We Will Remember in November

Death Panels, Brought to You By Republicans This Time.

I write this piece not to be divisive or cruel but to counter the current narrative that this Republican Administration is handling this pandemic so expertly. They are not.  By their own denial of science and fact, by their own desire to cut government to bare bones, they have created this mess.  They have an the utter lack of regard for the health of the citizens of this country.  The role of government is to protect citizens who pay taxes for social and health protections and who elect legislators to create laws and programs to implement these protections.  Now we're seeing how the Republican plans are playing out, with the lack of supplies, lack of services, lack of knowledge, lack of care. Trumps's famous words are "I'm not responsible!" Oh, but I beg to differ.  He's the head of the government. The buck stops with him.And his Repubican cronies are not helping him one little bit.

Remember back in the last decade, when Republicans accused ObamaCare of creating Death Panels, where doctors would be forced to decide who got treatment and therefore lived and who would receive no treatment and thus died? That, of course, never happened and never would have happened. ObamaCare gave older people a better crack at a healthier life.

But hey, look at what could so easily happen now. Due to the incompetence and ignorance of this Republican President and his Republican Administration (Toady Pence comes to mind), head doctors in hard-hit hospitals may well be to forced to make those who-lives, who-dies decisions after all.

This Trump White House severely cut funds to the CDC and dismissed the task force created specifically to respond to epidemics and pandemics, a task force set up by Obama  in 2010 after the H1N1 Epidemic. As a result of these Republican cuts, we are currently unable to respond to this pandemic in a timely and effective manner.  No wonder there was panic-buying; it's the only thing we were allowed to do. And we certainly do know how to do it, don't we?

Without adequate funding of our public health system from the CDC on down, without support for trained doctors and scientists, we can't protect our most vulnerable citizens - or any of our citizens. We didn't develop reliable tests quickly enough because we didn't have the personnel on deck to do it. We didn't test quick enough because the Rump Administration preferred to pretend the epidemic didn't exist. Don't get me started on the lack of supplies for doctors and nurses on the front lines, which to my mind is criminal.

Now the virus is out in the wild and what testing we can finally do might not be enough to slow its progress. If we can't flatten the curve of the growth of this virus with social distancing, too many people will get ill at once and our hospitals will be overwhelmed with sick and dying patients. Then doctors will be forced to make life and death decisions,  as they are already forced to do in Italy. And by all accounts, we are about 10 days behind Italy.

So, Republicans, you gifted us those Death Panels after all. You created this mess by your short-sighted refusal to adequately fund public health services that benefit everyone in the country, regardless of class or status or political party or persuasion.
Now you own the Death Panels - and the mess.
And we will remember this in November.