Details are now emerging just how much the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) overstated deaths from COVID-19. Joel Hirschhorn, the editor of the Pandemic Blunder Substack and author of the book, Pandemic Blunder, dug deep into the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) to see just how brazen the hype had been. Many of the deaths listed as “COVID” were very obvious accidents, suicides, and homicides. Hirschhorn says this was no accident but an orchestrated campaign to ramp up fear among the public, preparing people to receive the vaccines. Hirschhorn believes the deaths from the vaccines may now exceed COVID itself.

Other topics:

-          CDC’s COVID data tracker, which cited 1,099,866 deaths from COVID 19 as of January 17, 2023. How are we to regard that number?

-          Uniformity in death certificates

-          The importance of autopsies in “sudden deaths” 

-          How Gov. DeSantis’s “grand jury” approach may bear fruit in getting to the bottom of the COVID shot marketing and coercion

-          The recent Rasmussen survey showing that now even those who received the vaccines are becoming skeptical of safety

Social media companies have defended their close relationship with the government to control the COVID narrative by saying it was voluntary and protected under the First Amendment.  This raises a number of Constitutional red flags, says Jenin Younes, a litigator with the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Younes is representing the private plaintiffs in a First Amendment case filed by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana against the Biden administration.  Yeones discusses why this is unconstitutional, why it needs to end and how can be done.

In this case, Younes is representing Jay Bhattacharya, Aaron Kheriaty, Martin Kuldorff, and Jill Hines; four leading experts in public health who were deplatformed and/or censored by social media companies.  During discovery, emails surfaced between Facebook and the White House’s director of digital media, Rob Flaherty, that show this was more than a friendly relationship. The tone was more between a demanding boss and an underling. Communications were so flagrant that Younes and Kheriaty wrote about them in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.

Younes also discusses whether a public health emergency declaration gives the federal government more leeway in cozying up to private companies, and how digital communication is different from what happens normally under an expansive administrative state. Finally, does the explosion of public interest lawsuits against the federal government indicate a new age in governance?

Jenin Younes Bio: https://nclalegal.org/jenin-younes/

Younes Case: https://nclalegal.org/2022/08/ncla-clients-join-missouri-and-louisiana-suit-challenging-govt-directed-social-media-censorship/

Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: https://www.wsj.com/articles/white-house-covid-censorship-machine-social-media-facebook-meta-executive-rob-flaherty-free-speech-google-11673203704?mod=Searchresults_pos3&page=1

Now that Obamacare has been in effect for eight years, data is showing that Medicaid spending on low-income children has not kept pace with states that decided against expanding their programs to able-bodied adults.  Charles Blahous, the J. Fish and Lillian F. Smith Chair and senior research strategist at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, joins Health Care News to discuss this development. In addition to writing several books and publishing many studies on public policy issues, Blahous served as the deputy director of the National Economic Council under George W. Bush.

On December 13, Blahous and Liam Sigaud published “The Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid Expansion is Shifting Resources away from Low-Income Children.”

Host AnneMarie Schieber and Blahous discuss why spending growth for low-income children did not keep pace with growth in non-expansion states.  Why is it that children have been particularly impacted? What might have been a smarter approach? Are waivers the answer? Is expanding insurance coverage to a wider group incompatible with caring for the most vulnerable? This and more are discussed on today’s episode.

The Republicans will be in control of the U.S. House starting next month. Brian Blasé and Drew Keyes, both health care policy and administration and legislative veterans now at the Paragon Health Institute, say Congress should focus on four key areas: more affordable health care, ending the COVID-19 health emergency, eliminating waste and abuse at Medicaid, and restoring trust in the CDC and NIH.

1. The Republicans in Congress will have a long list of priorities. Can something meaningful happen on health care policy?

2. “Anti-inflationary” agenda: Many people think the solution is more government spending to offset the high costs of health care. Why is this boneheaded thinking?

3. How will ending the COVID emergency help all Americans?

4. Medicaid oversight… has abuse and waste gotten worse during the current administration and how does this impact all health care, private care, and care for the needy?

