1.2 million every month — even though not a single prescription pill has been imported, relabeled, or distributed, solely because of the FDA’s idleness,” the state said in its suit.
Florida’s delay may be due to operational challenges, Epstein said. “Predictably, even if they turned on the spigot there would be no flow, because Canada was not going to permit for the supply,” he said.
Colorado and Florida are among at least nine states that have passed laws allowing for Canadian drug importation. Colorado’s 2022 application to the FDA is still pending. In December 2023, Colorado officials released a report noting the state was unable to find a drugmaker willing to sell it medicines from Canada.
*KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
===
mma 9 22
Then-President Donald Trump ordered Alex Azar, then his health and human services secretary, to immediately approve the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus treatment because Fox News host Laura Ingraham had said it was effective, according to a new book.
Trump, an avid Fox viewer who regularly turned the network’s programming into White House policy, became transfixed by the drug after his trusted Fox hosts started talking it up in mid-March of 2020, as the novel coronavirus swept across the country. If hydroxychloroquine had worked as the COVID-19 miracle cure Fox claimed, it would have allowed Americans to swiftly return to normal life without fear of becoming seriously ill from the virus. Unfortunately, hydroxychloroquine is not an effective coronavirus treatment, according to numerous studies as well as U.S. and international health agencies.
Peter Baker and Susan Glasser shed new light on the role Fox played in convincing Trump that hydroxychloroquine would be a COVID-19 “game changer” in their new book, The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021.
They chronicle a phone call between Trump and Azar that took place on March 18, 2020, two days after Ingraham had praised the hydroxychloroquine’s potential during an interview with the Long Island lawyer Gregory Rigano, who championed the drug.
“Laura says hydroxychloroquine works. It’s perfectly safe, so just approve it,” they write that Trump told Azar during the phone call.
When Azar protested, the then-president told him, “Laura takes it. It’s safe,” Baker and Glasser report.
“I want it approved today. That’s an order,” he ultimately demanded, according to the book.
After Trump publicly touted hydroxychloroquine at a press briefing the day after his call with Azar, the Fox-Trump feedback loop went into full swing: Fox ran hundreds of segments talking up the drug’s benefits; Trump tweeted praise of the drug in response to the coverage and successfully pressured health officials to issue guidance supporting the use of the drug as a coronavirus treatment; and Ingraham visited the White House with two members of her “medicine cabinet” to meet with Trump and FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn and push for additional support for the treatment.
The federal government ultimately amassed a stockpile of 66 million doses of a drug that is not effective in treating COVID-19 because Fox hosts told Trump that it worked and he believed them. Meanwhile, the network moved on to peddling ivermectin, another drug studies show is ineffective in treating COVID-19, while slandering the actually effective COVID-19 vaccines. The results for Fox’s viewers have been devastating.
omg
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/i-knew-brett-kavanaugh-during-his-years-republican-operative-don-ncna907391
no lnx
I knew Brett Kavanaugh during his years as a Republican operative. Don't let him sit on the Supreme Court.
We were part of a close circle of cynical hard-right operatives being groomed for much bigger things.
Sept. 7, 2018,
ByDavid Brock
I used to know Brett Kavanaugh pretty well. And, when I think of Brett now, in the midst of his hearings for a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, all I can think of is the old "Aesop's Fables" adage: "A man is known by the company he keeps."
And that's why I want to tell any senator who cares about our democracy: Vote no.
Twenty years ago, when I was a conservative movement stalwart, I got to know Brett Kavanaugh both professionally and personally.
Brett Kavanaugh proves the Supreme Court swing vote is dead
SEPT. 4, 2018]
Brett actually makes a cameo appearance in my memoir of my time in the GOP, "Blinded By The Right." I describe him at a party full of zealous young conservatives gathered to watch President Bill Clinton's 1998 State of the Union address — just weeks after the story of his affair with a White House intern had broken. When the TV camera panned to Hillary Clinton, I saw Brett — at the time a key lieutenant of Ken Starr, the independent counsel investigating various Clinton scandals — mouth the word "bitch."
But there's a lot more to know about Kavanaugh than just his Pavlovian response to Hillary's image. Brett and I were part of a close circle of cold, cynical and ambitious hard-right operatives being groomed by GOP elders for much bigger roles in politics, government and media. And it’s those controversial associations that should give members of the Senate and the American public serious pause.
[Related OPINION
GOP's maneuvering during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings will seriously damage the Supreme Court's legitimacy]
Call it Kavanaugh's cabal: There was his colleague on the Starr investigation, Alex Azar,now the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Mark Paoletta is now chief counsel to Vice President Mike Pence; House anti-Clinton gumshoeBarbara Comstockis now a Republican member of Congress. Future Fox News personalities Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson were there with Ann Coulter, now a best-selling author, and internet provocateur Matt Drudge.
At one time or another, each of them partied at my Georgetown townhouse amid much booze and a thick air of cigar smoke.
In a rough division of labor, Kavanaugh played the role of lawyer — one of the sharp young minds recruited by the Federalist Society to infiltrate the federal judiciary with true believers. Through that network, Kavanaugh was mentored by D.C. Appeals Court Judge Laurence Silberman, known among his colleagues for planting leaks in the press for partisan advantage.
[Related OPINION
Tom Steyer and Ron Fein: Stop Kavanaugh's confirmation until Mueller's investigation is done]
When, as I came to know, Kavanaugh took on the role of designated leaker to the press of sensitive information from Starr's operation, we all laughed that Larry had taught him well. (Of course, that sort of political opportunism by a prosecutor is at best unethical, if not illegal.)
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Another compatriot was George Conway (now Kellyanne's husband), who led a secretive group of right-wing lawyers — we called them "the elves" — who worked behind the scenes directing the litigation team of Paula Jones, who had sued Clinton for sexual harassment. I knew then that information was flowing quietly from the Jones team via Conway to Starr's office — and also that Conway's go-to man was none other than Brett Kavanaugh.
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Trump's election plot was eye-opening. And the Senate is finally paying attention.]
That critical flow of inside information allowed Starr, in effect, to set a perjury trap for Clinton, laying the foundation for a crazed national political crisis and an unjust impeachment over a consensual affair.
But the cabal's godfather was Ted Olson, the then-future solicitor general for George W. Bush and now a sainted figure of the GOP establishment(and of some liberals for his role in legalizing same-sex marriage). Olson had a largely hidden role as a consigliere to the "Arkansas Project" — a multi-million dollar dirt-digging operation on the Clintons, funded by the eccentric right-wing billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife and run through The American Spectator magazine, where I worked at the time.
Both Ted and Brett had what one could only be called an unhealthy obsession with the Clintons — especially Hillary. While Ted was pushing through the Arkansas Project conspiracy theories claiming that Clinton White House lawyer and Hillary friend Vincent Foster was murdered (he committed suicide), Brett was costing taxpayers millions by pedaling the same garbage at Starr's office.
