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GOVERNOR LEE WANTS “DATA AND EVIDENCE”? HERE’S SOME, GUV.

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Governor Bill Lee has said he’s waiting for “DATA AND EVIDENCE” before issuing a stay-at-home order for Tennessee, which many states have done, and which doctors and mayors and the Tennessee Medical Association are asking him to do.

Instead he’s writing op-eds saying “The Storm Is Passing” despite all evidence to the contrary.

MARC LORE is an entrepreneur who works at one of the biggest companies on the planet. He has crunched the numbers, and his findings are somewhat reassuring… but require swift, immediate action.

Read what he wrote below — HIS CONCLUSION, for the Too Long Didn’t Read Folks:

“If we stay locked down and don’t spread the virus there won’t be many people who are still infected by May 1st. That’s why I believe we will be in a position to open up. But we need to remain vigilant. I feel great about NYC, but am concerned about what I am seeing elsewhere in the country. In order to keep deaths in the US below 20,000 we need to lock down the country like we did NYC immediately.”

This is “DATA AND EVIDENCE” Marc sent to family and friends in full. Hopefully someone can show this to Governor Lee before it’s too late.

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March 26

Dear friends,

I’m here in NYC on March 26th, day 10 of sheltering in place at the epicenter of COVID-19 with many of the symptoms and no way to get tested. NY represents almost half of the cases in the country and 1/3 of the deaths. Many of my friends and colleagues have symptoms as well, ranging from mild to hospitalization and they are all under 50. Coronavirus is no joke. It seems to be spreading extremely quickly, with the death rate constantly increasing. We keep seeing on the news that other countries are taking more extreme measures than us, particularly in workplaces. We’ve seen some businesses using sneeze guards from Versare on their desks to ensure that germs are contained and aren’t spread. As the virus is airborne, it can spread quickly so it’s important that workplaces try and keep their employees safe with safety measures like sneeze guards. Businesses in other countries are also sending employees home to work remotely, again limiting the contact between people and therefore limiting the spread of the virus. It isn’t easy – especially when working out of the office – but staying organized during uncertain times is key to continued success. Hopefully, the US will start taking the virus seriously soon!

I’ve been reading everything I can, but it is difficult to make sense of all of the contradicting facts and figures. I find myself contemplating: How bad is this going to get? When will it be over? How does Coronavirus compare to the flu? What is the true death rate? What is the real risk for young people?

I’ve read the articles and analyzed the stats and found there to be so much bad info out there, so I decided to try and make some sense of the facts and thought I would share what I’ve learned.

In summary, this is not just a little more dangerous than the flu, but it is also not 20-40x as deadly as others claim.The Coronavirus, by my estimate, has a death rate of around .42%, on average. In a normal year the flu has a death rate of approximately .10% and in the bad flu season of 2016/2017 it was .14%. This implies Coronavirus is about 3x as deadly as the flu in a bad season. However, I’ll share some stats later that will show that the virus might actually infect older people at a higher rate than younger people. If this is true, this fact, combined with higher death rates among those 70+, explains how COVID-19 can overall be 3x as deadly as the flu, but only 1.2 – 2.5x as deadly for any specific age group. The heavier concentration of older people in the sample raises the overall death rate.

INFECTIOUS RATE

In addition to the higher death rate, Coronavirus is also more contagious. This is why quarantining is so important and why things like dating should be put on hold, although there are some rules you can follow for hopefully a virus-free interaction with someone you love. In the tough flu season of 2016/2017, 14.5 percent of the entire population was infected and there were 61,000 deaths. It is hard to know what percentage of the population would be infected if we didn’t lock things down and were business as usual. We do know that COVID-19 is more infectious and spreads more quickly than the flu. Someone with the flu infects, on average, 1.4 people, while COVID-19 infects 2.3. On the Princess Diamond cruise ship almost 20 percent of the entire population was infected within days. Granted it is a confined space, but it multiplied fast.

Even if we use 14.5% (% of population infected by the flu) at the low end and 80% of the population at the high-end we get a range of between 200k – 1 million deaths in the US. Based on what I’ve learned I would take the midpoint and estimate 600k deaths. That implies, COVID-19, if left unchecked, would kill 1 in every 545 people (.18%) in America.

This is not a worse case. This is very likely what would happen if we did nothing. We absolutely needed to move quickly and lock things down. But now we need to be much more aggressive with testing. We are behind.

Based on my analysis, however, if the rest of the country can learn from NYC and lock everything down now (NYC waited too long and is paying the price), we can keep US deaths under 20,000 with rigorous testing and quarantine. And I believe we will be in a position to open small businesses in NYC by May 1st.

COVID-19 DEATH RATE

I said Coronavirus has a death rate of .42%. That is a lot lower than what you read. Basic math would suggest a death rate of more like 4.3% since there are currently 491,253 Coronavirus cases worldwide as of March 25 and 22,165 deaths (22,165 / 491,253 = 4.5%). This implies that Coronavirus is over 30x as deadly as the flu. That is just wrong.

The primary reason why the death rate isn’t 4.3% is simply because people with mild or no symptoms aren’t getting tested, so we have a denominator problem. I believe the true number of infected cases is about 10-11x higher than what’s being reported, which translates to a death rate of .42% vs 4.5%. That might sound like a big difference but keep in mind about half of the people with COVID-19 don’t even exhibit any symptoms at all. Let me share how I arrive at .42%.

