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Who Gets a Vaccine First? U.S. Considers Race in Coronavirus Plans:
Federal health officials are already trying to decide who will get the first doses of any effective coronavirus vaccines, which could be on the market this winter but could require many additional months to become widely available to Americans.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and an advisory committee of outside health experts in April began working on a ranking system for what may be an extended rollout in the United States. According to a preliminary plan, any approved vaccines would be offered to vital medical and national security officials first, and then to other essential workers and those considered at high risk — the elderly instead of children, people with underlying conditions instead of the relatively healthy.
Agency officials and the advisers are also considering what has become a contentious option: putting Black and Latino people, who have disproportionately fallen victim to Covid-19, ahead of others in the population.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2020, @09:20PM (30 children)
This is nationalized healthcare folks.
Why in the world National Security is prioritized over Police, Firefighters, THE ELDERLY WHO ARE MOST AT RISK, judges, food-industry-workers, is BEYOND me.
Probably some crazy deal where "National Security" overrides anything and everything as soon as the phrase is used.
It's all fun and games until it's taken a step further and the government starts deciding who lives and who dies (hint, they'll decide in their favor- not yours).
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2020, @09:54PM (26 children)
Love this paranoid peasant-type thinking: the government is a "They", like, you know, the aristocracy? The US Constitution says "We the People", not "Them, the government."
We will choose you for death, for the benefit of all of us, not for our personal interests. Thank you for your service!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday August 04 2020, @11:35PM (25 children)
The real stupid is that our conspiracy theory idiot A/C seems to think that in countries with nationalised health care (which is everyone except America) somehow the "government" decides how people are treated, as if the minister of health hangs out all day at the hospital pointing at people and shouting "no treatment for you!".
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 05 2020, @02:37AM (23 children)
Who does then?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday August 05 2020, @03:02AM (16 children)
Doctors. Who else would?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 05 2020, @12:38PM (1 child)
The standards bodies that decide what proper healthcare is.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday August 05 2020, @08:38PM
That is not how healthcare works, at least where I live.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 05 2020, @01:00PM (13 children)
The primary party in such universal healthcare systems for determining whether doctors follow these myriad rules are government-based. Hence, government naturally enters - it has to in order to prevent well known and serious abuses of the system by doctors as well as merely paying for that system. That's how "somehow" the government gets involved. And once they can meddle for good reasons, they can meddle for bad reasons. Conflict of interest and all that.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday August 05 2020, @08:44PM (12 children)
None of the things you have proposed in your reply exist in my country's healthcare system.
Doctors are certainly regulated, but by their professional bodies, which the government has no part in, because the government does not have the expertese.
In a publically funded system, the "healthcare vendors" are the same publicly funded bodies the doctors work for.
The government's role is to dish out the money to the healthcare service, then go away. Which is what they do.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 05 2020, @11:51PM (11 children)
That indicates to me that you don't know how your country's healthcare system works.
Not buying it in the least.
We call publicly funded systems, "governments".
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday August 06 2020, @12:52AM (10 children)
But you do. Oh, yes, of course you do. :-)
That doesn't make it any less true.
Why? They're not. Or at least they don't have to be, and ours are not.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 06 2020, @01:36AM (9 children)
Pretty much.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday August 06 2020, @02:45AM (8 children)
Despite never having left America in your life.
You know a whole lot less about the world than you think you do.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 06 2020, @04:19AM (6 children)
Moving on, my stab at web searching/stalking indicates you're likely from some English-speaking part of the world which isn't Europe or North America. This post [soylentnews.org] seems to imply not Europe with your discussion of Kiwi slang indicating you may be from the heralded land of New Zealand or nearby regions. Well, all of those health programs are funded by government - that's a huge avenue for government intrusion contrary to your repeated assertions.
Well, if it's New Zealand, we have things like "district health boards", partially appointed by the central government via the Ministry of Health. Australia has Medicare which is administrated by the government (and covers a bunch of health care funding). Both providing ways for government to enter into the systems in question. I probably got your number already, but it doesn't matter if you're from somewhere else. These same structures exist in all such systems. Provide the name of your country and I will show how you are wrong. And it won't take more than a cursory review of the Wikipedia entry for your country's health care system to do that.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday August 06 2020, @07:19AM (5 children)
No you won't, not that it will stop you.