A detailed analysis of Kavanaugh's own notes from the Starr Investigation reveals he was cherry-picking random bits of information from the Starr investigation — as well as the multiple previous investigations — attempting vainly to legitimize wild right-wing conspiracies. For years he chased down each one of them without regard to the emotional cost to Foster’s family and friends, or even common decency.
[Related OPINION
Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination is the result of years of unopposed conservative organizing]
Kavanaugh was not a dispassionate finder of fact but rather an engineer of a political smear campaign. And after decades of that, he expects people to believe he's changed his stripes.
Like millions of Americans this week, I tuned into Kavanaugh's hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee with great interest. In his opening statement and subsequent testimony, Kavanaugh presented himself as a "neutral and impartial arbiter" of the law. Judges, he said, were not players but akin to umpires — objectively calling balls and strikes. Again and again, he stressed his "independence" from partisan political influences.
But I don't need to see any documents to tell you who Kavanaugh is — because I've known him for years. And I'll leave it to all the lawyers to parse Kavanaugh's views on everything from privacy rights to gun rights. But I can promise you that any pretense of simply being a fair arbiter of the constitutionality of any policy regardless of politics is simply a pretense. He made up his mind nearly a generation ago — and, if he's confirmed, he'll have nearly two generations to impose it upon the rest of us.
an 10 21
no lnx
Now that former President Donald Trump's reign is over, the members of his administration have been forced to take their careers in different directions. So, where are the members of the Trump administration now? According to The Intelligencer, many are doing an array of different things; some of which are synonymous with the questionable activities that long-haunted the Trump administration.
Here's where the top Trump White House officials are now:
1. Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is still trying to distance himself from the kidnapping of Julian Assange. According to Pompeo, he had nothing to do with it.
Pompeo is adamantly denying any involvement in the plot to kidnap Assange. A report published by Yahoo! News back in September, suggested that Pompeo was livid when he learned Assange divulged U.S. national-security secrets. In fact, the report also claimed that he participated in discussions with members of the Trump administration on how to get retribution.
However, Pompeo is still suggesting the reports are not true. "There's pieces of it that are true," Pompeo said during an appearance on The Megyn Kelly Show. "We tried to protect American information from Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, absolutely, yes … We're not permitted by U.S. law to conduct assassinations. We never acted in a way that was inconsistent with that."
2. Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has been milking his access to the Secret Service.
Thanks to Trump's order extending the use of the Secret Service to members of his administration, Mnuchin has used the professional perk to his benefit. The publication reports that in his first six months out of office, Mnuchin has racked up the highest Secret Service tab. The Washington Post detailed how Mnuchin managed to rack up more than $150,000 in Secret Service expenses.
The receipts showed that agents spent $114,000 over the six months to rent rooms at a W Hotel in Los Angeles, where Mnuchin has a home. They also followed Mnuchin on three trips to the Middle East, where Mnuchin is reportedly seeking to raise money from sovereign wealth funds for a new venture called Liberty Strategic Capital…
Mnuchin's travels with the Secret Service weren't all business, however. Over the six months, the records show three separate trips to Cabo San Lucas — the Mexican resort, where Mnuchin had also vacationed during Trump's presidency.
To guard Mnuchin during those three trips, the records show, the Secret Service paid $56,000 for hotel rooms and $2,000 to rent golf carts.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Mnuchin is planning to use the $2.5 billion he has raised traveling so he can invest in technology and cybersecurity investments, along with "new forms of content." It remains unclear what Mnuchin specifically describes as "new forms of content" but "many big tech companies are pushing virtual- and augmented-reality hardware and content products and digital gaming."
3. Wilbur Ross is reportedly fantasizing about putting "Trump condos on the moon."
Back in February after the Trump administration transitioned out of the White House, Ross spoke with Bloomberg and shared his upcoming post-government plans; which involve "Trump condos on the moon."
On this particular afternoon, he's sitting in the living room of his 80-year-old home filled with Magrittes and Picassos, sipping a cappuccino, dressed in cashmere sweater, slacks and velvet slippers embroidered with octopuses.
Ironically, it's while ensconced in this paradise of earthly delights that Ross is gearing up to invest in space, among other possibilities. He sees opportunity in extraterrestrial tourism, manufacturing, research and habitation.
Habitation? When asked whether space would be a gold-plated real estate opportunity for Trump, Ross didn't disagree.
"Why not Trump condos on the moon?" he quipped back.
Ross' remarks came just months after the U.S. Commerce Department's inspector general released a scathing report about the former Trump official's behavior. According to The Washington Post, the IG's report "concluded that Ross had made many inaccurate statements to federal officials about his assets before taking office, though he did not willfully violate conflict-of-interest laws."
4. Ben Carson is launching a venture similar to Boy Scouts of America.
After departing Washington, D.C., Ben Carson —the former Housing and Urban Development Secretary— launched an organization called the American Cornerstone Institute.Carson's new think tank reportedly places an emphasis on discovering "commonsense solutions to some of our nation's biggest problems."
The American Cornerstone Institute
youtu.be
Carson has also created the Little Patriots program, which is described as a partisan organization for children. Speaking to The Washington Post, Carson explained the organization's initiative. "It will be something like the Boy Scouts," Carson told the publication. "But heavily exposed to the real history of America.
"You probably notice when ISIS goes into a place, they destroy the history, they destroy the monuments," Carson explained. "History is what gives you identity."
- Elaine Chao contributed to calls for Kroger to be boycotted.
Chao —wife of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and former transportation secretary— worked for several of the country's top corporations prior to her role with the Trump administration. But Intelligencer reports that "she and other Trump Cabinet alums were having a hard time finding cushy landing spots after exiting the administration. 'The feedback was 'It's too soon,' said one of the headhunters involved in an unsuccessful effort to find companies willing to work with Chao."
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Despite her struggles to re-enter the corporate world, Chao was appointed to Kroger's board of directors. But given her history of abusing her power and position with the government, social media users quickly expressed outrage and urged Kroger to drop the former Trump cabinet member from its board.
6. Alex Azar is reportedly conspiring against his former colleagues.
Former Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar is at odds with many of his former colleagues. In fact, several of them including —former FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn, former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Robert Redfield, former Medicare chief Seema Verma, and former White House COVID coordinator Deborah Birx— have reportedly joined forces to prepare their statements regarding the Trump administration's handling of COVID-19.
According to Politico, they've done so out of caution and concern about Azar possibly using them as "scapegoats" to clear themselves.
"I know the way this goes — everyone has a different perspective," Hahn said in an interview. "I wanted to tell what it was that happened and why it happened and the perspective that we had."