COVID-19 DEATH RATE RATIONALE

In order to know the true number of cases you need to test everyone. Fortunately, we do have a couple of places where we’ve done that. Although it is a small data set, it tells us a lot.

Let’s start with South Korea. They have the most advanced Coronavirus testing program in the world. They have tested around 350,000 people and have 9,241 cases. That means they tested 38x the number of people who had it. This is the best proxy we have for calculating a death rate when everyone with symptoms is tested. In South Korea there are currently 131 deaths for a death rate of 1.4 percent (131/9,241). Since they are seeing less than 100 new cases a day I don’t expect the death rate to change very much although it will creep up.

Although they have a rigorous testing program they likely didn’t test those without symptoms and they definitely missed people earlier on before they started testing. They have a population of 51 million people and tested just 320,000 people. So the question is: What percentage of people have the virus and show no symptoms? We actually have two data points. On the Diamond Princess cruise they tested everyone and found 47 percent of those that tested positive didn’t show any symptoms. Also, in the city of Vo, Italy they tested all of the residents and found that 70 percent showed no symptoms.

If we take the South Korea death rate of 1.4% and adjust for 50 percent of people with Corona who have no symptoms that calculates to a .7% death rate (1.4% * 50%). Since it took a while before Korea started testing I tried to figure out how many cases there likely were before they started testing based on the number of deaths and reverse engineering how many cases there should have been. I estimate there were another 13,000 or so cases that weren’t accounted for, making the true number of cases more like 31,000. Divide by 131 deaths and you get a death rate of .42%, which is 3x as deadly as the flu in the 2016/2017 season where we saw a death rate of .14%. Now let’s look at a few other examples to pressure test this estimate.

On the Diamond Princess cruise there were 3711 passengers and crew aboard. Everyone was tested and 697 had COVID-19 (18.7% of the population – a good example of how fast this could spread in a closed area), and 47 percent showed no symptoms at all. Nine people died for a death rate of just over 1.3% (9/697) which is higher than the .42% I estimated earlier. However, the 1.3 percent is misleading because of the heavy skew toward older people. All 9 of the people who died were over 70 years old. Since there were 288 confirmed cases for 70+ the death rate for 70+ is 3.1% (9/288). Since the flu death rate for those over 70 is about 1.2%, the Coronavirus death rate appears to be 2.5x as deadly as the flu for that age group. Let’s take a look at another example where everyone in a population was tested.

In Vo, Italy, where the entire town of 3,300 people was tested, 89 individuals had the virus and 70 percent didn’t show any symptoms. One person died for a death rate of 1.1% (1/89). But again, the population is skewed much older and the individual who died was over 70. For the 70+ age group the death rate is similar to the flu, which is approximately 1.2%. However, I admit the data sample is too small. That’s why we can’t look at any one data point. But when you start to make sense of all of the points you can begin to triangulate on a number that has statistical significance.

Another way to examine death rates is to simply focus on those of the elderly. There seems to be an interesting difference between the flu and COVID-19 regarding the likelihood of older people contracting the virus relative to younger people. For the flu, people over the age of 65 are no more likely to get it than younger people. I would have thought that the older you are the more susceptible you would be to getting the flu, but the 65+ age group represents 13.3 percent of all flu cases and 13.1 percent of the population in 2016/2017 flu season.

It appears to be different for COVID-19. On the Diamond Princess I looked at the percentage of the population that were infected by age and found an interesting trend. Here are the infection rates by age: under-50 = 6.5%, 50-60 = 7%, 60-70 = 8.2%, 70-80 = 9.4%; 80+ = 13.4%. There could be other factors at play here, but the results would suggest that an 80 year old is twice as likely to contract the virus as someone under 50, assuming equal exposure. So, not only is the death rate 3x the flu for over 80, they may also be twice as likely to contract the virus. If this were true (and I admit there may be some particular contributory circumstances that explain this) that older people are more likely to contract the virus, then it would explain why the overall Coronavirus could be 3x as deadly as the flu, but much less deadly for any specific age group.

Let’s dig in deeper on age specific death rates. If we examine the 80+ population in South Korea we see a death rate of 9.26%. Remember, we adjusted the overall death rate of 1.4% down to .42% in South Korea after adjusting for missed cases and asymptomatic people. If we apply the same multiple to the 80+ age group we get a death rate of 2.78% (9.26% / 3.3). Since the flu death rate in this population is about 1.75% this would suggest that Coronavirus is about 1.6x as deadly for this population.

Another way to analyze this is to look at the death rate for those below age 50. The reported death rate for under 50 in Korea is approximately .05%, and that is before making the correction. In fact, no one under age 30 died. If we divide .05% by 3.3 we get a death rate of .015% for under 50. Since the death rate for under 50 for the flu is .013% it implies that Coronavirus is about 1.2x as deadly as the flu for those under 50. However, it is not just the death rate for this population that needs to be considered. People under 50 are getting very sick and are being hospitalized and put on ventilators at a much higher rate than we see with the flu.

