Trump Has Sabotaged America’s Coronavirus Response

[seahawk]

The epidemic control efforts unfolding today in China—including placing some 100 million citizens on lockdown, shutting down a national holiday, building enormous quarantine hospitals in days’ time, and ramping up 24-hour manufacturing of medical equipment—are indeed gargantuan. It’s impossible to watch them without wondering, “What would we do? How would my government respond if this virus spread across my country?”

For the United States, the answers are especially worrying because the government has intentionally rendered itself incapable. In 2018, the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure. In numerous phone calls and emails with key agencies across the U.S. government, the only consistent response I encountered was distressed confusion. If the United States still has a clear chain of command for pandemic response, the White House urgently needs to clarify what it isIf the United States still has a clear chain of command for pandemic response, the White House urgently needs to clarify what it is—not just for the public but for the government itself, which largely finds itself in the dark.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/co ... -response/

[seahawk]

In May 2018, Trump ordered the NSC’s entire global health security unit shut down, calling for reassignment of Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer and dissolution of his team inside the agency. The month before, then-White House National Security Advisor John Bolton pressured Ziemer’s DHS counterpart, Tom Bossert, to resign along with his team. Neither the NSC nor DHS epidemic teams have been replaced. The global health section of the CDC was so drastically cut in 2018 that much of its staff was laid off and the number of countries it was working in was reduced from 49 to merely 10. Meanwhile, throughout 2018, the U.S. Agency for International Development and its director, Mark Green, came repeatedly under fire from both the White House and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. And though Congress has so far managed to block Trump administration plans to cut the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps by 40 percent, the disease-fighting cadres have steadily eroded as retiring officers go unreplaced.

[Deleted User 89]

scary

and sad

and just plain stupid

[Geezer]

Bootstraps instead of tax dollars.

[HouseDivided]

I hear he is also the one who turned cats and dogs against each other.

[Deleted User 104]

Let's just blame Trump for the coronavirus.

[DCHawk1]

Trump Grabbed Schroedinger's Pussy Theory

[Shirley]

Republicans learned nothing from their "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" moment during hurricane Katrina, but this time they're gambling with the health of millions of Americans should this or the next infectious disease epidemic be particularly virulent.

The fact that it might not happen is hardly an excuse for being totally unprepared.

[Geezer]

small government.

[Shirley]

The Trump DOJ is currently in court trying to put end to the ACA. In its entirety. Which would not only put an end to pre-existing condition protections for people who have or need health insurance, but leave millions of Americans with no health care coverage, among other things.

But then, making people ever more vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the health lottery we're all a part of beginning the day we're born, is a republican obsession.

[Mjl]

I did not think I would read about the Drake Diner here.

[Geezer]

Riding the world of Obamacare polls extremely high with the base.
Ask why someday.

[HouseDivided]

Riding the world of Obamacare polls extremely high with the base.
Ask why someday.

Because it is an enormous bureaucratic waste of money?

[DCHawk1]

Fucking ACA is/was a disaster.

Just as designed.

[Geezer]

Told ya

[DCHawk1]

Ridding the world of Obamacare polls extremely high with your base too.

Ask why someday.

[Shirley]

The ACA certainly can't compare with the Trump/republican repeal and replace plan, that covers everyone, is cheaper, and provides better care.

[Deleted User 62]

The ACA certainly can't compare with the Trump/republican repeal and replace plan, that covers everyone, is cheaper, and provides better care.

Nobody knows as much about healthcare

[HouseDivided]

The ACA certainly can't compare with the Trump/republican repeal and replace plan, that covers everyone, is cheaper, and provides better care.

Nobody knows as much about healthcare

Healthcare professionals are for anything that guarantees them payment - even if it is at the expense of the taxpayer. Not sure that is expertise so much as self-interest.

[DCHawk1]

The ACA certainly can't compare with the Trump/republican repeal and replace plan, that covers everyone, is cheaper, and provides better care.

Hey, I broke the system. So you fix it!

pArtY oF PERSONaL responsiBiLiTY!