By Bill Wilson

With all we are facing today, with all the fear and outright transformation of our entire society, it might seem odd that a group of medical organizations would sign a letter opposing American independence in the production of medicines and medical equipment.  You would think that in the crisis these groups would want to see America move toward a strong, independent position.  But you would be wrong.

The Association for Accessible Medicines (AAM), a trade association for large pharmaceutical manufacturers is pushing a letter opposing an executive order proposed by President Donald Trump that would reduce or eliminate regulations that have raised the cost of manufacturing medical compounds and equipment in the United States.  His goal is to end American dependence on China for the medicines we need.

The big international corporations, of course, say the order will make it difficult for them to supply antibiotics and equipment needed now to fight the Chinese coronavirus.  Their stated reason for opposing the President is that they want to “do their part” in fighting the scourge.  But there is likely a far more sinister reason for this action.

The Chinese Communists will do just about anything to keep their stranglehold on the supply of medicines, the components to make medicines and medical equipment, This is about power — the power of the Chinese Communists to dictate terms to America and Europe.  And they are delivering this message through the serpentine voices of major corporations.

So far, the letter being circulated by the pharmaceutical giants has 40 signatures, mostly from associations funded by the pharmaceutical firms themselves   In all fairness, most of these groups need the funding from the corporations so it is no surprise that they are doing as they are told.  And, as would be expected, there are a handful of so-called “conservative” groups reciting their “free trade” mantra.  They, sadly, are so blinded by their failed religion of globalism that they cannot see the threat to America their position holds.

In this small example at a time of national crisis, we can see two facts of life that we all must recognize and address.  First, Lenin was right, the capitalist will sell the rope with which they will be hung.  China barks and the largest drug companies in the world back down and crawl in their service.  The lust for profits even at the price of severe damage to the United States and the American people is the hallmark of major international corporations.

Secondly, the orthodoxy of open borders, open trade and global supply chains has shown itself to be toxic.  Millions of working families knew this and have suffered from the actions of both political parties for decades.  Tens of thousands of small communities and towns have known the lethal impact of this globalist religion for a long time, as their communities wither and die.  But now everyone can see the impact.  95 percent of the components of the most widely used antibiotics are made in China.  Medical equipment is now made in China.  And, when we need them, we have to depend on the good will of a society that kills its own people, operates slave labor camps and practices genocide on a world class level.

The move by President Trump to begin to bring the production of medicine and medical equipment back to the United States is the only honorable and right thing that could be done.  For those corporations now under the golden thumb of China to oppose this basic movement toward American sovereignty is tantamount to a renunciation of their U.S. citizenship.  They now side with the rulers of a foreign, hostile regime over that of the people of the United States.  Going forward, they should be treated as foreign agents, because that is what they are.

And for the groups who call themselves conservative and toe the globalist line, the sad truth is that none of them have had any impact for a very long time.  They are the epitome of Conservative, Inc., existing merely to exist, not to achieve any goal that might conserve the best of America.

What we are viewing is a continuation of a war inside the Republican Party that is now 125 years old.  In the election of 1896, William McKinley ran on the platform that had rebuilt America after the Civil War and turned the nation into the industrial powerhouse it was to be up to this day.  The platform was simple: Sound Money and Protection.

The formula is exactly what we need today, protection of American industry, jobs and communities.  Protection that is not the overblown caricature of the globalists but rather a protection that seeks to have the full costs to outsourcing realized and taken into account.  As for sound money, that is long overdue.  The fiat regime of the central bank zealots is coming to a crushing end.  There is no amount of printing that can save us from the wrath of true economics.

We can expect more pushback to efforts by President Trump and the growing legion of elected officials that see the damage done by the globalist agenda.  But understanding that these pathetic attacks are simply the end result of dictates from Beijing renders them inert.  They have no meaning or bearing.  The march to restore America, to return basic industries to our shores, to rebuild tens of thousands of communities will continue.  The tide of history cannot be ordered to not come in.

Bill Wilson is the President of the Market Research Foundation and a former board member and former President of Americans for Limited Government. 

