Big Federal health initiatives like the CDC, the NIH and yes, Obamacare, will protect the US population from the Ebola outbreak.
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With the appearance of Ebola on U. S. soil in Texas and other possible cases being rumored to exist in Kentucky, it time to do a reality check and get the facts about risk of infection in the United States. To begin, you can read the World Health Organization’s Ebola FAQ.
Vox.com has this to say about Ebola in the US:
Modern public-health systems can manage diseases that travel through bodily fluids. The techniques are laborious, but known. You isolate those who have contracted the disease, or might have contracted it. You find out who’s been near them. You screen them for the disease. You isolate anyone who shows symptoms. You do this until the disease is stamped out. It works. And modern public-health systems know how to do it.
CDC Director, Dr. Tom Frieden says, “Ebola can be scary. But there’s all the difference in the world between the U.S. and parts of Africa where Ebola is spreading. The United States has a strong health care system and public health professionals who will make sure this case does not threaten our communities. While it is not impossible that there could be additional cases associated with this patient in the coming weeks, I have no doubt that we will contain this.”
And ThinkProgress has this to say about Federally funded public health initiatives and Ebola.
Meanwhile, here at home, the publicly funded National Institutes of Health (NIH) is “developing an investigational Ebola vaccine.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is helping health care facilities prepare for possible Ebola cases and ensuring that they have the facilities to manage a patient with Ebola symptoms.
And what about Obamacare, the very law Republicans sought to defund? It too is playing a role in preventing an epidemic. Research has shown that people who lack health insurance delay or skip health care services or substitute home remedies or over the counter drugs for doctor visits that can diagnose and prevent the spread of communicable disease. People who have access to routine needed care are less likely to be susceptible to disease, leading to improvements in individual and community resilience.
The law also establishes a Prevention and Public Health Fund that provides state and local governments with additional resources that can help “prevent, detect, and respond to disease outbreaks” and includes provisions that can be “leveraged to integrate preparedness into daily health care and to help create stronger routine and emergency health care delivery systems that can surge to respond to disasters.”
So, it is safe to say that Ebola will have a difficult time spreading in any nation that has a robust public health system like ours. Furthermore, a large coordinated response at the Federal level, leveraging the kind of big healthcare initiatives that only Washington can coordinate, will insure that any cases of Ebola that do arise will be contained. This is exactly the kind of emergency that big government health initiatives are able to address. Its a good thing we have well funded, well coordinated initiatives in place to do the job.
Big initiatives like the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health, and yes, Obamacare.
Dear Good Men Project, your “Do You Have Ebola?” sign is missing at least one other type of body fluid–semen. (Hmm, wonder how that was missed…) Please see: http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/faq-ebola/en/ (Item 2). Perhaps you shouldn’t do things that are best left to medical professionals, since your sign could do more harm than good.
Dear Good Men Project, thanks for amending your sign based on my comments, above, and on Twitter . Please consider totally rewording your sign to provide a link to full info on Ebola from medical organizations like WHO or the CDC, and please don’t use the wording “You don’t have Ebola”. You are not a practicing physician who has examined the reader. Thanks, again.
Mark Greene, your words do not convince me. It is the governments actions and non-actions that form the foundation for my opinion and so far I agree with the lady above. Also, where are you getting your anti-federalism from? She is very clearly saying it is the federal governments responsibility to implement travel restrictions (that they have not), and she is spot on. Finally, if I had any doubts you were wearing your Democrat politics on your shirt sleeve when you wrote this article. you removed any doubt by how you responded to the lady, above. In addition to your… Read more »
Please excuse the typographical errors in my response, above, as I thought I could correct (edit) them, but there is no way to do so on this site.
John Thomas, thank you for your comments and observations.
Your confidence–may I respectfully add, over-confidence, is somewhat amazing to me. When the White House and US Gov officials refuse to implement travel restrictions of non-citizens entering the USA from areas affected by Ebola–something that is commonsense and would greatly help with reducing the number of people entering the USA who either have Ebola or were exposed to it and will develop it shortly after entering, I cannot agree with you and cannot have any confidence in them that they have a handle on this. P.S. I worked for the US Gov for 32 years within the DOJ and then… Read more »
I assure you, with a non-airborne disease like Ebola, our medical establishment is up to the job. What puzzles me is how we continue to bash the very federal government that will help keep Americans safe. Anti federalism is epidemic when there is a Democrat in the White House. It all evaporates when someone like Bush is in.
As a note and follow-up, FYI, I voted for Mr. Obama both elections, and as a prior 36 year federal employee, I worked under both R and D Administrations and their agency political appointees. Trying to suggest my opinion is a political one would be and is a mistake. (And, I stand by my opinion noted above.)
Bridgette Rodriguez. I agree with you, totally. Travel restrictions (into the United States) are needed and are the responsibility of the federal government to implement. They have failed us. It is also hard to have confidence in them when they already fumbled the ball in the first play of the game, so-to-speak. (The Dallas case.)