Commentary: COVID Redux

Masks People

Life is hard if you do not learn from your mistakes. With Covid, political leaders and public health authorities engaged in a series of missteps, miscalculations, and manias that amounted to an extreme overreaction to the disease.

First, statistical models overstated the risk of the disease by an order of magnitude. Then, even after these miscalculations became apparent, other extreme measures like lockdowns, mandatory masking, coercive vaccine mandates, and a million other indignities ensued. In the end, almost everyone got Covid, almost everyone survived, and, while the economic countermeasures increased our national debt by 30%, the economy soon recovered too.

Read the full story

Bipartisan Pennsylvania Bill Would Allow ‘Personal Option’ Through Association Health Plans

A bipartisan group of Pennsylvania state lawmakers are championing legislation enabling small-business association healthcare plans to offer workers affordable coverage. 

Such plans facilitate lower costs by allowing business and industry organizations to pool their members and negotiate insurance prices. The measure’s author, Representative Valerie Gaydos (R-Moon Township), was among numerous sponsors who told The Pennsylvania Daily Star they experienced firsthand how governmental burdens have made it harder for companies to provide their members with inexpensive medical coverage. Gaydos said this is particularly true since the Affordable Care Act (ACA), signed by President Barack Obama in 2010, heavily restricted association plans. 

Read the full story

Northwoods Congressman Wants to Ban Race-Based Coronavirus Treatments

Tom Tiffany

One of Wisconsin’s Republican congressmen wants to ban racial-scoring in deciding who gets the new coronavirus antiviral pills.

Northwoods U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany on Thursday introduced legislation that would prohibit the federal government and the states from discriminating against or giving preference to any person based on race when it comes to the distribution of, or access to, medical treatment.

“Denying life-saving medical care to Americans based on skin color is wrong, it is illegal, and it is un-American,” Tiffany said.

Read the full story

Veterans Group Says Biden Administration Undermining Trump-era ‘Mission Act,’ Hurting Veterans in Arizona

Man in uniform saluting

Under the Trump administration, the VA Mission Act (VAMA) was enacted in 2018 to provide veterans access to healthcare outside of the Veterans Administration healthcare system in order to provide more options and speed up accessibility to medical care. Unfortunately, veterans are reporting that the VA under the Biden administration has cut back on that expansion.

VAMA allowed veterans who could not get a medical appointment within 20 days or who had to drive more than 30 minutes to a VA facility to use alternate private healthcare providers instead. This was crucial, because veterans were dying while stuck on waiting lists for medical treatment, Josh Stanwitz of Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) told The Arizona Sun Times.

Read the full story

Minnesota Abortion Advocates Call on State to Cut Funding for Adoption Services

Baby hand in adult hand

Pro-abortion activists in Minnesota want the state to defund its program that provides medical care, housing assistance, education, nutrition assistance, adoption services and more to underserved mothers.

The “Positive Alternatives” program, created in 2005, presently operates on a $3.3 million annual budget and provides grants to nonprofits that mainly assist pregnant women “at what could otherwise be a challenging time.”

For perspective, the state has spent over $7 million on a rest stop, $12 million on an “elevated walking trail” at the Minnesota Zoo, $6.9 million on an unused morgue, and $367,883 on a gay men’s choir.

Read the full story