In calls and text messages, members of the group have swapped notes, compared recollections, and sent updates on media requests and interview opportunities, four people with knowledge of the matter said …
And in a nod to their individual battles with Azar, some have jokingly referred to the group in private as "AAA," or Alex Azar Anonymous, according to a person in direct contact with multiple members.
From the looks of it, many Trump administration officials are still conducting shady business as they did while in office.
1120 250m kia praise trump
https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/alex-azar-hhs/
https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/revelation-that-racist-trump-stooge-tried-to-censor-cdc-reports-rocks-experts-and-critics/
no lnx twt
revelation that ‘racist Trump stooge’ tried to censor CDC reports rocks experts and critics
Written by Common Dreams September 12, 2020
Days after President Donald Trump admitted to knowingly downplaying the Covid-19 pandemic in his statements to the public, new reporting late Friday revealed that Trump political aides have been reviewing—and in some cases altering—weekly CDC reports about the deadly virus in an effort to bring them into closer alignment with the president’s false narrative and claims.
Politico reported Friday evening that the Health and Human Services Department’s politically appointed communications aides, led by former Trump campaign official Michael Caputo—a Republican strategist with no medical expertise—”have attempted to add caveats to the CDC’s findings, including an effort to retroactively change agency reports that they said wrongly inflated the risks of Covid-19 and should have made clear that Americans sickened by the virus may have been infected because of their own behavior.”
The primary target of the Trump officials’ interference, according to Politico, has been the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWR), a crucial resource for experts, public officials, and members of the public seeking to track the spread of Covid-19.While CDC officials have pushed back on meddling from political appointees, Politico reported that the agency has “increasingly agreed to allow the political officials to review the reports and, in a few cases, compromised on the wording.”
According to one internal email obtained by Politico, Caputo aide Paul Alexander accused the CDC—an agency directed by Trump appointee Robert Redfield—of “writing hit pieces on the administration” and attempting to use its weekly reports to “hurt the president.”
“CDC tried to report as if once kids get together, there will be spread and this will impact school re-opening,” wrote Alexander, an assistant professor of health research at McMaster University in Toronto. “Very misleading by CDC and shame on them. Their aim is clear.”
Alexander demanded that Redfield allow the HHS aide to personally edit the CDC’s reports, which are authored by career scientists.
“The reports must be read by someone outside of CDC like myself, and we cannot allow the reporting to go on as it has been, for it is outrageous. Its lunacy,” Alexander, who has also attempted to alter the public messaging of Dr. Anthony Fauci, wrote to Redfield. “Nothing to go out unless I read and agree with the findings how they CDC, wrote it and I tweak it to ensure it is fair and balanced and ‘complete.'”
Yale epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves called the emails “explosive” and said Caputo should resign immediately.
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“This is just beyond the pale,” Gonsalves tweeted. “Caputo, with acquiescence of Redfield, has started to twist the science to Donald Trump’s advantage. It’s sick and disgusting.”
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According to Politico, attempts by political appointees to alter the MMWR to their liking “began in earnest after a May report authored by senior CDC official Anne Schuchat, which reviewed the spread of Covid-19 in the United States and caused significant strife within the health department.”
“HHS officials, including Secretary Alex Azar, believed that Schuchat was implying that the Trump administration moved too slowly to respond to the outbreak,” Politico continued. “The HHS criticism was mystifying to CDC officials, who believed that Schuchat was merely recounting the state of affairs and not rendering judgment on the response.”
In addition to trying to change the language of CDC scientists to make it fit with the president’s rosy depiction of the pandemic, Caputo and his aides have also moved “to halt the release of some CDC reports, including delaying a report that addressed how doctors were prescribing hydroxychloroquine,the malaria drug favored by Trump as a coronavirus treatment despite scant evidence,” Politico reported Friday.
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“The report, which was held for about a month after Caputo’s team raised questions about its authors’ political leanings, was finally published last week,” Politico noted. “It said that “the potential benefits of these drugs do not outweigh their risks.”
Politico‘s new reporting represents just the latest evidence of the Trump administration’s ongoing interference in the activities of public health agencies, an effort lawmakers and experts have denounced as a deliberate campaign to undermine trust in Covid-19 data and advance the president’s political agenda.
“A Trump stooge with a history of racist statements and no medical background is doctoring CDC reports warning Americans on Covid because they make Trump look bad,” Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J.) tweeted late Friday, referring to Caputo.
Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, said the “Trump CDC is dead to me if they muzzle the MMWR.”
“To kill the MMWR,” Feigl-Ding added, “is akin to burning science.”
==
omg
https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/trump-administration-plans-250-million-ad-buy-telling-voters-not-to-worry-so-much-about-the/
Trump administration has given up on any serious attempts to curb the nation’s ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. As U.S. deaths inch towards the 200,000 mark, outside experts are now warning Americans to ignore the “dysfunctional” Centers of Disease Control and Prevention after the agency issued new, Trump-favored guidelines to reduce testing, rather than expand it. There is no federal contract tracing effort. There is no standard, expert-based pandemic policy—each state has been left to its own devices, with federal officials ignoring even the most serious state outbreaks.
Don’t worry, though. It’s not like the Trump-led federal government is entirely asleep at the wheel. The Department of Health and Human Services is seeking bids for a new quarter-*billion* dollar communications contract, reports Politico. No, not to encourage Americans to social distance, wear masks, or get tested—don’t be stupid. The new publicity campaign will instead “defeat despair and inspire hope,” advising businesses how to operate “in the new normal” and instilling “confidence to return to work and restart the economy.”
Yeah, we’re all going to die.
You will note, dear tired reader, that this language sounds very much like Trump’s own anti-pandemic anti-policy. Rather than taking more aggressive steps to curtail the pandemic—as nearly every other nation on the planet has—the new publicity campaign will presume we live in a “new normal.” It will be based, says “a senior HHS official” who for some reason would not go on the record to say these embarrassing things, on “defeating the mental health challenges of the coronavirus,” which sounds explicitly like Trump’s own insistence that it’s depression over social distancing that’s killing people, not the deadly disease marked on the death certificates.
so instead of a new testing program or, say, mailing out masks to every American household, we’re getting an advertising campaign meant to “defeat despair.” Oh, and Politico reports thecontract will be managed by Trump ex-campaign guy Michael Caputo.
Odds that Trump loyalist Michael Caputo is going to sign off on a $250 million ad campaign telling Americans to “defeat despair” through the remarkably effective practice of wearing masks, against Donald Trump’s personal wishes? Zero. Less than zero. Zero minus the square root of Ivanka.
Anyhoo, the idea that the Trump-led federal government is, immediately before the (cough) November elections, going to be combatting the COVID-19 pandemic via an ad campaign telling Americans to maybe just stop being sad about it is … well, let’s be honest. It’s so on-brand it hurts.