5. Restoring trust in CDC and NIH…what can Congress really do here since this is under control of the current administration? What can Congress do to make sure these agencies are service all Americans, not just special interest groups?

6. Senate HELP committee led by Sanders, Cassidy. What will happen: fireworks or a miracle?

Keyes and Blase released a brief on December 5, 2022:  “A Health Policy Agenda for the 118th Congress”

The latest report from the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Veterans Affairs shows that more than one in ten staffers have yet to complete mandatory suicide prevention training. Sally Pipes, CEO, president, and health care policy fellow at the Pacific Research Institute discusses the report and why the VA needs to move to a voucher system quickly.

Read the report: https://www.va.gov/oig/pubs/VAOIG-22-00813-253.pdf

Our veterans put their lives on the line to protect the freedoms America stands for. They deserve the best when it comes to health care. Sadly, this isn’t the case, especially when it comes to mental health and crisis care. Veterans get care through the Veterans Health Administration, a health system managed by the government.  It provides a glimpse of care under a socialized medicine model.

On this episode, Pipes discusses:

- The October report from the Inspector General and what it says about mental health care

- The prevalence of suicide among vets

- How VA care functions

- Long waits and why vouchers for private care could provide the best solution

Pipes has written about VA care in many articles and speaks on the issue.  Two recent articles include:

The VA is Failing America’s Heroes - Again

Dec 4, 2022, News-Press

https://www.news-press.com/story/opinion/2022/12/04/va-failing-americas-heroes-again/10799464002/

Veteran Suicides Testify to a Health Care Travesty

Nov 1, 2022, Washington Examiner

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/patriotism-unity/veteran-suicides-testify-to-a-healthcare-travesty

Reports have a knack for becoming public policy, and the latest report released by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Long COVID could be the next case in point. The report, more a marketing document than a medical report, recommends to “encourage or mandate policies and protocols regarding masking and social distancing in public spaces.” (emphasis added).

Today’s guest is Rik Mehta, Pharm.D., J.D., biotech entrepreneur, and former consumer safety officer at the U.S Food and Drug Administration. Mehta, who knows first-hand how politics and public policy are intertwined as a former U.S. Senate candidate in New Jersey, discusses how seriously the public should take the report. He covers whether the CDC or schools will use the report as a basis to mandate masks, how the federal government can compel people to wear masks, why the Democrats backed off from masks in early 2022, the significance of the descriptions of “discrimination” mentioned in the report by people claiming to suffer from Long COVID, what the Biden administration can do if it really wanted to help patients and the public in general, and how effective a Republican led Congress will be in staving off more COVID policies.

HHS Report: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/healthplus-long-covid-report.pdf

Related Reading: https://heartlanddailynews.com/2022/12/hhs-report-on-long-covid-encourages-return-to-mask-mandates/

You may want to rethink checking that box making you an organ donor. Unlike tissue donation, organs often need to be harvested from a live person in order to be viable for a transplant. Heidi Klessig, M.D., retired anesthesiologist, pain management specialist, and co-founder of respectforhumanlife.com, highlights how hospitals have harvested organs from live patients for the last few years. This procedure makes the person brain dead and then resuscitates their heart to keep blood flowing to the organs. According to Klessig, this goes against the Uniform Definition of Death Act (UDODA).

UDODA, passed in 1981, states that to declare someone legally dead, there must be irreversible cessation of cardiopulmonary function or irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem. These determinations are to be made in accordance with accepted medical standards, but hospitals can never be 100 percent sure.  Klessig says there are many cases where people have been resuscitated and survived 10 minutes after the heart stopped beating, but a transplant team may begin the harvest of organs in a matter of minutes.

The procedure is banned in Australia and the American College of Physicians has asked for a pause until legal and ethical issues can be ironed out. Yet, hospitals have been vigorously pushing the procedure to increase the supply of organs which require a patient to be alive before they can be harvested.