Cartoon: Cabin Fever

By A.F. Branco

 

Click here for a higher level resolution version.

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How do conservative groups propose to solve surprise medical billing?

 

By Richard McCarty

What is surprise medical billing, and what do conservative organizations think should be done to address this problem? Surprise medical billing occurs when a patient has a medical emergency and is taken to an out-of-network emergency room for treatment and then receives a large bill in the mail weeks or months later for care.

Surprise medical billing also occurs when a patient goes to an in-network hospital but is treated by an out-of-network doctor who then sends an unexpected bill weeks or months after treatment. This problem was worsened by Obamacare, which led to narrower networks of health care providers — and more out-of-network providers. Conservative organizations oppose allowing the government or insurance companies to set rates for out-of-network providers, but they differ in the solutions they support.

In a letter to Congressional leaders sent last December, several organizations, including the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, Citizens Against Government Waste, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Consumer Action for a Strong Economy, Frontiers of Freedom, and the 60 Plus Association, wrote in favor of requiring arbitration between health care providers and insurers to settle billing disputes.

From the letter: “Congress should avoid any measures that would seek to address surprise medical billing by creating a government-mandated benchmark (i.e. rate-setting) to determine out-of-network rates for physicians. Current legislative proposals that utilize this approach would expand the government’s reach into healthcare.

“The problem with rate-setting is that in-network rates are inherently discounted during insurer-provider contract negotiations. Using them as the benchmark would artificially suppress rates for physicians providing out-of-network care to the point that enormous financial losses would be shifted to local hospitals and emergency rooms.

“Many of these facilities — particularly the ones serving rural, hard-to-reach communities across the nation — are already operating under razor-thin profit margins, if they are even profitable at all…

“Independent Dispute Resolution (IDR) is a pragmatic solution that leverages a less heavy-handed approach to ending surprise medical billing. Under IDR, both insurers and providers would be able to negotiate out-of- network payments among themselves, ensuring patients are held harmless for any costs above and beyond their standard, in-network and out-of-pocket amounts.”

Doug Badger, of the Heritage Foundation has a different view:

“Congress should impose penalties on insurers that represent medical facilities—and medical facilities that represent themselves—as being in-network if doctors balance bill patients for services they provide at that facility. 

“Patients treated at network hospitals never should be balance billed, whether for scheduled or emergency care.

“In other words, a hospital that advertises itself as being in network for insurer A, cannot allow a doctor who provides services there to balance bill a patient covered by insurer A. Ditto for insurer A. It cannot advertise a hospital as being in network if the hospital allows insurer A’s customers to be balanced billed. Neither hospitals nor insurers should be permitted to give patients false and misleading information…

“That leaves the special case of emergency care at non-network hospitals—another circumstance in which patients can get hit with surprise bills. A patient with severe chest pains or one riding in the back of an ambulance can’t shop for a network hospital. Congress can protect such patients by banning non-network hospitals from balance billing for emergency care. Federal regulations currently stipulate that insurers must pay such hospitals the greatest of the Medicare rate, the network rate or the out-of-network rate. 

“These changes, combined with greater price transparency, will both eliminate surprise bills and empower consumers to make better decisions about their medical care.”

The National Taxpayers Union appears to side more with the Heritage Foundation than with those calling for mandatory arbitration:

“Provisions that have been introduced in Congress to address surprise billing introduce what could be a single-payer health care system in disguise. These include additional price controls, federal benchmarks, out-of-network caps, or rate-setting that are all solutions that lead to more government control over who gets health care and who pays for it…

“There are better ways to stop surprise bills, like clearer enforcement of truth in advertising rules, more accurate information on networks, and stronger cost transparency for patients.”

However Congress chooses to deal with surprise medical billing, it should avoid doing anything to further reduce the number of health care providers or to further consolidate the health care industry. Due to our aging population, doctor and nursing shortages, and the fact that hundreds of rural hospitals are at risk of closure — on top of the scores of rural hospitals that have closed in recent years — the stakes are very high.

Richard McCarty is the Director of Research at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.

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Video: Will states reopen their schools and economy sooner or later? That will determine the extent of the recession.