It’s the “Be Best” of infectious disease campaigns. Sorry, we still need to limit testing—but here’s some tips on how you can restart the economy, fellow patriots. Nothing inspires “hope” like getting your unmasked face back to work, unless it’s getting legislation passed immunizing your employer from consequences if you die afterword. Now that’s inspiring.
==
https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/the-head-of-the-fda-is-forbidden-from-speaking-to-press-without-a-trump-minder/
kos
t*he New York Times*:{ has a long look:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline-color:initial;outline-width:initial;transition-duration:0.3s;transition-property:color;cursor:pointer"):}: questioning whetherFood and Drug Administration head Stephen Hahnis being forced into giving the nation subpar advice on the demand of the anti-science, anti-reality narcissistic idiot manchild posing as the current president. It is full of the usual back and forth, both-siding quoteswhile laying out reams of evidence that actually this is not a question at all. The plain history shows that Dr. Hahn has absolutely been mealymouthing FDA pandemic advice to dodge contradicting Donald Trump’s most egregiously ignorant and magic-minded proclamations. It’s the sort of piece where you get the subject, Hahn, assuring the reporter that he is absolutely not feeling “squeezed” before the reporter casually throws in:
“On the line as he spoke was Michael Caputo, a deputy to Dr. Hahn’s boss, Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. […] Dr. Hahn is not allowed to speak to the press without Mr. Caputo or another official on the phone.”
There you go, America. Question answered. The head of the Food and Drug Administration is forbidden from talking to the press about the pandemic, period, unless an administration minder is present.
Another of global authoritarianism’s most consistent policies gets plunked down into the federal government, and we learn of it in a piece questioning whether everything is fine or is maybe something odd and disturbing going on here.
while the FDA gives rush approval to a supposed Trump miracle drug, sans evidence, only to have to warn later that oops it may turn out that the drug not only doesn’t work but may result in the dangerous side effects already known and printed on the packaging.
Oh, and we also learn that Hahn was discouraged from reaching out to private companies to develop COVID-19 tests back in January, according to four administration sources. That was back when the Trump administration, meaning Donald, was absolutely determined to ignore the pandemic away from the United States and absolutely did not want health officials giving dire warnings or taking drastic actions to actually prepare for the pandemic when it arrived.
Don’t worry, though. Trump’s Health and Human Services head Alex Azar said that never happened. Those other four sources must have imagined it.
We really are just unimaginably slow on the draw, here. There are 160,000 Americans dead, and it’s going to be next to impossible to limit it to anything else than a quarter million dead by the end of the year. And the most aggressive action to date by the Trump clan is to make sure minders are minding any federal expert whose expertise might publicly contradict whatever Typhoid Hitler’s fevered brain has pushed out his mouth on any particular morning. Is this unusual? Yeah, it’s pretty damn unusual. Is this damaging the nation’s response to a pandemic? Look around the planet: It’s the defining feature of our nation’s response to the pandemic.
We are supposed to feel sympathy for Dr. Hahn, because if he wants to retain his position he is absolutely forbidden from getting on Donald Trump’s bad side—and contradicting Donald Trump under any circumstances will immediately put him on Trump’s bad side. We are supposed to be begrudgingly grateful that Dr. Hahn and others are doing their best to dodge massive, murderous incompetence to keep more Americans alive than Trump’s core team have shown interest in, because if they resigned their posts in disgust Trump, Kushner, Meadows and the rest would simply ignore whatever laws were necessary to put a loyalist in with no such moral qualms.
We have to phrase all of this delicately, with a touch of both sides do it and a large dose of yes, this is all unusual in the extreme but far be it from us to say this is any better or worse than the old way of running the country,because doing otherwise would send Americans into a panic. It would cause politicians supporting the New Way to get very, very angry.
It may be brazenly obvious that Trump’s incompetence is killing people and his staff is primarily devoted to making sure nobody in the federal government suggests anything better, but there are still no editorial pages demanding he step down. None asking that the 25th Amendment be invoked despite his obvious forays into delusion.
Nothing about this is normal. A great deal of it was previously presumed to be illegal. There is an overwhelming push to normalize it down to mere partisan controversy, though, so nobody has to too deeply consider the underlying implications.
==
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grogan gilead
swamp thing COI?
point man on covid 19 but got blindsided on podium by vp pick "alarmist"
apparently tried to get to djt on covid in jan? but blacked by aides? cuck-blocked?
cut pandemic team just ~ BO or eliminate buffer/expert?
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/how-americas-wealthiest-are-profiting-in-the-time-of-the-pandemic/
American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) Michael Strain wrote an op-ed in the New York Times recently explaining how “The American Dream Is Alive and Well,” and that in his opinion this nation has, “bigger issues than inequality.” Strain’s piece is part of the paper’s new pandemic-era series called “The America We Need” and engages in a set of impressive mental gymnastics to conclude that it ought to be of no concern that the rich are getting richer and that it would be better to focus instead on, “the relatively slow rate of productivity growth,” or “the long-term decline in male employment.”
Michael Strain is incredulous over our fixation on the concentration of wealth at the top, asking, “Do Americans really care as much about inequality as the attention by media and liberal politicians suggest?” He adds, “Given that income inequality has been stagnant or declining over the most recent decade, the timing… is odd” for a conversation “about whether inequality suggests that capitalism itself is broken.” However, inequality continues to steadily rise—a fact it seems the pro-free-market American Enterprise Institute is hoping we ignore.
In his op-ed, Strain chants a mantra that he and other proponents of capitalism want to realize through sheer repetition: “Capitalism isn’t broken. The game isn’t rigged. Hard work does pay off.” Most insultingly, he maintains that: “American workers are resilient and are accustomed to facing—and overcoming—economic challenges.” In other words, because American workers are used to being screwed over by the economy and most have seemingly managed to survive it, they will continue to do so in the face of ever-increasing hardship.
Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) during a Senate hearing on May 19 questioned Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, asking, “How many workers will die if we send people back to work without the protections they need, Mr. Secretary? How many workers should give their lives to increase our [gross domestic product] by half a percent?” Mnuchin responded, “I think your characterization is unfair,” but the Trump administration he attempted to defend has in fact forced people back to work, namely in the meatpacking industry. President Donald Trump invoked theDefense Production Act—not to direct the commercial production of much-needed medical and protective equipment, but rather to provide cover to the meat industry as it seeks to force workers back into a dangerous environment.
Thousands of workers have become infected in recent months. But if meatpacking workers contract the disease and die, it is their fault as per Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who recently claimed that it was the “home and social” conditions in the lives of meatpacking plant workers that were responsible for their COVID-19 diagnoses.He even went as far as suggesting more law enforcement surveillance of those communities where meatpacking workers live in order to police social distancing.
