The most basic Bioweapon
The state's best weapon against Americans is our own health and anxiety about it. Denying healthcare based on vaccination status means threatening to use it.
In the dark aftermath of the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, one person gave a unique perspective that should be studied now for how drastically things have changed. The shooter was taken in critical condition to Allegheny General Hospital. Treating him was a staff that included a number of Jewish practitioners, including Dr. Jeffrey Cohen. “It’s not easy, he said. “There’s a lot of mixed emotions with it, but our job is not to judge, our job is to help.” The gunman had murdered eleven service goers, most of them elderly. It’s hard to remember a better example of someone responding to an act of savagery with such professionalism and compassion.
Sadly that attitude is now rarely expressed publicly when it concerns personal health decisions. This Tuesday a group of 75 doctors in Florida walked out of their jobs. What was the reason for this gesture? They weren’t protesting their pay, the working conditions, or their management’s policies, but rather some of their own patients, those unvaccinated for COVID19. Among the statements made was that “we're seeing people who don't need to be in the hospital, who are healthy and young, who don't have the co-morbidities that we typically see, and they're getting this from a preventable illness.” The patients they are referring to are
Blaming the patient for the disease
I don’t want to diminish the importance of the medical profession, because I know I couldn’t do what doctors and nurses do daily. My mom, of blessed memory, was a nurse for several decades. In high school I took an EMS course with the goal of becoming an emergency worker only to realize during clinicals that I don’t like contacting patients. I decided that this career track wasn’t for me. Maybe some of these doctors ought to consider that as well. They probably have all of the skills requisite for treating patients, but seem to think it is their job to judge which ones are worthy. Do they ask themselves about the worthiness of the following emergency patient categories?
Drug overdose
Motorcycle accident
Suicide victims
A single mother who became pregnant from a one night stand
Criminals injured during arrest
Convicted criminals in prison
AIDS patients who contracted the illness from unsafe sex or IV drug use
None of these categories “need to be in the hospital”, yet due to their own actions that’s where they ended up. And we should NOT turn them away whatever the avoidable nature of their illness. I’ve had relatives that attempted suicide multiple times and survived. Where would they be if they doctor had said that their choice was causing an undue burden on the healthcare system? Likewise I have had friends that have both survived or died from drug abuse and overdoses. A friend of mine recently lost his daughter after a long battle with addiction. For these issues, which cannot be treated simply with a doctor’s script and a follow-up call, the patient is often afforded chance after chance to rehabilitate and that’s as it should be.
We also have to look at some of the more chronic ailments that are caused by long-term unhealthy habits such as cirrhosis and emphysema. Never has there been a walkout by doctors complaining about how they have too many patients unwilling to quit drinking or smoking cigarettes. On that note, the National Institutes of Health has published studies (Nov. 2020 and Mar. 2021) holding that tobacco use is a cause of severe COVID-19 manifestations. Yet no government entity has proposed yet that cigarettes and other nicotine products be banned as a precaution to prevent the spread of the virus. Isn’t it odd that while beaches and recreation spaces remain shuttered due to the pandemic response, you can still pick up a pack of Winstons?
Human rights except if you’re wrong
What is even more shocking is that this newly politicized angle of the COVID19 health debate upends decades of arguments from progressives and liberals for their vision of American medicine. This must be stressed, as typically this crowd is bawling about “throwing grandma off the cliff” and protecting the neediest. Since the 1990s the call was for expanding “access” to healthcare for patients with pre-existing conditions leading to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). This was the major issue that drew me from the sidelines and into political writing and commentary, because it was the cynical exploitation of the very real crisis of chronically ill patients lacking health insurance by the ACA’s proponents that led to what at the time was the worst domestic policy program in American history. Given that Obamacare has survived the Trump era, would its supporters now say that COVID19 should not be covered as a pre-existing condition by insurers if the patient is unvaccinated? Is it not a serious enough condition in their minds? It’s a simple question. After all, in 2013 political activist Sandra Fluke successfully campaigned to have insurance providers required to have contraception covered under their plans.
And what about those that say that “healthcare is a human right”? If there are doctors that are currently insinuating through their “walk-out” that the unvaccinated are an unnecessary burden on their system, is this not an admission that the human rights of some have lower priority over those than others? It must be asked where these people are now when it is increasingly becoming likely that society will be bifurcated between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.