In conclusion, I believe that the true death rate on average is .42% or about 3x as deadly as a bad flu season, however for any specific age group it is between 1.2x – 2.5x as deadly.

US – PREDICTED CASES/DEATHS

With the exception of NY, I believe many states may have caught this in time, so the actual death rate will be a fraction of what it could have been. If you look currently at US data, there have been 68,211 cases as of March 25 and 1,027 deaths for a rate of 1.50 percent. However, the number of deaths will grow even if there were no new cases because there is a lag time between diagnosis and dying. Two days ago the percentage was 1.25% and now it is 1.5%. It will keep climbing. I took each of the daily cohorts of new cases and assigned a probability of dying by day based on what has been observed. Then I estimated how many deaths there would be if cases ceased today. With this calculation, I get a death rate in the US of 4% (on observed cases) which is much closer to the current global average of 4.5%. This gives me some comfort that the model is working. We know we haven’t done the testing, but this proves how little we have actually done because we’ve established that the actual death rate based on infection is really more like .42%. This means that the number of true infections in the US is more like 10x what is being reported. I estimate around 680,000 actual (not the reported number) cases in the US vs 68,000.

Based on the modeling I did, assuming some period of incubation, I estimate that the true number of cases (true, not reported) in the US could grow from 600k to between 2-5 million, infecting about 1 percent of the population. To put that in context, in Vo, Italy almost 3 percent of the population was infected.

With 2-5 million predicted infections in the US and a death rate of .42%, I would expect about 15k deaths in the US (range 8k – 21k). Remember that in the 2016/20117 flu season we had 61,000 deaths. I will continue to update the model as the days pass based on the new information.

NY – PROJECTED CASES/DEATHS

In NY we are now at 33,000 Coronavirus confirmed reported cases as of March 25th, but the true number of infections is more like 250,000, (the multiplier is not 10x because NY has done more testing than the rest of the country) based on the way deaths are materializing. I built a model to predict cases and deaths by modeling the daily number of new infections and applying a distribution of the incubation period before symptoms show. The data I have from NIH shows that less than 2.5% of people will see symptoms in the first 2.2 days, and 97.5% will see symptoms within 11.5 days with the average number of days being 5.1 days. We don’t know the actual number of infections, but we can reverse engineer the number if we know the number of cases and deaths.

Given the incubation period and time to get tested, we are now at a point, 10 days removed from the lockdown, where we’ll know any day if we’ve slowed the virus. Each day will give us critical info. I’ll be watching the numbers closely and will send an update. If we see the number of new reported cases in NY remain under 8,000 today after 6,618 cases yesterday I think we’ll be tracking toward about 5,000 deaths in NY, which is a lot lower than what people in NY fear. Today is a critical data point.

5,000 deaths equates to around 1.2m true infections (5,000 / .42%) and implies, based on the 19.5m population in NY, that 6.1% of NY State will become infected. Since almost half the state’s population is in NYC and most of the infections are concentrated there it implies over 10% of people in NYC would become infected. If this should be the case, it should be about time that those that govern NYC should look to learn more about coronavirus applications in order to track and trace COVID infections uniquely and be able to trace the movements of those infected. While also looking to educate NYC residents more on the dangers of being mobile in the midst of the pandemic and what they should be doing to decrease the risk of exposure.

With 10% of the population infected in NYC we would need a maximum of 15,000 hospital beds. Today we are using 5,327 hospital beds up from 3,805 the day before. There is absolutely no way we will need the 140,000 hospital beds that Governor Cuomo said we will need. 140,000 beds would be required if every single person in NYC were infected at the same time. I know this because of the actual number of hospitalizations and deaths, which implies a certain number of infections. It is mathematically impossible to get to 140,000 hospital beds being needed at one time. And 5k ventilators will be more than enough to handle all of the cases in NY.

Let this be a lesson to the rest of the country. If we extrapolate the NYC death rate nationally we would see nearly 200,000 deaths in the US vs my current prediction of less than 20,000. All states need to take this seriously.

WHAT SHOULD WE DO NOW?

It makes sense to shut everything down so we stop the spread, but we also need to ramp up testing dramatically.We have 6.5 times the population of South Korea and they tested 350,000 people before they were able to stop it, so that means we may need over 2 million tests. The quicker we start testing and isolating people the quicker we can get back to life. I expect restaurants and small businesses in NYC to start opening before May 1st given the more aggressive stance NYC has taken on testing and the current trends. I’ll let you know if this estimate changes.

Hope this is helpful. If you have any new data points that I should include please let me know. I will update the model daily and send an update.

NY Update – March 27

I said it would be a good sign if the number of new cases were less than 8,000 yesterday and we had less than 7,000 so that is a good sign, but I’m seeing a lot of bad data relating to the number of cases. The cases are too dependent on the number of tests and the timing of the results. Therefore, I am going to focus on the number of hospitalizations and deaths because those numbers are more concrete.

For today, March 27th, I am projecting 7,568 hospitalizations and 142 deaths. My projections track toward reaching a maximum of 15,000 hospitalizations in 11 days. And we are tracking to 5,700 deaths, with a daily peak of about 250 per day. Don’t be alarmed if daily hospitalizations and deaths double over the next week and a half. That would be a good sign as most predictions show a multiple of my projections. It means that the lock down is working.

