Tag: U.S. health care

‘My first question every time I see a new patient now is: Could this be COVID-19?’ A Seattle doctor on the frontlines

The Conversation is running a series of dispatches from clinicians and researchers operating on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic.

Inside, as usual, patient beds are near capacity, and the emergency department is filled with not only the usual mix of patients with trauma, stroke, chest pain and other concerns, but also dozens of people worried they might have COVID-19.

I am an emergency and critical care physician who cares for patients in the emergency department and intensive care units at Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center, a public hospital with 413 beds owned by King County and staffed by doctors from the University of Washington School of Medicine.

UW Medicine has seen dozens of COVID-19 cases since the first patient arrived here in late February. Continue reading.

Coronavirus will radically alter the U.S.

Washington Post logoHere’s what may lie ahead based on math models, hospital projections and past pandemics

When Jason Christie, chief of pulmonary medicine at Penn Medicine, got projections on how many coronavirus patients might soon be flocking to his Philadelphia hospital, he said he felt physically ill.

“My front-line providers — we were speaking about it in the situation report that night, and their voices cracked,” Christie said Wednesday. They saw how quickly the surge would overwhelm the system, forcing doctors to make impossible choices — which patients would get ventilators and beds, and which would die.

“They were terrified.” Christie said. “And that was the best-case scenario.” Continue reading. free article

Appeals court strikes ObamaCare mandate, sends case back to lower court

The Hill logoA federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that ObamaCare’s individual mandate is unconstitutional but punted on the larger question of what it means for the rest of the health law.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans remanded the case back to a federal judge in Texas to decide just how much of the rest of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), if any, is also unconstitutional.

“The rule of law demands a careful, precise explanation of whether the provisions of the ACA are affected by the unconstitutionality of the individual mandate as it exists today,” the judges wrote for the majority. Continue reading

Kavanaugh Is A Threat To Americans’ Health Care

Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Kavanaugh, is a threat to Americans’ health care. We know Kavanaugh will gut the Affordable Care Act because Trump himself pledged his Supreme Court nominee would “do the right thing” and strike it down, and because Kavanaugh wrote that a future president could refuse to enforce it.

Trump pledged that his Supreme Court nominee would “do the right thing” and gut the Affordable Care Act.

“If I win the presidency, my judicial appointments will do the right thing unlike Bush’s appointee John Roberts on Obamacare.” – Trump, 2015

Continue reading “Kavanaugh Is A Threat To Americans’ Health Care”