Making clear just how little Republicans in particular care about workers, Trump has opposed extending unemployment insurance for laid-off workers.His Labor Department has encouraged companies to snitch on workers so that their unemployment benefits are cut off if they are too fearful of returning to work. And, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants to protect corporations from liability in coronavirus-related lawsuits by workers.
Republicans have also refused to take up any more stimulus bills even as more than 38 million Americans have lost jobs in just nine weeks. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, showing just how blind he is to the pain of workers, said, “I don’t see the need right now.” Senator McConnell echoed this, saying, “I don’t think we have yet felt the urgency of acting immediately. That time could… [come], but I don’t think it has yet.” Time and again conservative politicians, in shilling for the rich, have indicated that American workers, rather than being essential, are simply expendable. This is their version of a class war.
The White House’s latest idea for helping workers is to cut corporate taxes in half as a way to incentivize overseas jobs to return to the U.S. Larry Kudlow, the White House’s top economic adviser, touted a payroll tax cut as a way to put more money into Americans’ pockets. He failed to mention that cutting payroll taxes meant a cut in payroll-tax-funded programs like Medicare and Social Security—programs many Americans rely on that the class warriors have wanted to cut for years.
Amazingly, the stock market appears to not care that there is record unemployment as week after week even with skyrocketing unemployment, the Dow Jones and Nasdaq indices remain buoyed. Indeed, the indicators that are announced with much fanfare every day on the popular radio program Marketplace have never had a real bearing on the well-being of American workers, no matter how much enthusiasm host Kai Ryssdal musters during his announcements. To his credit, he has admitted as much, explaining that the “wealthiest 10 percent of American households own 84 percent of all stocks.”
Before the pandemic, Trump bet his reelection on a low unemployment rate and the buoyancy of the stock market. Now, with official unemployment figures so incongruent with the stock market’s growth, he has a harder time making a claim of widespread economic prosperity. In fact, there was no prosperity even before the pandemic. The official unemployment rate was low, but that did not indicate how many people had quit looking for work or how poor quality those jobs were. The pandemic has exposed the fact that Trump’s claims of financial triumph were always more of a mirage than a miracle.
As the anguish of millions of American workers remains irrelevant to the corporate profiteers and their political benefactors, we are expected to rejoice in the fact that JeffBezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, could become the world’s first trillionaire in a few years. It would be convenient for Michael Strain and the American Enterprise Institute if we are convinced to ignore such obscenity and focus instead on workers remaining “resilient” as the rich wage their class war.
The only rational response to the absurd state of the U.S. economy is to insist that billionaires (and especially trillionaires) are simply not allowed to exist. After the first $100 million, there is no need to continue to amass any more wealth. Congress could easily enact laws to tax billionaires heavily enough that they remained more than comfortable for the rest of their lives while funding necessary services that huge numbers of Americans could benefit from: paid sick leave, Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, and so much more. There is no justification for individuals to hoard so much wealth compared to the rest of us. But they will never give up that wealth voluntarily. They will instead fight tooth and nail, lie and cheat, to preserve and expand their inconceivable riches. Against such a class war there is only one option.
Sonali Kolhatkaris the founder, host and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations.
This article was produced by :{Economy for All:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
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Tom Boggioni / Raw StoryApril 13, 2020
According to a report from the Daily Beast, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar may soon be exiting the White House for refusing to sugarcoat information about the coronavirus pandemic when…
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/we-already-paid-for-covid-19-treatments-we-cannot-let-gilead-make-us-pay-again
no lnx
We already paid for COVID-19 treatments — we cannot let Gilead make us pay again
Written by Alex Lawson / Independent Media Institute March 26, 2020
Update, March 25, 2:45 p.m.: Gilead has renounced the benefits of orphan designation, but still retains other patents that give them a five-year monopoly on remdesivir.
There’s much we don’t yet know about COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. We don’t know how long the pandemic will last, when a vaccine will be developed, or how many lives antiviral medications can save. But there’s one thing we know for sure: U.S. taxpayers have already paid for the research and testing of the most promising treatments.
These treatments should be available to everyone who needs them at no cost. But the Trump administration’s drug policy is led by two former pharmaceutical executives, and that is having devastating consequences for potential access to treatments and vaccines for the COVID-19 pandemic.
If you’ve been watching Donald Trump’s daily press briefings, that might come as a surprise. During his 2016 campaign, Trump loved to talk tough on pharma and say he would fight for lower drug prices. But then he put Alex Azar, a big pharma CEO infamous for doubling the price of insulin, in charge of regulating health care. Several weeks ago, Azar refused to guarantee that a coronavirus vaccine will be affordable for all, citing the need to protect big pharma’s profits.
Azar is now a member of Trump’s coronavirus task force, and his influence is evident during the briefings. Over and over again, Trump talks up big pharma corporations and thanks them for their work on COVID-19 treatments and a potential vaccine. He refers to them as “great companies” and their executives as “geniuses.”
trump fails to mention that taxpayers have spent nearly $700 million on coronavirus research through the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Nor does he mention that big pharma corporations spend more money enriching themselves through stock buybacks than they do on research and development.
One medication currently being tested on coronavirus patients is the antiviral remdesivir. It’s still too early to say if remdesivir will prove broadly effective at helping patients with COVID-19. But if it does end up being a major part of treating the disease, it’s essential to remember who paid for the drug’s development: The American people.
Remdesivir was developed with research funded by a $37.5 million NIH grant. The NIH plans to spend at least an additional $30 million on phase II trials of the medication this year. Since we’ve all paid for remdesivir’s development through our taxpayer dollars, it should be available to everyone who needs it at no cost.
Instead, the Trump administration just granted Gilead, a giant pharmaceutical corporation, “orphan” drug status for remdesivir. That means that Gilead is free to charge outrageous prices for the drug, with their government-granted exclusivity ensuring that there will be no competition for years to come.
What makes this even more outrageous is that orphan status is designed to incentivize research and development of treatments for rare diseases. A pandemic is the opposite of rare!
We don’t know what role Joe Grogan, Gilead’s former chief lobbyist, and currently the director of Trump’s domestic policy council, played in this decision. But it seems a safe bet that such an outrageous move to profit off a pandemic had to have support from the top.
Nor is remdesivir an outlier. This is how all new medications work. Taxpayers always fund the riskiest and most crucial research and development. Then, pharma gets the patent monopolies and uses them to charge outrageous prices. American families are going bankrupt paying four- and five-figure prices for drugs that their taxpayer dollars already paid to develop!
Politicians might be tempted by a short-term solution—requiring all COVID-19 treatments, as well as an eventual vaccine, to be low-cost or cost-free. But that doesn’t go far enough. It does nothing to help the Americans with diabetes who are dying every year because they are forced to ration their outrageously priced insulin. It does nothing for seniors, who will soon be spending half their hard-earned Social Security checks on health care costs. And it will do nothing to help patients when the next pandemic comes.