The next few days are so critical because we are 11 days from lockdown, so we’ll know in the next few days if we dramatically slowed the number of new people being infected because the average number of days from first symptoms to hospitalization is 12-13 days.

Please let me know if you find any info that would be helpful to include in the model. This needs to be a group effort.

Be safe and shelter in place. We can beat this.

NY Update – March 28th

I was looking for 7,568 hospitalizations and it came in at 7,328 up from 6,481. This is huge news! As I said each day is super critical. The 240 shortfall is a big number and means the lockdown is working for sure. It is not just the single datapoint that is encouraging. The 3 day trend is very positive and the number of new hospitalizations has peaked.

As a result I am taking my peak hospitalizations down to 12,000 from 15,000. And the number of ventilators down to 3,000. And I cut my projections for hospital beds needed tomorrow down to 8,142. If the lockdown didn’t work we would have been at 10,655 beds today going to 13,454 tomorrow. It is working!

The 209 new deaths was surprising this early, and a big jump from 134 the day before. The total deaths stand at 728, but I have total deaths of 809 to date, based on the model. I don’t think NY captured all of the earlier deaths and so I believe this is partially a catch up. We will know a lot more in the next day or two. The other possibility is deaths are happening faster than the avg 5.1 days I modeled or the distribution is off, but I don’t think the death rate can be off because my cumulative total is still a little higher. I am projecting 164 deaths tomorrow.

If we stay locked down and don’t spread the virus there won’t be many people who are still infected by May 1st. That’s why I believe we will be in a position to open up. But we need to remain vigilant.

I feel great about NYC, but am concerned about what I am seeing elsewhere in the country. In order to keep deaths in the US below 20,000 we need to lock down the country like we did NYC immediately.

VIDEO: Gov. Bill Lee’s “FRAUD” Charter Board Appointment Alan Levine BLOCKED

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Rep. Gloria Johnson protests Charter School Commission nominee Alan Levine – subject of a 60 Minutes expose on MEDICARE FRAUD after which his company paid $260 MILLION in fines, and CEO of Ballad Health, recently ripped in the NY Times FOR SUING THOUSANDS OF POOR PATIENTS. 

Ballad was protested for 200 days in Kingsport for a reason. Do better, Governor.

VIDEO: PROTECTING PREGNANT WORKERS

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1 of 9 TN babies are born pre-term. Our Infant mortality is that of a 3rd world country. Most pregnant/new moms work. Tamara Currin of March of Dimes and Elizebeth Gedmark told the TN SENATE this week we need A PREGNANT WORKERS ACT – as 27 states have – to help moms in the workplace.

 

White “Office of Minority Health Disparities” Board Rejects Grant For “Too Raw” Instagram Post?

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Kristin Mejia-Green’s application for a $10,000 grant to help address Tennessee’s maternal mortality crisis was recently rejected by the Office of Minority Health Disparities Elimination, allegedly on the basis of an Instagram post found to be “offensive” and “lacking inclusivity” by an all- or mostly-white committee, according to an Instagram video Mejia-Green made recently.

A health crisis is raging in Tennessee on many levels, but particularly when it comes to maternal mortality in the black community. Even Republican representative Ryan Williams recently said Tennessee is “like a third world country” when it comes to maternal mortality, comparing us to Ecuador.

To help address the issue among African-American mothers in Tennessee Kristin Mejia-Green applied for a $10,000 grant she planned to use to train and build “birth teams” around black mothers – “a birth doula, a post-partem doula, and a laceration counselor” – because, she says, “Every time we’re talking about post-partem and breastfeeding a little too late.”

Mejia-Green points to Tennessee’s own statistics and numbers, as well as ideas coming from the maternal and infant mortality report, to underscore the fact that her ideas and suggested trainings come right from the state’s own research.

A recent report showing “85% of maternal deaths in Tennessee were preventable” backs up what she’s saying.

It’s also worth noting many of the deaths happened because the mothers were cut off from health insurance sooner than they should have been, mainly because Tennessee is one of just a handful of states that tragically has not yet expanded Medicaid, and as a result loses over $1 BILLION each year.

REJECTION LETTER

Rejection Letter from Office of Minority Health Disparities Elimination

Mejia-Green says she was surprised her grant was rejected, because she had spent months getting the application right, and she became even more devastated when she learned from a non-white employee of the Office of Minority Health Disparities Elimination that the rejection came after white decision-makers deemed too offensive a social media post depicting breastfeeding and talking about how black women used to help each other breastfeed during times of slavery.

Here’s the “offensive” post:

The caption reads:

Before we were stolen from our homeland and made to serve those incapable of serving themselves, we served each other. Before we were torn from our families to care for families that treated us as their pets, we raised each other’s babies. Breastfeeding wasn’t a one woman job. Toddlers belonged to the neighbors while mom recovered. The village made sure the village thrived. WHY DO WE NEED #BLACKBREASTFEEDINGWEEK?! Our magic is responsible for the health of the people in charge of the very systems created to dismantle our communities. We nursed the U.S. Now it’s time to nurse US! This week is about reclaiming our health and seeing our sisters in a light we don’t often see them in. Support matters. Representation matters. Our goal at Homeland Heart is to bring the village right to your living room. Need help?! Reach out. We got you, family ❤️ #blackbreastfeedingweek#homelandheart #ittakesavillage#supportchangeseverything#supportmatters#representationmatters #blackmoms

According to Mejia-Green, the person of color she contacted at the Office of Minority Health Disparities Elimination told her the post was found to be offensive by decision makers who “don’t look like us” – meaning are white.