Seriously, governments don't make decisions about health treatment because they employ doctors who do.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 06 2020, @02:16PM (4 children)
That statement is so broken. Every government decision is made by someone employed by government. Doctors being employed by government are a big step towards being the proxies by which governments make decisions about health treatment. And if we actually looked at the healthcare structure of your country rather than merely take your ignorant words at face value, we would no doubt see fingerprints of government decisions everywhere.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday August 06 2020, @11:40PM (3 children)
Or, we might find out how it works by experiencing healthcare first hand.
I hope I don't need another bowel resection, because the recovery is really unpleasant, but if I do I'll make sure to phone the Minister of Health so he can tell the surgeon what to do, shall I?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 07 2020, @04:03AM (2 children)
Now, you're claiming that merely "experiencing healthcare" somehow gives you insight.
So you care to describe how getting a bowel resection enlightens one on the power and role of government in that healthcare? Solely for our entertainment, of course, since it won't have a factual basis.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Saturday August 08 2020, @01:22AM (1 child)
And you're claiming that you know how healthcare works in a country you've never visited and know nothing about, because your feelings about the government's role is more valid than experience.
Your ignorance is not more valid than my experience.
Bog standard Republican scare-mongering is boring.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday August 08 2020, @04:16AM
I haven't visited said country, but I do know a bit about it. Meanwhile, you have mentioned no relevant experience.
My experience is more valid than your ignorance.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 06 2020, @04:22AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @06:25AM (5 children)
Another effort-free khallow post. Someone answer my questions because I can't do it myself.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 05 2020, @12:49PM (4 children)
The effort comes later [soylentnews.org]. And I don't magically know what PartTimeZombie believes until I ask. Here, the flaw is the presumption that doctors are the only parties in the healthcare system with power to decide healthcare for their patients. That is not so, no matter where in the world you are.
(Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday August 05 2020, @09:08PM (3 children)
While it is true that doctors are not the only parties involved in healthcare decisions, the weirdly American presumption that "the government" will decide anything about healthcare is just wrong.
It is not how publically funded healthcare works, and the idea that it is, is a strawman used to scare Americans away from advocating for proper healthcare.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 06 2020, @01:01AM (2 children)
I imagine, if you were to name the country you reside in (Australia, right?), we'd find another country with these "weirdly American" presumptions.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday August 06 2020, @02:44AM (1 child)
You would imagine wrong about that, but of course you've never travelled outside your provincial little state, and you think the third-hand information you get about the rest of the world is actually true.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 06 2020, @03:44AM
The third hand information I'm getting from you, that is.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday August 05 2020, @11:34AM
And yet have no objection to a health insurance executive ordering more denials so he can afford a new winter yacht.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ledow on Wednesday August 05 2020, @07:31AM (2 children)
Yeah, only the majority of developed countries have got universal free healthcare and made it work, it's clearly such a bad idea....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_universal_health_care [wikipedia.org]
P.S. What is it about nationalised universal healthcare that makes you think that doctors would dash away from a dying elderly person to give it to a McDonald's chef who isn't that bad? Or do you not understand that concept that everyone gets the same healthcare and you have to pay only if you want something more?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @01:20PM (1 child)
Yes and if it's not outright free at point of service, the copay is very low.
What's really messed up here is that 69% of Americans, including 46% of Republicans support universal healthcare, but that stupid bitch Pelosi won't even pass the measure in the House. The Democrats control the House and they won't even pass a public option for the current laws. It really says something when you've got a supermajority of voters that want something and near unanimity in your own party and that's still not enough.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday August 05 2020, @09:35PM
Oh yes, the fact Americans get screwed by your terrible, terrible healthcare system is entirely Nancy Pelosi's fault, and it always has been.
Thanks for pointing out how one person controls your political system.