We need permanent structural changes. Fortunately, we know exactly what we need to do, and the American people agree with these changes across partisan lines:
when a drug corporation is abusing their patent privilege by charging outrageous prices, revoke the privilege and allow generic competition to drive down prices. This policy is supported by 78 percent of all voters and opposed by only 10 percent.
Allow public manufacturing of drugs to alleviate shortages and eliminate bottlenecks. This policy is supported by 70 percent of all voters and opposed by only 17 percent.
Increase taxpayer funding of research and development of vaccines and pharmaceuticals by creating a “full cycle” public R&D program with no patent monopolies and immediate generic production of the results. This policy is supported by 69 percent of voters and opposed by only 15 percent.
Donald Trump wasn’t prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic, but the public health community has been preparing for years. The research we’ve funded is going to be critical in the coming months. We’ve already paid for it. Let’s demand that Congress change the law so that we don’t have to pay again.
Alex Lawson is the executive director of Social Security Works, a non-profit advocacy group that supports expanding benefits to address America’s growing retirement security crisis. Lawson has appeared on numerous TV and radio outlets and is a frequent guest host of The Thom Hartmann Program, one of the top progressive radio shows in the country.
This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
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https://theintercept.com/2020/02/29/cronyism-and-conflicts-of-interest-in-trumps-coronavirus-task-force/
alex AZAR, the secretary of health and human services, admitted Wednesday that a vaccine for a new coronavirus might not be affordable for all Americans. “We can’t control that price,” Azar told Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., during a congressional hearing about the novel strain, which has been spreading throughout the world and is widely expected to become a serious public health issue in the United States.
After a wave of criticism from Democrats, Azar walked the comment back the next day, saying that he would ensure public access to a vaccine for Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, if one should be developed. But Azar, who served as the top lobbyist for Eli Lilly before becoming president of the drug company’s U.S. operations in 2012 and the secretary of health and human Services in 2018, knows of what he unthinkingly speaks. Exorbitant drug pricing often leaves life-saving treatment out of reach for the poorest Americans. And to the extent that Azar and the other businessmen who make up the majority of the president’s coronavirus task force have any experience with pharmaceuticals, one of the most profitable sectors of the economy, it’s been making money off the system that keeps them out of reach.
In the case of Azar, who earned nearly $2 million during his last year at Lilly, that profit came at the expense of the people who needed the drugs, according to a lawsuit filed in 2017. While Azar was leading the pharmaceutical giant, the cost of its drugs went up significantly. In particular, insulin sold by the company more than doubled in price. According to the suit, which also names Novo Nordisk and Sanofi, Eli Lilly engaged in a scheme to artificially inflate the price of its drug, leaving some diabetic people unable to pay the cost and forced to use expired insulin or none at all. Eli Lilly did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the company has told other publications that the suit has no merit and that it follows the “highest ethical standards.”
For another task force member, the profits could come from the coronavirus itself. Joseph Grogan was a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences before he joined the Trump administration as director of the Domestic Policy Council and led the Drug Pricing and Innovation Work Group. On Wednesday, after Gilead announced that it would be starting two clinical trials of an antiviral drug that could be used to treat Covid-19, the company’s stock price surged.
As a former lobbyist for a company that stands to gain big from a possible treatment for the respiratory disease, Grogan’s participation on the task force poses a host of ethical problems, according to Robert Klitzman, professor of psychiatry and director of the bioethics master’s program at Columbia University. “Does he have a conflict of interest? Yes!” said Klitzman, who points out that the government is likely to spend money on both the research and purchase of treatments for the virus. “Gilead could help shape a government request for proposals so that they could have an unfair advantage.”
While Grogan appears to have sold his Gilead stock and, according to the Office of Management and Budget, has severed all financial relationships and taken “the Trump pledge,” the situation is still problematic, according to Klitzman. “When he gets out of office, they could give him a gift for doing a good job or just hire him again. And what about his buddies? I’m sure he is still close to people who work for Gilead who will benefit. These are all major ethical concerns.”
Although Grogan and his friends may have a lot to gain from his participation on the task force, it is not clear what expertise he and most of the others serving on the group bring to it. Of the task force’s 16 members — 17, if you include Vice President Mike Pence, who is heading the effort — only four have any training in science or medicine. The others mostly hail from the business world, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, an investment banker who was sued for asset stripping; Ken Cuccinelli, a lawyer and self-described “opponent of homosexuality” now serving as acting deputy secretary of homeland security; and Christopher Liddell, a former executive at Microsoft and General Motors, who worked with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner on the modernization of federal IT systems before directing the country’s response to what may be the biggest public health crisis in over a century.
Pence also named Larry Kudlow to the task force on Thursday. Kudlow, a top economic adviser to Trump who used to work for Bear Stearns, went on Fox Business to reassure the American public that reports of increasing coronavirus infections around the world don’t necessarily mean “that this thing is going to skyrocket in North America.” Kudlow then encouraged everyone to keep investing, saying, “Stocks look pretty cheap to me.”
Trump has fired many of the people who actually know how to coordinate government responses to epidemics. As Laurie Garrett reported in January, the president shut down the National Security Council’s global health security unit and cut $15 billion in national health spending, including funding for the management of infectious global diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Homeland Security, and HHS. At the CDC, the funding cuts to the global health section were so severe, Garrett wrote, that “the number of countries it was working in was reduced from 49 to merely 10.”
While four doctors are on the task force, it’s not clear how much they will be allowed to direct the response to the virus. The White House reportedly told Anthony Fauci, an immunologist who directs the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and has extensive experience combating infectious diseases, not to speak publicly without clearance after he said at a meeting that the virus “has adapted extremely well to human species.”
On Thursday, Deborah Birx, a physician who has served as the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator since 2014, was named as the White House coronavirus response coordinator, and Surgeon General Jerome Adams was added to the task force. Their appointments came after Sen. Bernie Sanders slammed Trump for putting “political cronies, not scientists” in charge of the government response to the virus.
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Jake Johnson / Common DreamsFebruary 27, 2020
“This is what happens when you put a Big Pharma CEO who doubled the price of insulin in charge of regulating Big Pharma.”
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Trump is trying to break a 2016 promise about the social safety net
Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security are among the most popular federal programs out there. A 2019 Pew Research poll showed majorities across all parties and demographics opposing cuts to Social…
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[T]he President has a growing number of supporters who understand opposition to abortion and immigration as intertwined—as means of preserving a white, Christian America. And the Trump Administration is taking concrete steps to encourage this ideational fusion.
