swordfish

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/apr/28/joe-biden-economic-intercourse-at-risk-due-to-trum/ Joe Biden says if he were managing the coronavirus pandemic on behalf of the U.S. there would be more diplomacy to safeguard “economic intercourse around the world.” The Democrat told a local CBS affiliate in Miami on Monday that President Trump’s decision to prioritize America above all other nations is tantamount to going “alone” when it comes to the contagion. “I would get much more engaged in the world. We can’t step back,” Mr. Biden said. “If in fact for example, we solve the problem in the United States of America, and you don’t solve it in other parts of the world, you know what’s gonna happen? You’re gonna have travel bans. You’re gonna not be able to have economic intercourse around the world.” Mr. Biden’s analogy shot to the top of Twitter’s trending news feed on Tuesday. Some responses include: Sara Carter: “People are saying it’s a Freudian slip, what do you think?” Carmine Sabia: “There is no way I can see that the Democrats allow Economic Intercourse Joe Biden to be their nominee. This is becoming a f—ing cartoon.” Steve Deace: “I’m ashamed at how long it’s been since I’ve had economic intercourse.” Terrence K. Williams: “This is who the Democrats chose — this looney man — to run against a Genius like President @realDonaldTrump.” Mr. Biden punctuated his plan with a warning: “Look, when America goes alone, when America is first, it’s America goes alone. … We have to get back into the game.” Methinks the MSM (while ignoring the former VP's quote) is anxiously waiting for any questionable line from the current President they can bastardize (kinda like "President suggests ingesting disinfectant") to fill the news casts with to get past this one...... Quite frankly I want a President who will prioritize the US over other nations........

Seen a similar story line this morning on the local CBS Channel 22 news that 'County officials have experienced an increase in poison control calls for ingesting cleaning chemicals" as well. The story went on to detail how more kids (who are now at home) have been coming in contact with these toxic cleaning substances.......Unlike the 40 something year old guy in Kansas.....

Heard a new topic today from Joe Biden......Economy Intercourse.......

Potentially the US can always import more meat than we already do. Kinda think that's what the President is trying to avoid......But if the union doesn't want to work, Oh well.

A 40% increase sounds sure bad. Begs the question - How many were there before this one individual (that he referred to before the recording stopped) that ingested something? Elkhart County deaths from the the virus are up 66.6% since last week. (We have a total of 5 deaths now, but 66% sure sounds more serious than the 2 we actually had in past 2 weeks - we sat at 3 deaths for almost 3 weeks)

Smiling large with a freezer full of meat fresh from the growers......

Not sure why that got posted thrice.....

