Pirate's Cove

There are hot takes, and then there are Hot Takes. This one rather highlights that COVID response is really all about politics, at least at this point

Covid funding inaction threatens fragile progress on racial, economic disparities

Racial and ethnic disparities in Covid-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths are likely to worsen if Congress does not soon approve billions in new pandemic funding.

Public health experts, lawmakers and health officials say the White House’s decision to scale back or suspend programs that provide free testing, treatments and vaccinations will disproportionately affect the tens of millions of uninsured Americans — a majority of whom are people of color.

The congressional stalemate threatens to upend the fragile progress that has been made since the early days of the pandemic when the federal government’s decision to make Covid interventions available to everyone free of charge temporarily helped level the playing field in a nation where access to health care is usually tied to employment and income and often correlated with race.

It’s so interesting that Democrats always think the worst of “people of color”, eh? It shows that Democrats will take advantage of any issue to push their politics

The Biden administration cautioned lawmakers in a meeting last week that without immediate new funding, the federal government will stop reimbursing doctors for testing, vaccinating and treating the uninsured. If a second booster shot is recommended for the general population, the government won’t be able to provide it free of charge. Disease surveillance will also be hampered, they warned, meaning public health workers won’t know about outbreaks or the emergence of new variants before they’re already widespread.

Why? They have plenty of money that was already allocated for HHS and other federal agencies, and state, county, and local agencies have their own money. This does rather show that the federal government should be taking less money from citizens, because they are too big and do not know the local areas. Federal taxation should be cut in half, at least, and the money should be moved to the states, who know their citizens better.

Oh, and

(Rollcall) The White House said Monday that it has about $300 billion in unspent COVID-19 funding but only about $60 billion that is unallocated as it warned lawmakers that it doesn’t have enough money for additional vaccination efforts unless Congress provides more relief.

The administration again requested that Congress provide $22.5 billion in supplemental COVID-19 aid without offsets. It said it would be difficult and controversial to repurpose the $60 billion.

Senate Republicans have pushed to repurpose existing funding.

So what are they doing with that $300 billion as it stands? Why would it be difficult and controversial to repurpose the $60 billion, which, accord to the laptop calculator, is more than $22.5 billion? Back to original

But if the federal government can’t subsidize a potential fourth dose of the vaccine it could be a “disaster” for the state’s uninsured population — nearly half of whom are non-white, though people of color make up just about a third of the population — said Scott Harris, Alabama’s state health officer.

“If a second booster dose is approved soon and there’s no money for booster doses, then we’re just creating just another health disparity on the basis of our funding policy,” Harris said. “That’s just a really sad situation.”

A Kaiser Family Foundation analysis published Friday found that without more funding, the government could be short more than 118 million doses if a new booster is recommended for Americans of all ages. If there is a shortage, experts expect people of color will lose out to those better able to take time off work to hunt for an appointment or travel farther to find a dose.

White Progressives sure do think little of black people, eh?