Who ASSUMED that we were ready for an Ebola Pandemic?

I am totally confused as to who thought the United States was ready for an Ebola pandemic! I'm a serviceman with twenty years of experience in providing protection for myself and my shipmates in the event of a Biological or Chemical attack! The fundamental procedures utilized to decontaminate my ship, shipmates, and myself are an established protocol that we practice quarterly to be 'PREPARE' in the event we are exposed to a NBC (Nuclear, Biological, or Chemical) attack. 

Furthermore, these same procedures would meet the minimum requirements to protect individuals in harms way from any pandemic such as Ebola! So what the hell went wrong in Dallas; how can we be fully prepared to protect the populous of the United States, if we only have four or five hospitals that have isolation units to support the influx of no more than eight or ten people! We are so not prepared for a pandemic in these United States!

Here is a recent worst case scenario that supports my position... a plane arriving from Belgium experienced an incident of vomiting by a man that came from Liberia! Vomiting is one of the alerts to Ebola! The plane lands and 'all' passengers and the crew disembark from the plane and join the people waiting in the airport for flights, people waiting for arriving passengers! Later, when cognizant authorities are made aware of the incident on the plane in flight, a public announcement is made via the airport public announcement system. The announcement instructs passengers on that flight to isolate themselves from others... if they are in the airport!

What occurred in this incident does all of the following:

1. Exposes everyone in that airport to Ebola!

2. Those that promptly left the airport are potential 'carriers' at-large, capable of infecting untold hundreds of others!

3. Those still in the airport can, in no way, be isolated to reduce the chance of spreading the disease because their is no area so designated and certified to contain an infected person, or persons suspected of being exposed to the disease!

4. There are no certified medical persons stationed at the airport to facilitate an event of Ebola exposure!

We are now learning that none of the people at the hospital in Dallas, TX were certified to protect themselves from a patient presenting with Ebola; in fact, the Ebola patient who requested to be admitted, was initially turned away... creating yet another scenario of mass exposure! The Dallas nurses charged with triage of incoming patients were not certified to perform triage on a patient presenting with Ebola; they did not even know how to protect themselves from expose to the disease!

In essence, we are no more prepared to protect the nation from a mass exposure than any of the three countries experiencing a pandemic of Ebola now! We all heard the officials from CDC stating emphatically that "We know how to contain Ebola; we have done it before, and we can do it again! That was a blatant lie, evidenced by the reactions of the people in that hospital in Dallas, and by the measures taken to protect everyone on the flight into Newark!

Add to that, the defunding of departments of health that would facilitate the gearing up to meet a demand of more than eight to ten patients presenting with symptoms of Ebola, and you can easily surmised that we are in deep trouble!

In a democracy, silence is not golden; it is condonance in the face of injustices; it is fear, where the thought of reprisal fosters control – Rodney A. Davis

Universal Healthcare Without the Hassles

In today’s workplace healthcare is offered for a price by less than sixty percent of businesses employing five hundred people, or more. The cost of healthcare is the prime reason why companies are opting not to offer healthcare to its employees. Hospitals are raising the cost of healthcare by five to six percent each year. Healthcare Administrators add to the cost of providing healthcare. Obviously we can’t continue to accept the spiraling cost of healthcare. Everyone is suffering from the cost and loss of healthcare.

The solution is easy! It is very easy, if you are into socialism. American is a melting pot of the world when it comes to the number of racially identifiable groups of people living in one country. So it stands to reason that socialism could survive within a democratic system of things if we all could agree that healthcare is in trouble and we all know that healthcare is in big trouble. We need to reduce cost, extend healthcare to ‘everyone’, no matter their status in life, and grandfather all healthcare issues particular to anyone needing healthcare.

How so we accomplish all of the above and keep the cost of healthcare down? How do we extend healthcare to all, no matter their status, without putting all of our hospitals out of business? The answer is simple – pool all of the money spent to buy healthcare into one massive healthcare system. Regulate all of the pharmaceutical companies. Regulate all of the fees for procedures performed by physicians. Limit the profits made by hospitals.

Here is how I envision the Healthcare System of the future…

1. Hospitals will accept all patients entering their doors. The quality of healthcare shall not diminish.

a. Liability for mal-practice will be set and uniform

b. Hospitals will be graded for healthcare nonconformance

c. The Healthcare System shall subsidize initial and continuing educational needs of the Medical professionals under contract to work for the Healthcare System.

2. Pharmaceutical companies will reduce the cost to hospitals for their products to standards set by the government.

a. Research for new pharmaceuticals will be subsidized by the healthcare system in conjunction with the government’s Department of Internal Revenue service.

b. Reduced prices for bulk orders of pharmaceuticals shall reflect the final cost to hospitals and consumers.

3. Healthcare Administrators shall administer the different healthcare plans as before, but be supervised and regulated by the Department of Health Care.

4. The Department of Health Care shall subsidize the operating cost of the Universal Healthcare System where necessary to stabilize the system.

How the new Healthcare System will work…

All companies currently providing healthcare to their employees will be given open-house to opt into the new system and receive the following reduction to their healthcare cost:

1. Employee participation fees will be collected and forwarded to the governing body that oversees the day-to-day operations of the healthcare Administrators.

2. All companies opting into the new system will pay a yearly fee based upon the number of employees on their payroll upon entry and at the end of their calendar. Only employees that have worked for six months, or more in that calendar year can be counted to calculate the company’s annual fee. The more employees working for the company, the greater reduction in the annual fee.

3. The Department of Health Care shall provide start-up cost for the transition from private healthcare to government over-sight healthcare.

Employees will have the choice of type of healthcare plan they wish to select. Employees will bear the cost of any plan selected over and above the standard healthcare plan normally provided by the Subsidized Healthcare System.

Those persons not gainfully employed shall received standard healthcare as provided by the healthcare System. Those persons whom are self-employed shall pay a fee for services in accordance with their annual income. No one can be denied healthcare for any reason.

Medicare and Medicaid shall be incorporated into the Healthcare System in accordance with the rules and directives that apply in the Employee/Employer relationship with providers taking on the responsibilities that an employer would have in each instance.

This system is self-sustaining if the unemployment rate remains low. The level of expertise is enhanced by encouraging all healthcare providers to upgrade the level of education of all healthcare workers.

I would encourage those reading this article to offer any advice that would enhance the probability of this type of healthcare plan actually succeeding if it were to be put in place. We thank you in advance…