 

To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtCtaVN-Uso

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Should New York City be quarantined?

 

By Robert Romano

55 percent of U.S. coronavirus cases are now in the state of New York, with an outbreak occurring in New York City, the most densely populated area and the largest city in the nation with more than 8 million.

More than 21,000 cases are now reported in New York City, and more than 37,000 statewide. That’s out of 68,000 nationwide.

That makes Long Island, Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania all ground zero for the rest of the country as resources shift to the northeast to mitigate and slow down the virus.

Outbreaks on the west coast in California and Washington appear to have been muted by local efforts at social distancing.

New York City has become the hotbed. Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo issued a stay at home order on March 20 for non-essential workers. Schools in the city have been closed since mid-March.

But not everyone is listening, and now New York has the most cases. 58 percent of their cases in Queens and Brooklyn, where anecdotally, relatives of mine who live in the city report people walking around, hanging out and socializing as if they were on vacation with colleges also closed.

Similarly, the New York Times on March 21 reported certain areas where city life was still functioning as if it were normal: “Elsewhere, outdoor life seemed to thrive in ways that, given the constant reminders for social distancing, seemed reckless. The crowds at the farmers market in Union Square were the size of a pre-coronavirus weekend, with shoppers at one another's elbows. Some neighborhoods in Queens and the Bronx showed similar robust outings. And like Central Park, Brooklyn’s Prospect Park remained an outdoor respite for people with nowhere else to go for fresh air.”

NBC News in New York noted Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo who on March 22 blasted his city, “saying the number of people he saw flaunting the new mandates was ‘wholly inappropriate.’ People were crowding in parks, acting as if nothing had changed.”

So, while the rest of the country has been sheltering in place and shut down for days and weeks, at least early on in the state lockdown, many people in New York City are still openly ignoring governmental health recommendations. Is that why they’re having problems now?

Perhaps the reason is because the city’s subways have been running through the entire emergency. The bridges are still open. And millions are still commuting every day to the city to and from the surrounding region. But should they still be doing so?

Here, New York City and New York State find themselves at a crossroads, and what they do next will have reverberations throughout the entire country. If Governor Cuomo wanted to, he could order the streets to be cleared with the National Guard to assist police in order to somehow enforce social distancing but so far has ruled out any aggressive approach to the issue. Is he right?

Now, perhaps how the country responds to New York will tell us how seriously we’re still taking the coronavirus. So far, the federal government has recommended that persons who have been to New York recently stay apart from others for 14 days. Are they listening?

But the rest of the country could force the issue as those outside New York also have to consider the risks. Maybe a message could be sent.

Should planes still be flying in and out of New York?

Should Amtrak still be running the Northeast Regional up and down the east coast? The Acela nonstop to Washington, D.C. has been suspended since March 7.

What about regional trains that go in and out of New York every day? Buses?

On the other hand, then there’s the data. Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, suggested yesterday the infection rate of the Chinese coronavirus could be much lower than had originally been projected in certain models.

“Either we're only measuring the tip of the iceberg… or we have the transmission completely wrong... The predictions of the models don't match the reality on the ground," Birx said.

She added, “When people start talking about 20 percent of a population being infected, it’s very scary… But we don’t have data that matches that based on the [actual] experience.”

Meaning, even if the fatality rate for the virus is elevated above seasonal flu, the likelihood of it spreading to the entire population might be much lower than originally feared. Is she right?

Let’s hope so, but that needs to be sorted out as soon as possible. The entire country is shut down, costing tens of trillions of dollars to the global economy that will have reverberations for at least a decade. Unemployment could quickly go to double digits and might stay there for months or years. Many businesses being closed now will never return.

Is there a great risk for widespread infection or not? Because now that the virus is all over New York, this would be the time to stop it if this disease is as bad as they say before it keeps spreading.

Perhaps the prevalence of the virus in New York might mean additional measures should be considered at containment there even while the rest of the country gets prepared to reopen.  Many New Yorkers are not heeding the stay at home order. The worse it gets, the more likely further regional spread will become up and down the eastern seaboard, and the longer this goes on for everyone else.

Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.

 

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