In other words, despite the names of officials listed on the Office’s site, which appear to be mainly people of color, the actual decision-makers for Grants and money-related issues run through a white panel.

To confirm, we reached out to the Office of Minority Health Disparities to ask two questions:

1) Why was the post offensive?

2) Who makes the decisions?

This is the carefully-worded statement sent back to us by Elizabeth Hart, Associate Director of Communication at the TN Department of Health:

“The Tennessee Department of Health reviews grants throughout the year in several of our program areas, including the Office of Minority Health and Disparities Elimination. When evaluating applications from organizations requesting funding, we do conduct additional research on the organization with a focus on criteria including feasibility of the proposal, evidence base, the infrastructure of the organization and ability to implement the proposal and plans for sustainability of the proposed project. If an applicant’s proposal is not approved by the review committee, the applicant is encouraged to resubmit during the current or a future grant cycle.”

In other words, of the 2 questions we asked, they answered neither – nor did they choose to do so when we followed up.

As Kristin says:

“Oh the irony- the people making decision sat the Office of Minority Health Disparities Elimination, aren’t even minorities… there are other people in charge of who’s important enough to save.”

This is Elizabeth Hart’s contact info, if you’re interested in hollering at her: 615-741-3446 & [email protected]

And to chip in and support Homeland Heart’s efforts to address maternal mortality among African-American mothers in Tennessee: [email protected] & @HomelandHeartTn

Here’s their donate link.

EXPOSED: KINGSPORT Anti-Protest Ordinance Came At Ex-Ballad Board Member’s Request

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After 220+ days of protests against Ballad Health the city of Kingsport recently passed a “no camping” ordinance to make the encampment of protestors a violation of city law. Newly obtained emails reveal the ordinance came at the request of local businessman Bob Feathers – who was previously a Ballad board member.

For those who haven’t been following the Kingsport Ballad saga closely, here’s the back story we posted a while back, but the bottom line is Ballad Health is a state-sanctioned hospital monopoly that resulted from a merger enabled by state legislature cronyism, and the merger resulted in a limiting of vital resources for the Kingsport area. Ballad has also now become known for overcharging for services, and suing thousands of low-income Tennesseans for outstanding hospital bills.

The New York Times just recently covered the obscenity of those lawsuits, and talked about it on their very popular podcast “The Daily”.

It’s also worth noting that Alan Levine, the CEO of Ballad, previously made headlines in a 60 Minutes interview where he came to the defense of HMA, a company that was committing MASSIVE amounts of Medicare Fraud.

Levine denied the allegations despite being presented with irrefutable evidence, and the company ultimately ended up paying out $260 MILLION in penalties – but nobody went to jail, and now Levine is in Tennessee quarterbacking Ballad Health’s doings in Kingsport.

The 220-day+ Ballad protest has been led by Dani Cook. Dani and other citizens recently spoke up at a city meeting about the proposed ordinance, but the “no camping” law passed anyway and just took effect this week, which has led to the police putting a notice on the encampment of the protesters letting them know they’re now in violation.

Emails shared with the Holler reveal the ordinance came at the behest of Bob Feathers, president of Workspace Interior, who was previously a Ballad board member and currently owns a furniture supply store  we’re told supplies Ballad with much of its furniture.

Bob Feathers, former Ballad Board Member

Below are the email exchanges between Feathers and local officials who passed the 0rdinance. The first is from Feathers, who complains condescendingly about the “pathetic mob instincts” of the protestors and requests a “no camping ordinance” from mayor Pat Shull:

Mayor Shull then responds to clarify that what Feathers wants is a “no camping ordinance”:

Feathers agrees: “A no camping ordinance designed to prevent harm against all of us”

At which point Miles Burdine of the Kingsport Chamber chimes in to express his support:

The ordinance passed.

That the city was doing Ballad’s bidding with this ordinance comes as no surprise, but it still always clarifying to see who’s pulling the strings and making the laws right there in black and white – which is probably why the city doesn’t want to talk about it:

Protestor Dani Cook took to Facebook last night to discuss the situation in a post about “The Kingsport Mayor’s email trail, Unconstitutional Ordinance”, and has made a post today showing the protestors are still out there for their 225th day.

Feel free to holler at Dani to express your support, and if you have anything to say to Feathers, Burdine, Mayor Shull, or any of those who voted for the ordinance, their emails are below:

Feathers: [email protected]

Burdine: [email protected]

Mayor Shull: [email protected]

Aldermen: https://www.kingsporttn.gov/government/bma/

TN GOP Rep. Ryan Williams Says TN Maternal Mortality “LIKE A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY”

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Watch Republican Rep. Ryan Williams tell TennCare officials Tennessee is “like a third world country” when it comes to maternal mortality, thereby making a great case for MEDICAID EXPANSION, which his own party continues to block.

