Re: COVID-19 Promising News

peterkirkdale Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I guess this "lock-down" life style and lack of
> friendly hugs has turned up the cynicism in me. I
> am curious if there is a vaccine discovered, what
> it will it cost? Probably as I am Canadian, it
> won't be an added financial burden but in the
> U.S.A.? Exactly how would that work ? Remember
> Martin Shkreli, pharma bro?

That idiot is serving 7 years in a federal prison. Wish it was longer.

From a Google search:

"The Trump administration says it will make an eventual COVID-19 vaccine available for free to virtually anyone in the United States who wants it.

Insurance companies are expected to cover the vaccine for most Americans, according to a senior administration official at a briefing Tuesday to discuss the government's efforts to develop a vaccine by the end of the year.

For those who are not insured, the official added, "Our role as the federal government is to ensure anyone who is vulnerable, cannot afford it and desires it gets it."

The official said Americans would get any vaccine produced with federal funding before it would be made available to other countries."

I get the annual flu shot free with my health insurance, available at most pharmacies. So maybe it will be a similar deal. Most Americans have health insurance, 90.9% for 2019, though who knows now with all the unemployment happening. But sounds like the government will provide it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2020 11:24AM by TomNBarra.

A friend with a insurance policy that cost $850 US a month , went to see the Doctor for his sore knee .It took a week to get in to see the Doctor. After three trips & $250:out of pocket for co- pay & deductibles they found nothing wrong . Lots of poor paying insurance around & a failing medical system since Trump took office . Friend can not bend knee & walks with a limp .Look at the hospitals now .

The Census found that 8.5% of the U.S. population went without medical insurance for all of 2018, up from 7.9% in 2017. By contrast, in 2013, before the Affordable Care Act took full effect, 13.3% were uninsured. It was the first year-to-year increase since 2008-09, Census officials said.

Census officials said most of drop in health coverage was related to a 0.7% decline in Medicaid participants. The number of people with private insurance remained steady and there was a 0.4% increase in those on Medicare.

Many of those losing coverage were non-citizens, a possible fallout from the Trump administration’s tough immigration policies and rhetoric. About 574,000 non-citizens lost coverage in 2018, a drop of about 2.3%, the report found.

“Uninsured non-citizens account for almost a third of the increase in uninsured, which may reflect the administration’s more aggressive stance on immigration,” said Joseph Antos, a health economist at the American Enterprise Institute.

The increase in the number of uninsured people in 2018 was remarkable because uninsured rates typically fall or hold steady when unemployment rates drop. The U.S. unemployment rate fell slightly from about 4.3% in 2017 to 4% in 2018.


The uninsured rate continued to vary by poverty status and whether a state expanded its Medicaid program under Obamacare. Texas (17.7%), Oklahoma (14.2%), Georgia (13.7%) and Florida (13%) had the highest uninsured rates in 2018, according to the report. None of those states have expanded Medicaid under Obamacare



“These children are not getting private coverage as the Trump Administration has suggested but rather becoming uninsured,” she said. “This serious erosion of children’s health coverage is due in large part to the Trump Administration’s actions that have made health care harder to access and have deterred families from enrolling their children.”

The share of Americans without medical insurance fell steadily since 2014 but then leveled off in 2017, the year Donald Trump became president