So do you wonder why doctors and other health professionals are classifying so many things as "presumed" Covid deaths? https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/hospital-payments-and-the-covid-19-death-count/?fbclid=IwAR01QopgLGyEnfFJTqV866QGoZa7Ur8brOnUddY29CGqMpCCKtxUCourbf0 YouTube video with Jensen’s interview, viewed 42,000 times, was titled “US: Hospitals Get Paid More to List Patients as COVID-19…” That video was then posted in a Facebook group called “X22 Report [Geopolitical]” with a caption referencing the specific dollar amounts that read in part: “This also explains the inflated amount of covid deaths.” Nearly 3,000 users shared the video from that post. “So, hospitals get an extra $13,000 if they diagnose a death as COVID-19,” a widely shared meme on Facebook claimed. “And an additional $39,000 if they use a ventilator!” One post of the meme, shared by hundreds, was captioned: “And then we wonder why the numbers of deaths are embellished…” The figures cited by Jensen generally square with estimated Medicare payments for COVID-19 hospitalizations, based on average Medicare payments for patients with similar diagnoses. Medicare — the federal health insurance program for Americans 65 and older, a central at-risk population when it comes to COVID-19 — pays hospitals in part using fixed rates at discharge based off a grouping system known as diagnosis-related groups. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has classified COVID-19 cases with existing groups for respiratory infections and inflammations. A CMS spokesperson told us exact payments vary, depending on a patient’s principal diagnosis and severity, as well as treatments and procedures. There are also geographic variations. An analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation looked at average Medicare payments for hospital admissions for the existing diagnosis-related groups and noted that the “average Medicare payment for respiratory infections and inflammations with major comorbidities or complications in 2017 … was $13,297. For more severe hospitalizations, we use the average Medicare payment for a respiratory system diagnosis with ventilator support for greater than 96 hours, which was $40,218.” It is true, however, that the government will pay more to hospitals for COVID-19 cases in two senses: By paying an additional 20% on top of traditional Medicare rates for COVID-19 patients during the public health emergency, and by reimbursing hospitals for treating the uninsured patients with the disease (at that enhanced Medicare rate). Both of those provisions stem from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act. The CARES Act created the 20% add-on to be paid for Medicare patients with COVID-19. The act further created a $100 billion fund that is being used to financially assist hospitals — a “portion” of which will be “used to reimburse healthcare providers, at Medicare rates, for COVID-related treatment of the uninsured,” according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. As the Kaiser analysis noted, though, “it is unclear whether the new fund will be able to cover the costs of the uninsured in addition to other needs, such as the purchase of medical supplies and the construction of temporary facilities.” Either way, the fact that government programs are paying hospitals for treating patients who have COVID-19 isn’t on its own representative of anything nefarious. “There’s an implication here that hospitals are over-reporting their COVID patients because they have an economic advantage of doing so, [which] is really an outrageous claim,” Gerald Kominski, senior fellow at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, told us. And, he said, any suggestion that patients may be put on ventilators out of financial gain, not medical need, “is basically saying physicians are violating their Hippocratic Oath … it would be like providing heart surgery on someone who doesn’t need it.” Robert Berenson, an institute fellow at the Urban Institute, said the notion that hospitals are profiting off the pandemic — as some of the social media posts may imply — isn’t borne out by facts, either. Berenson said revenues appear to be down for hospitals this quarter because many have suspended elective procedures, which are key to their revenue, forcing some hospitals to cut staff. He surmised that potential instances of patients being wrongly “upcoded” — or classified as COVID-19 when they’re not — are “trivial compared to these other forces that are affecting hospital finances.” Berenson and others we spoke with also said that hospitals have profound disincentives for “upcoding,” which can result in criminal or civil liabilities, such as being susceptible to being kicked out of the Medicare program. Jensen himself said in a phone interview that he was not alleging widespread medical fraud. “Do I think people are misclassifying? No,” Jensen said. He said his concerns centered on what he deemed “less precise standards” for certifying deaths promulgated by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and how deaths classified as COVID-19 without corroborating positive test results could lead to an over-counting. The CDC guidance says that officials should report deaths in which the patient tested positive for COVID-19 — or, if a test isn’t available, “if the circumstances are compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty.” It further indicates that if a “definite diagnosis of COVID–19 cannot be made, but it is suspected or likely (e.g., the circumstances are compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty), it is acceptable to report COVID-19 on a death certificate as ‘probable’ or ‘presumed.'” “If we think it’s presumptive … we can go ahead and put down COVID-19,” Jensen said, “or even in some situations, even if it’s negative.” He pointed to the example of a 38-year-old man in Minnesota whose death was attributed to the coronavirus even though he tested negative. The man’s mother, however, told the St. Paul Pioneer Press that doctors determined the test result was likely a false negative. It’s not known exactly how common false negatives are in the U.S., but public health experts and doctors have raised concerns about many instances of tests showing negative results even when all other indicators point to COVID-19. Fact sheets for different COVID-19 tests from the Food and Drug Administration note that a “negative result does not exclude the possibility of COVID-19. When diagnostic testing is negative, the possibility of a false negative result should be considered in the context of a patient’s recent exposures and the presence of clinical signs and symptoms consistent with COVID-19. The possibility of a false negative result should especially be considered if the patient’s recent exposures or clinical presentation indicate that COVID-19 is likely, and diagnostic tests for other causes of illness (e.g., other respiratory illness) are negative.” As for the accuracy of the death toll, other experts have previously told us that while it’s true that some deaths attributed to COVID-19 likely would have occurred regardless of the disease, other factors — like the deaths of undiagnosed COVID-19 victims, including those that occur at home — contribute to a more significant problem of under-counting the deaths. New York City recently added more than 3,700 victims to its death toll to account for presumed cases. The CDC’s national count now makes note of how many cases and deaths were deemed “probable.” Jensen said he actually believed there could be both instances of under-counting and over-counting of COVID-19 cases and deaths — but said that “if there’s an over-count it’s conceivable that that could down the road translate to increased dollars in terms of some of the recovery dollars from COVID-19.” When it comes to the $100 billion fund to help providers, future grants by HHS are supposed to focus on providers in areas hit hard by the outbreak, among others. But the initial allocation of $30 billion from that $100 billion fund to assist hospitals wasn’t distributed in that way. Instead, it was based on prior Medicare business. A Kaiser Health News analysis found that the distribution of that initial $30 billion resulted in hospitals in states less affected by the pandemic — such as Minnesota, Nebraska and Montana — being given funding that worked out to be about “$300,000 per reported COVID-19 case.” In New York, which has the highest number of COVID-19 cases, the grant money amounted to “only $12,000 per case.” Doctors and hospitals are infallible......Trivial my patooty.....