TN is #1 in Medical Bankruptcies and rural hospital closures per capita as a result.

TN HEALTH CRISIS: Gov. Lee’s Finance Commish Answers Medicaid Expansion Questions (Very Poorly)

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There’s been a lot going on, so it has taken us a bit to get to this, but a few weeks back The Tennessean had Governor Bill Lee’s finance commissioner Stuart Mcwhorter on their podcast to answer questions about the Rural Health Care “Task Force” they’ve assembled to try to address the nightmare that is rural health in Tennessee, where we’re #1 in MEDICAL BANKRUPTCIES and RURAL HOSPITAL CLOSURES PER CAPITA, at the bottom in infant and maternal mortality and opioid deaths, the list goes on.

Just last week we learned in 2017 alone there were 52 mothers who died preventably from lack of Tenncare, making it clear not expanding Medicaid is nothing short of policy murder.

Natalie Allison of The Tennessean asked Mcwhorter the questions. Understandably, The Tennessean had quite a few of them considering reporters were kept out of the closed-door task force meetings.

Below are some excerpts. You can listen to the whole interview HERE.

We’ll pick it up where Natalie asks Mcwhorter a very straightforward question:

NATALIE ALLISON: So obviously rural hospital closures is something we’ve heard a lot about from people who live in those areas who are concerned with that. The other thing is what you just mentioned – the number of uninsured people in the state. So what kind of feedback were you guys hearing on how the state can address that?

MCWHORTER: It’s the #1 question we got. And I think in light of the fact that we have a number of uninsured Tennesseans, you want to understand what the causes of those things are. Some of it is a lack of workforce opportunities. We were really making sure we were bringing that discussion into the fold, around economic development incentives for companies to relocate to rural parts of the state.

Notice that Mcwhorter immediately takes the question of stopping rural hospital closures and getting people insured to employment- anything to steer the conversation away from government-based solutions and towards “free market capitalism”, but even that is a bogus premise since Mcwhorter is already talking about how the government can encourage it through tax incentives (and what he would later refer to as “seed funding”).

TRANSLATION: They don’t mind government intervention as long as that intervention goes to corporations, rather than directly to us

This answer is also problematic for another reason: PEOPLE ARE HURTING NOW.

Again, we just found out over 50 mothers DIED from not having expanded Medicaid in 2017 alone. So while Lee & Mcwhorter assemble their “task force” and talk vaguely about economic incentives, 1 mother is dying unnecessarily each week.

This is nothing short of POLICY MURDER.

Another point: Mcwhorter is heralding employer-based insurance as the solution because they want to keep us reliant on our employers for insurance, because when we’re reliant on them, we’re compliant. Take GM canceling the insurance of striking UAW workers, for example.

As long as we depend on them for our health care, they know it will be much harder for workers to push back against our corporate overlords.

Mcwhorter continues:

MCWHORTER: If you aren’t employed and don’t have the skills, we tie in a lot of what we’re discussing with the governor’s initiatives around vocational education and focusing on some of the trades and technical education. But it starts even before that. You start really getting into some of the – I go back to the social determinants…

This is where it starts to get weird.

MCWHORTER: …if you can’t get a child immunizations, or early childhood reading, or things you really want to focus on when a child is born in the state, those things continue to compound over time, and won’t allow people to either get a job or get out of their circumstances. So we really try to get to the root causes of some of these issues.

As a reminder, the question is: How do we stop hospitals from closing and get people insured so they can see doctors.

Think about how far afield we’ve gone here. To address a question about hospitals closing NOW and people being uninsured NOW, Mcwhorter is talking about children being vaccinated and learning how to read, and how that may lead to them not having insurance as adults – because it makes them less employable.

Again, a mother is dying every week. This obvious deflection is not helping them NOW.

Stuart goes on:

MCWHORTER: And if they’re employed, hopefully they have access to their employer’s insurance. If they’re not employed, what can we be doing to train and educate so they can get employed.

They don’t want us reliant on government, but boy do they ever want us begging our bosses for our lives.

Also, a key word here was “hopefully”. We have a five-alarm health care fire in Tennessee, where again we’re #1 in MEDICAL BANKRUPTCIES and RURAL HOSPITAL CLOSURES PER CAPITA, and Bill Lee’s health care task force mouthpiece is saying “hopefully” if we address some of these issues today’s kids may get employer-based health insurance in 25 years or so.

It gets worse.

Mcwhorter then goes on to blame mental illness for why some people don’t have insurance.

Yes, seriously:

MCWHORTER: And if you’re still up against other issues that prevent that (meaning getting a job) – and a lot of it is mental. We’re all aware of what’s going on around the state with that. We’re trying to address the mental disorders, the opioid crisis, all the things that contribute to that as well.

Aside from the obviously insulting implication that the hundreds of thousands of low-income folks who are falling into the Medicaid gap are either mentally ill or addicted to opioids, there’s a glaring flaw in what Mcwhorter is saying here: Studies have found Medicaid expansion is critical for fighting the opioid crisis.

There’s a reason opioid deaths are going up in our state while they go down in the states around us – it’s because we didn’t expand Medicaid. While getting Suboxone online is now available, the crisis is bigger than treatments being available online. The crisis is so big that we need to tackle it from multiple angles, from online treatment to Medicaid to prevention.