She also discusses:

• How hospitals can take your live organs if you are incapacitated, no family can be reached, and they determine your condition is “irreversible,” which Klessig says, “is terrifying because their interest lies in what money can be made from your organs, not what is in your best interest.” Organs can be worth about $5 million to transplant centers.  The only way to prevent this is by carrying a card: https://halovoice.org/wp-content/uploads/donor_refusal_card.pdf
   
• How putting all resources into “live organ harvesting” has nearly eliminated research and development of alternatives to people with failing organs
    
• Ethical donations (tissue after death, kidney or lobe of liver from healthy donors)

Many people think the field of eugenics disappeared after the Nazi’s were defeated in WWII. But eugenics, a controversial program to perfect the human race, exists in various forms in modern times. Robert Graboyes, economist, journalist, consultant at RFG Counterpoint, decided to write about the topic. Graboyes was also a panelist that covered the topic in a webinar hosted by The Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism.

Eugenics has a long history going back way before the Nazi’s practiced it in World War Two. It really got its origins in Victorian England and it got some cover because it was associated with an emerging field at the time, statistics. Graboyes said it entered the U.S. before the Nazi’s came into power and practitioners at first, and in a much more gruesome way. Euthanasia was too controversial, so sterilization of was the weapon of choice and the practice continued well into the 20th century when it was discovered prisons were sterilizing people who were incarcerated. Graboyes also discusses the expansion of euthanasia in Canada and even in the U.S. He discusses whether it could be used for nefarious purposes.

The FDA recently gave emergency use authorization (EUA) to the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine. Unlike the vaccines Americans received as a result of Operation Warp Speed, Novavax is not an mRNA vaccine. It was bypassed for EUA early in the pandemic because of a decision to put all resources into mRNA vaccines as it was thought this provided the best approach to get a vaccine out quickly.

 Our guest today, Raymond March, a research fellow for the Independent Institute and assistant professor of agribusiness and applied economics at North Dakota State University, says this was a costly mistake. In an op-ed, March explains why it took so long for the U.S. to get access to the Novavax vaccine. March discusses Novavax’s different technology, the history of protein-based vaccines, and the dangers in using a one-size-fits-all approach when dealing with a public health threat. 
  

Novavax Authorization: https://ir.novavax.com/2022-10-19-U-S-FDA-Grants-Emergency-Use-Authorization-for-Novavax-COVID-19-Vaccine,-Adjuvanted-as-a-Booster-for-Adults

Op-ed: https://blog.independent.org/2022/08/12/take-so-long-novavax-vaccine/

Poverty is no longer a requirement to qualify for long-term care under Medicaid. An entire industry has cropped up over the years instructing families on how to maximize Medicaid’s loose financial guidelines.  While families save a bundle of money by having the government now pay for this care, the system has had a negative impact on the long-term care market. Reimbursement rates under Medicaid do not cover the actual cost of care which impacts quality and supply.  Families no longer save for long term care knowing that Medicaid can come to the rescue.  Stephen Moses, president of the Center for Long-Term Care Reform, has studied long-term care for decades. He joins the show to discuss the first segment of his new report with the Paragon Institute, ”Long Term Care: The Problem.”

Read the report: https://paragoninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/202208_Moses_LongTermCareTheProblem_FINAL_2.pdf

Seventy percent of people who reach age 65 today will require a severe need for long-term care. Long-term care provides medical and social services for those who are unable to care for themselves. 48 percent will receive paid care.  The need spikes after age 85. In ten years, the baby boomers will reach that threshold, causing demand for long-term care to soar.  Due to the loose financial guidelines, even well-off families can qualify for Medicaid coverage. This market manipulation crowds out private long-term care services. Our guest, Stephen Moses is about to release part two of a report which covers the solutions to this Medicaid problem.  His hope is that a new Congress will be open to better alternatives that improve care at more affordable prices.

In the interview, Moses discusses:

1.  How easy is it to get Medicaid to pay for long-term care?

2. How has this compromised the quality of long-term care over the decades?

3. Who will need long term care? Can any of us live independently until we die?

4. Baby boomers…most are now 65…what kind of pressure will that put on long-term care and Medicaid in 10, 20, and 30 years from now?

5. What about counting on family members to care for you? How about covering your care with your own wealth and investments?