Both!!

Gonzoron was the only person whose post was on here that I quoted........OIC - Gonzo is Paul J. Bennett? Alrighty then - apologies to Gonzo/Paul.....

FIFY: (Changes in red) The best ads for Biden for President are THE MAINSTREAM MEDIAS OVERTLY MISLEADING INTERPRETATIONS OF Presidents Trump's daily press briefings.....🤣

Adam Schiff on MSNBC (talking about the fact that President Trump wasn't impeached): I don’t think we had any idea how much damage he would go on to do … There are 50,000 Americans now who are dead, in a significant part because of his incompetence, because of his inability,” That statement is about as idiotic as someone who thinks the President "recommended" drinking Lysol....... (If you believe all those 50,000 deaths are truly related to the virus.....) Naw - this isn't political,.......

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/26/politics/trump-briefings-media-blame-disinfectant-comments/index.html (CNN)The furor over President Donald Trump's toxic suggestion that the coronavirus might be treated with an injection of disinfectant mounted Sunday . https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/26/birx-trump-disinfectant-coronavirus-209063 During a White House briefing Thursday, Trump floated the dangerous possibility that Americans could ingest disinfectants as a remedy for the virus — a possibility that was roundly criticized and prompted warnings from health officials and manufacturers of household cleaning products. “I think I made it very clear in how I interpreted that. I also made it very clear, and so has Dr. [Anthony] Fauci and everyone associated with the task force, in their clarity around this is not a treatment,“ she said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Trump also promoted the use of light as an internal treatment, touting research by the Department of Homeland Security on how heat, humidity and sunlight affect the virus on surfaces. Birx said the focus on Trump’s comments caused the public to miss some vital information coming from scientific studies about sunlight and the coronavirus. “I think it's really important to see that sunlight, direct sunlight, may actually be able to kill the virus,“ she said on “Meet the Press.” The president later attempted to walk back his disinfectant comments amid the backlash. He falsely claimed Friday that he was “asking a question sarcastically to reporters” about disinfectants. Tapper capped off the CNN interview adding that “the source of the misinformation is not the news media on this. Suggestion!!!? Promoted the use of light? Floated the dangerous possibility Americans could ingest disinfectants? Tapper is wrong. The President was talking to the actual scientist (who was sitting right there BTW) about some of the things the actual scientist (that was sitting right there BTW) and teams like his were actually testing and had briefed the President on. You can probably bet the public won't hear about anything else anymore after that incident.......Thanks MSM......Those of us with half a sense of sanity (not the Tid-Pod munchers) actually like the briefings......

I have nothing else to say (unless you're an MD, then please accept my apologies.....but I have a suspicion your not...)😁

SF personally doesn't see a problem if a few Tide-Pod munchers are stupid enough to think the President "recommended" drinking some Lysol. (which he didn't) but still - thinning the herd of a few of the idiots isn't a bad thing.....(IMHO) I pity your doctor.....Especially if you ask to review the clinical studies for any drug he/she prescribes for you..... SF heard a new term this morning...."Clinical Covid".....One who displays Covid 19 symptoms but tests negative.......Yet counts as a confirmed Covid 19 patient for the state numbers....... Also heard on CBS this morning the number of people testing as having the antibodies that indicate having already had the virus is as high as 80 times the confirmed cases in some states......which would indicate this virus isn't as much of a killer as first thought........