We’ve rejected $7 BILLION and counting. You think that wouldn’t help us deal with the opioid crisis and other issues? Of course it would. That’s not politics, it’s math.

Natalie Allison then speaks again for the first time since asking the original question, and asks Mcwhorter directly about Medicaid expansion (thank you Natalie):

NATALIE ALLISON: There are people who for years have been saying EXPAND MEDICAID, EXPAND MEDICAID. I have a feeling that’s not going to be the strategy you all are gonna be recommending to the governor as part of this task force, since he’s made it clear that’s not something he’s going to do. Is that safe to say?

MCWHORTER: I think it’s safe to say. A couple things. One is – he said that. The way I interpret that is this is a long-term plan with a long-term solution we need to look at. It’s a heavy lift. It’s a lot of hard work. It’s easy to look at something that’s immediate – i.e. Medicaid Expansion – but I think there’s a deeper issue here that we really want to look at.

(Did we mention one mother is dying each week that didn’t have to die while Mcwhorter and Lee “look at” deeper issues with their “task force”?)

MCWHORTER: Now I say all that to say, the legislature did pass a law around the Block Grant. If we don’t negotiate something, that goes away. Does Medicaid Expansion come back? I don’t think it comes back just in the context of Medicaid Expansion. But I think the same principles that are around Medicaid Expansion… I mean the goal around Medicaid Expansion is to provide access, coverage to more people. That’s what our goal is. We’re trying to do the same thing, it’s just getting there is going to be a little different.

Why? You’re literally saying Medicaid expansion does the things you want to do. The tool is sitting there. Why not use it?

Politics, that’s why. Plain and simple. Also, it’s worth noting that the Block Grant Mcwhorter is talking about is A) Illegal probably, and B) DEEPLY unpopular. Nearly 1800 people spoke up about it at the public hearings last month, and a whopping NINE were in favor of it.

Back to the conversation – Natalie Allison picked up on Mcwhorter seeming to say Medicaid Expansion’s principles are what they want to accomplish, so she presses him on it:

NATALIE ALLISON: So you just said something really interesting – you said you might take the principles of Medicaid Expansion and apply that to whatever other solution you all would use as your Plan B. Can you talk a little bit more about that? And clarify whether Medicaid Expansion would be totally off the table for your recommendations?

MCWHORTER: I guess what I’m saying with the principle applies is the ultimate outcomes. The goal of
Medicaid Expansion is to provide more access – more insurance to more people – the Governor doesn’t disagree with that. We also have to be fiscally responsible. And so we have to look at the right balance.

“Fiscally responsible”? Is rejecting $7 Billion that would help our state “Fiscally responsible”? Who is that helping?

They love talking about running the state “like a business” – what boss wouldn’t be fired for rejecting an injection of $7 Billion?

If what Mcwhorter means is the state would’ve had to match 10% of the expansion dollars – our state’s own hospitals said they would COVER THE DIFFERENCE because they need the funds so badly, and wanted to stem the tide of hospital closures.

No, Governor. Rejecting Medicaid Expansion is the opposite of “fiscally responsible”. It’s both fiscally and morally irresponsible.

Our state is suffering. Our mothers are dying. There’s a reason our last Republican governor Haslam called not expanding Medicaid one of his biggest regrets.

Meanwhile Governor Lee and this Republican Supermajority, who we’ve just learned have been sitting on $730,000,000 in TANF block grant funds intended to help poor people, now want to get their hands on billions in Medicaid block grant dollars intended for poor people’s health care.

Downright terrifying.

After 5+ years of blocking Medicaid Expansion, you’d think they’d have better answers than this.

Employer-based coverage is sometimes adequate — IF it’s offered. Tennessee leads the nation in minimum wage jobs. Those workers should be able to go to the doctor too.

VIDEO: CLIPS From Nashville’s Public Hearing On Lee’s (ILLEGAL?) Medicaid Block Grant Proposal

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This week throughout Tennessee public hearings for comments about Governor Bill Lee’s possibly illegal block grant proposal are being held. A Block Grant would hand a giant lump sum of medicaid dollars to a group of people who have already shown they don’t actually care about the suffering of poor Tennesseans, having rejected billions of Medicaid expansion dollars for no non-political reason.

It has cost us BILLIONS. We’re #1 in Rural hospital closures, medical bankruptcies, at the bottom in opioid deaths, infant mortality, the list goes on.  Medicaid expansion would help all of those things. A block grant will only exacerbate them.

The hearing in Nashville was emotional, but Lee and the TN GOP wouldn’t know because they weren’t there, and they didn’t have anyone there to record it or take note of the comments.

We were there though. Below are a few clips.

Rep. Jim Cooper: “I had hoped Gov. Lee’s religious faith would’ve given him more of a heart for the poor, especially as we anticipate the Day of Prayer he has called.”

Cooper exposes Lee’s (illegal?) Block Grant as a bad deal for Tennessee & our most vulnerable:

“These aren’t just numbers. There are real people suffering… This is a faithful state- we should be helping the poor, not hurting them.”

Holler co-Founder Kanew speaks up:

“If it wasn’t for my family there are times I wouldn’t have anything to eat. It’s so humiliating.”