Consider the events of last week. The Trump Administration dispatched officials to the International Conference on Family Policy. There, Trump officials laudedHungary’s “procreation, not immigration” policies, which oppose refugees and immigration and instead subsidize traditional, nuclear Hungarian families to have more children. These policies coincided with a new Hungarian constitution, which protects fetal life from the moment of conception.
Joe Grogan, an assistant to the president and director of the Domestic Policy Council, praised Hungary for the “courage and creativity” of these policies and said the Trump Administration was “inspired” and came “in support and solidarity.” He took the occasion of celebrating Hungary’s fertility-boosting programs to affirm the Administration’s opposition to abortion.
Hungary’s “procreation, not immigration” policies have their roots in “replacement theory.” This doctrine holds that white women are not producing enough babies and Christian, western civilizations will be “replaced” through the twin forces of falling birth rates and increasing immigration.
Back in March, Trump’s HHS provided $5.1 million Title X family-planning funds to an organization called Obria, which aims to be a pro-life alternative to Planned Parenthood.
In 2015, Obria’s founder and current chief executive explained, “When [Europe’s] nations accepted contraception and abortion, they stopped replacing their population. Christianity began to die out. And, with Europeans having no children, immigrant Muslims came in to replace them, and now the culture of Europe is changing.” She warned that America is “on the same track as Europe” and that “[i]n only two of the past 40 years have we replaced our population.” WHITE GENOCIDE
Anyone familiar with Margret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale understands that this is what happens when democracy is replaced by theocratic authoritarianism. It is a marriage of white nationalism, Christian nationalism, and misogyny. That is where the current conservative movement is headed in this country.
Nancy LeTourneau is a contributing writer for the Washington Monthly. Follow her on Twitter @Smartypants60.
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https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/a-federal-judge-just-struck-a-blow-to-the-trump-administrations-cruel-plot-to-gut-medicaid/
On Wednesday, a federal judge dealt a massive blow to one of the Trump administration’s pet projects.
Washington, D.C. District Court judge James Boasberg struck down work requirements in Kentucky and Arkansas, ruling that the waivers granted by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar were not valid because work requirements do not further the Medicaid Act’s mission of improving public health.
The rules differ in some ways, but both broadly require certain Medicaid recipients to complete a minimum number of work or community service hours each month and provide proof to the state.
Kentucky’s work requirement, known as Kentucky HEALTH, was the first to be approved by the Trump administration but was struck down last year by the same judge, and the newly revised rules were scheduled to take effect on April 1. Arkansas has already implemented its work requirement system, known as Arkansas Works, with disastrous consequences — over 18,000 people in the state have lost Medicaid coverage, many of whom actually were working but couldn’t figure out how to meet the state’s confusing reporting requirements, especially those in rural areas who don’t have easy access to the internet.
Boasberg criticized Arkansas for doing virtually nothing to help Medicaid recipients understand and comply with the new work requirement, saying “the State’s outreach efforts may well be falling severely short.” He further criticized Kentucky, which argued that their work requirement does further the mission of expanding health coverage because Gov. Matt Bevin intended to cancel Medicaid expansion entirely if he didn’t get his way: “The Court cannot concur that … states are so armed to refashion the program Congress designed in any way they choose.”
Several other Republican-controlled states are currently seeking approval for similar work requirement programs.
Medicaid is a joint federal-state program — both Congress and the states provide funding, and the states are in charge of administering the program within their borders. The Medicaid Act sets strict guidelines about how the program can be run, but the Department of Health and Human Services can approve what are called “Section 1115” waivers if a state has a custom-designed plan that would promote health and coverage beyond what traditional Medicaid does. The Trump administration is trying to flip this on its head, encouraging states to apply for waivers that will lead to fewer people being covered.
Boasberg’s ruling holds that states cannot use Section 1115 waivers in this manner. “That provision of the Act does not turn the comprehensive Medicaid program into a buffet for states,” he wrote.
Medicaid work requirements are a particular passion of Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services. She has claimed that denying low-income people health coverage is actually good for them, insisting that “it is not compassionate to trap people on government programs or create greater dependency on public assistance.” She has also claimed that work requirements do further the mission of Medicaid, pointing to studies that show people with jobs tend to be healthier (when in reality the correlation is probably the other way around.)
Arkansas and Kentucky were early adopters of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, which made the program available to people up to 138 percent of the poverty line. The Affordable Care Act originally required states to expand Medicaid, but a Supreme Court ruling allowed states to decide whether they wanted to or not. Republicans in these states are now intent on chipping away at this progress, and work requirements are one way the Trump administration is encouraging them to do it.
For now, that effort has hit a roadblock.
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https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/09/26/alec-flaunts-trump-ties-while-celebrateing-its-45th-anniversary-potuss-dc-hotel
dave a
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) will celebrate its 45th anniversary at Trump International Hotel tonight, fitting as the Trump administration maintains close ties to the corporate bill mill.
Tickets for the event are a whopping $500 a piece, about the same rate for one night at the hotel. Alternatively, state delegations can get a lobbyist to sponsor a table for $10,000.
The Wall Street Journal‘s Kimberley Strassel will serve as the “Mistress of Ceremonies,” but the rest of the program has not been announced. With the Trump International Hotel being just over a mile away from the White House, it is likely one of the many with ALEC ties in the administration will be there.
Lisa Nelson, CEO of ALEC, was giddy after Trump was elected, telling members and funders that the Trump administration, “does have the potential to be an ALEC administration. It is full of the people and ideas we’ve advanced since 1973… Now is our time. And ALEC is ready.”
And ALEC has been helpful to Trump. ALEC member legislators led the fight on eliminating the state and local tax deduction (SALT), a key component of Trump’s massive tax break for the wealthy and corporations. More recently, 308 state legislators, in partnership with ALEC, sent a letter of support for Judge Brett Kavanaugh to Senators, calling him “the single most qualified person in the country to serve on the Supreme Court.”
While some ALEC alumni — most prominently former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt — have been dropped from Team Trump, many others have hung on.
The ALEC Vice President
“I can say I was for ALEC before it was cool,” Vice President Mike Pence once
at an ALEC meeting. And just after Trump nominated him to be his VP, Pence made another speech at an ALEC meeting.
As Governor of Indiana, Pence lobbied for ALEC to state legislators:
As a governor, I cannot say enough how important ALEC is in my state and across the nation. Indiana is fortunate to have many of our legislators as members of ALEC.
I am writing today to ask you to consider membership in one of the nation’s leading policy organizations, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
The ALEC Administration
Many who have remained with Trump since he was elected have ties to ALEC.
Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley is an ALEC alumna. She pushed many ALEC model bills as Governor of South Carolina and state representative, including voter ID laws and school vouchers.