DEVASTATING testimony from a woman who lost Medicaid to a paperwork snafu. Governor Lee’s proposal will lead to more of these stories, not less:

VIDEO: Cherisse Scott Fires Back At Senator Kerry Roberts

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“Absolutely it was racist… you want folks to stay ignorant so they won’t hold you accountable. It was not a joke.”‬

‪Cherisse Scott of SisterReach fires back at Sen. Kerry Roberts, who called for an end to higher ed after her #TNAbortionBan testimony.‬

She also said:

“You’ve been able to effectively train your people to believe I don’t care about myself, my baby, my community, and as long as you can keep that going there will never be an opportunity for white Tennesseans to believe they have something in common with black Tennesseans.”

Watch the CLIP below, and the FULL Facebook Live  INTERVIEW HERE.

The AUDIO is also available on our podcast – subscribe on Itunes HERE.

And below you can watch Cherisse read the full testimony she tried to give during the #TNAbortionBan Senate committee hearings before Senator Mike Bell cut her off. He let a man who said he “remembers being born” go on much longer.

Senator Reeves, The #1 TN Opioid Pills Distributor, Admitted He Makes Laws to Benefit His Business (And Opposes Medical Marijuana)

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With Senator Marsha Blackburn helping to keep the money-spigot turned on for Big Pharma by making it harder for the DEA to fight the opioid crisis, a federal database recently found a pharmacy in Murfreesboro owned by state Sen. Shane Reeves sold 46 million pills over six years, distributing the most opioid pills in Tennessee BY FAR, with no close second.

Reeves initially said he wasn’t surprised, but now his company TwelveStone is demanding a recount, so it’s worth remembering that during his campaign Reeves came out durinn a Pharmacy Podcast Network interview and openly said he told his company partners that he’s running for office because being a state senator would be good for his company in two areas: “Public Policy and Networking”

Yes, Reeves comes right out and says the quiet part out loud – that from his position at state senator he’ll be able to help his own company, Twelvestone. Here’s the quote, and you can hear it for yourself in the video below:

“One [way TwelveStone will benefit is] obviously public policy, trying to drive and make a difference in the issues that are impacting pharmacy and healthcare so much in business. The second thing is business development growth and networking. Clearly as a state senator I’m going to meet a lot of people which can help for the company – anytime someone looks up Shane Reeves, they’re going to see TwelveStone.”

Again- Reeves is literally reassuring his own partners that by running for state senate he can influence the regulations that govern his industry and promote the company through his position.

And he has been doing it.

The list of bills Reeves has sponsored includes a number of bills related to the pharmacy industry in which he works.

As TwelveStone shovels pills out by the millions, Tennessee is one of the few states in which opioid death tolls are still going up even as states around us see theirs going down. We’re also far behind the overall trend of dropping opioid addiction numbers, which studies show is very clearly tied to our unwillingness to expand Medicaid – which Reeves does not support.

It is worrying how much the opioid crisis is growing, and why. Perhaps the prevalence of an opioid as an illegal street drug, namely fentanyl, is to blame for the increase. Fentanyl, like most opioids, can be fatal very easily and is now being mixed with other more common street drugs. Fortunately, it is very easy to access a fentanyl drug test if someone suspects a loved one has been taking fentanyl or other opioids, but Reeves’ unwillingness to expand Medicaid restricts the amount of help that can be offered.

Importantly, he is also one of the voices against Tennessee passing a law legalizing medical marijuana, which would allow Tennesseans to deal with their pain by making use of products similar to those for sale on www.cheapbudcanada.com, or generally speaking in a manner other than with the pills his company makes a killing off of. Considering big pharma companies in the US hold so much money and power, it shouldn’t then be too hard to imagine that the likes of these companies could then slow down the progression of medical marijuana and its industry, even more so towards the marketing efforts of such cannabis businesses like many do, such as finding marijuana seo brands for marketing purposes.
Until these big pharma companies stop manipulating the monopoly of healthcare, patients might never be able to get the medicines they actually need to manage a certain illness or pain.

During his run for the senate against Gayle Jordan, who did support Medical Marijuana, Reeves had this to say on the topic:

“There absolutely are benefits to cannabis, medical marijuana, for people who’ve got cancer, glaucoma, nerve pain and headaches. There are also other ways you can take it other than smoking it. There’s oils, capsules, and I think over the next years we should look at some other options… But right now my answer to medical marijuana is not now.“

Sorry Tennesseans suffering from cancer, glaucoma, nerve pain, headaches etc. (many of which are veterans) who overwhelmingly support medical marijuana – whilst people on the Gold Coast can get a florida marijuana card so that they can use medical marijuana as pain relief, your suffering must go on because TwelveStone has money to make.

As the Tennessee Democratic Party said during Reeves’ campaign:

“Shane Reeves loaned his campaign more than $255,000 and raised at least half a million dollars for a job that pays $22,000. Now we know why: In his own words, getting elected would help boost his name recognition and help his pharmaceutical company TwelveStone succeed.”

If you agree Reeves running for state senator to help his own company while helping to block things like Medicaid expansion and Medical Marijuana, which would actually help people, is not a good thing, holler at Senator Reeves HERE.