Secretary of Energy Rick Perry made passing ALEC model bills a priority when Governor of Texas, marking some as “emergency” legislation, and has
at ALEC meetings. ALEC has a profile of Perry up on its website. This morning, Perry welcomed ALEC to the White House and spoke to the ALEC delegation about “American energy dominance.”
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is a long time funder of ALEC and shares its goal of privatizing education. DeVos headlined the 2017 ALEC Annual Meeting and stated in a speech that, “The President has said that this administration will reduce the federal footprint in education, and he signed an executive order this past April instructing our Department to review every regulation that might obstruct parents, teachers, communities and states from best-serving their students.”
Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue has long been a friend of ALEC. As Governor of Georgia, he passed the nation’s second voter ID law based on an ALEC model bill. Perdue also rolled out one of the most expansive school privatization programs at the time in 2008. ALEC also praised Perdue for challenging the Affordable Care Act.
Others in the Trump administration have spoken at ALEC meetings as well, including Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
, Counselor to the President
, Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta in 2017, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar in 2018, and Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao in 2018.
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Alex Azar: HHS performing act of 'generosity' for immigrant children ...
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/10/politics/azar-hhs-child-separation.../index.html
2 days ago - Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Tuesday that his ... of American generosity and charity" in its care of immigrant children.
HHS Secretary Says U.S. Shows 'Generosity And Charity' By ...
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/.../hhs-secretary-detaining-migrant-children_us_5b4...
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HHS secretary: Separating immigrant families is 'one of the great acts ...
https://thinkprogress.org/hhs-secretary-immigrant-kids-generosity-b4b248cf502a/
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https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/what-news-hell-msnbcs-rachel-maddow-dumbfounded-trump-official-playing-real-victim
Trump's administration still has thousands of immigrant kids separated from their parents by the misguided "zero-tolerance" policy on the U.S.-Mexico border, but a new report from Politicoseemed to paint one Trump official at the center of the disastrous policy as sympathetic and burdened by the policy.
But MSNBC's Rachel Maddow didn't buy it.
"It's a little to take the selling of [Health and Human Services Secretary] Alex Azar as a good soldier who just happened to get caught up in the middle of this mess that he maybe, maybe, doesn't agree with," she said on her show Wednesday night. "But somebody has started selling an amazing PR story about the guy who's holding the kids taken away from their parents being the real victim here."
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kill aca
While Trump preens in the afterglow of his questionable achievements at the negotiating table with North Korea, let’s take a look elsewhere — at the Trump administration decision to abandon Obamacare requirements that health insurance cover pre-existing conditions.
Late last week, the government said in filings in a federal court case that the requirement to cover those who need healthcare the most will become “unconstitutional” next year as well as protections forbidding insurers to deny coverage to those with pre-existing medical conditions.
Indeed, the Justice Department declined to defend the federal law in a suit brought by states against the provisions of the Affordable Care Act. Just how that fits with an administration that seems fixated on “law and order” is a little hard to explain, but if it comes down to defending a law with which the administration disagrees, I guess that is within bounds.
Several senators, mostly Democrats, attacked the decision.
As The Washington Post noted, “The administration’s legal stance injects profound uncertainty into the political debate and the health-care landscape at a critical moment, just as insurance companies are developing rates for the coming year and as candidates head into a summer campaign season that both parties will try to use to solidify a foothold for their agendas.”
We can expect that this issue will top every local Democratic agenda in the mid-term elections in November.
Across the board, Republicans, Democrats and health professionals all say they have plans for providing healthcare, but none of these ideas ever seems to make it into legislation. So, instead, we have a guerrilla war underway with each state firing individual bullets at different targets. The government and individual states have taken various aspects of the overall Obamacare law to court.
The federal court suit over the Affordable Care Act became a potent threat to pre-existing conditions when the Justice Department filed a briefarguing that as of Jan. 1, 2019, those protections should be invalidated. The Justice Department argued that the judge should strike down the section of the law that protects people buying insurance from being charged higher premiums because of their health histories.Clearly lost in the discussion is anything resembling ways to assure that Americans are guaranteed access to actual healthcare.
According to a 2016 analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation, approximately 52 million Americans under the age of 65could find their access to health insurance at risk because of a wide range of pre-existing conditions, from diabetes to cancer to pregnancy. Health insurers have for years been raising premiums, complaining about uncertainty and withdrawing from the business of selling individual insurance plans; more changes could further destabilize the market.
Still, many Republicans this weekend insisted they continued to support coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, such as high blood pressure, diabetes and cancer. The policy, unlike some elements of the Affordable Care Act, has widespread support. Several Republicans expressed bewilderment at the notion that this protection could be declared unconstitutional or overturned. “I certainly do not believe the provision on pre-existing conditions is unconstitutional. I don’t even understand what the legal argument would be,” Rep. Leonard Lance, R-N.J., told the Post.
Democrats leaped on the filing to re-issue healthcare as a party mainstay issue. More liberal Democrats are publicly favoring a Medicare-for-all approach to healthcare, something that Republicans clearly oppose.
...
https://www.alternet.org/while-no-ones-looking-republicans-are-waging-guerrilla-war-your-healthcare
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The Senate Finance Committee approved Alex Azar as the next health and human services secretary on Wednesday, voting 15-12 to send his nomination to the Senate floor.
The vote followed party lines, with the exception of Democratic Sen. Thomas R. Carper (Del.), who supported the nomination.
If approved by the full Senate, Azar, a former executive for the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical company, would succeed President Trump’s first HHS secretary, Tom Price. The former congressman from Georgia resigned under pressure in September during an investigation of his use of private charter planes at taxpayer expense to attend official events.
“Mr. Azar is well-credentialed to lead such a critical department at a time America’s health care system is facing difficult challenges,” Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said in a written statement.
“He continues to demonstrate that he has what it takes to help alleviate problems caused by Obamacare, all while bolstering and improving Medicare and Medicaid.”
Azar told Finance members during the Jan. 9 hearing on his nomination that prescription drug prices cost too much but that he was not in favor of broad government action to curb prices. His other priorities, he said, would be making health care more affordable, rewarding Medicare providers for promoting good health and combating the opioid epidemic.
The committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), again criticized Azar Wednesday for his “documented history of raising drug prices” while he worked at Lilly. He said that Azar didn’t offer “a single example” of the company lowering prices during Azar’s tenure, which included five years as president of its largest affiliate, Lilly USA.
Carper explained his vote in a statement late Wednesday afternoon. “I am still evaluating Mr. Azar’s nomination,” he said, “and, while I am concerned about his perspective on Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act and his knowledge on women’s health issues, I believe he is qualified for consideration by the full Senate.”
Azar served in the agency during George W. Bush’s administration as both the department’s general counsel and deputy secretary.
He left Lilly in early 2017 and formed a consulting firm. He told a different Senate committee in late November that he no longer owned Lilly stock.
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