Sunshine Hate
The annual Florida-Florida State football game has been not unduly referred to as “Sunshine Hate,” a great moment of friendly regional rancor. As of this writing the Gators are a 2.5 point-favorite in the rivalry game tomorrow, even as a much larger fight is rushing quickly upon us.
The storm hit, and from a direction I wasn’t expecting. When the Medicare and Medicaid programs were corruptly developed and stupidly accepted in 1965, it became a forgone conclusion that we were on a permanent road to nationalized care, and with that, society had begun to formalize a new view of health care workers as subjects of the collective, and undeserving of the same civil liberties enjoyed by their patients. Long tracks were laid to our newest conflict, wherein a tyrannical bureaucracy is being utilized to assault individuals and enforce an administration’s vaccination religiosity on those the least in need of it by far. The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services is a thug arm being wielded by the central power to ensure universal conformity, extorting health care workers with the loss of employment if they don’t roll up their sleeves when so ordered. A great many of us had COVID-19 when there were no vaccines available, and the fickle public was still calling us “heroes.” This summer my little rural hospital with exactly zero ICU beds was maintaining critical-care patients for weeks on so much high-flow oxygen demand that it threatened to freeze our antiquated O2 pipes in the full blast of summer, requiring our physical plant staff to swap out tanks all night long and monitor the flow into the building so that it went neither too high nor too low. There were no regional ICU beds available, and we muddled through. But now the same workers, nurses, and physicians here and in small towns nationwide that hung in there and overcame tough circumstances, while constantly exposed to the virus, are being told that we are a threat to patients.
A spokesliar for CMS said, “”Health care workers have a special ethical and professional duty to protect their patients. There is no question that staff in any health care setting who remain unvaccinated pose both direct and indirect threats to patient safety and population health.” No question?? No one from The Fauci to CDC Director Walensky to the idiots at any typical federal press briefing can explain how an unvaccinated person is a threat to a vaccinated one, nor do they even deign to try. The spokesliar’s claim of a “direct” threat is grossly unscientific and suggests the vaccine does not work; the claim of “indirect” threat is refuted by transmissibility and mutation/variations among the vaccinated.
Florida’s Governor DeSantis has filed lawsuits against both OSHA and CMS to fight this assault, and I pray he is successful. “Our hospitals are expressing concern and angst about the situation they find themselves in — caught between conflicting federal and state policies,” Mary Mayhew, president and CEO of the Florida Hospital Association (FHA), said, “And where there is clearly a lack of clarity, there is confusion. Meanwhile, our hospitals are trying to effectively communicate with their staff, who are already stressed and strained. This confusion is just exacerbating that.” She is right, and fear and uncertainty over this mandate is the leading conversation topic in our facilities every single shift.
Big Hospital is on board with the government-public health-media axis, as stated by the American Hospital Association: “AHA has been supportive of hospitals that call for mandated vaccination of health care workers in order to better protect patients … “ Sure, and Big Hospital like other corporate entities are risk averse and apart from a terrifying mob acquiescence, are doubtless favoring mandates as another layer of lawsuit protection.
The bastards at CMS control Medicare funding, the primary revenue stream for the hospitals they constantly abuse with more regulations, more obstructive EMR’s, more nonsensical core measures, and more mandates, all of which are contrary to that silly old Hippocratic Oath that has been successfully denuded. “Hospitals are obligated to comply with the CMS regulation, so that they are able to provide access to care for millions of elderly and vulnerable individuals, Mayhew said. Hospitals also want to avoid any enforcement action and financial penalties from the state.” This is not an abstract problem kicked around in a political science workshop. “There is concern about staffing when it comes to compliance with the federal rule, Mayhew said, as hospitals are experiencing ‘one of the worst workforce shortages … in a very long time.’”
Exactly. Time to insert the obligatory if sincere statement that I am NOT anti-vaccine, but 100% anti-vaccine mandate. More studies are emerging showing at least comparable if not superior immunity for those who recovered from COVID-19, and they should NOT be required to take this vaccine. Those being forced to are already set up by precedent to forcibly accept any booster coming down the pike, or any other intervention for any future condition as determined by Fauci and his camp guards. Here in the Sunshine State, my friends, colleagues, co-workers and I are very worried about how this will play out, and for many this will come down to a choice between accepting self-harm, or destitution.
I hope Florida finds their running game and avoids stupid turnovers this Saturday, and maybe the Gators can finally break their losing streak. And I hope we still have jobs in the new year.
I find the disconnect on policies between the 1980s and 2021 alarming. In 1990, in the middle of the AIDS crisis, healthcare workers were told we had zero rights to test a patient for HIV. Testing was an infringement on the patient’s rights. The right to restrict nonemergency surgery to someone who is HIV positive was said to be unacceptable. Healthcare workers were exposed at a time when there was no treatment and no vaccine with no concern.
In 2021 we do the exact opposite where everyone needs to be tested and we can’t proceed with non-elective surgery in someone who is positive. Perhaps because the group in 1980 to 1990 is what we consider a politically protected group. That group is favored by one political party that now has taken an exact opposite viewpoint on this virus COVID-19. The same principles applied to that virus are not being applied to this virus. It is the hypocrisy that bothers everyone when science is politicized. It’s the different applications for different groups that bothers everyone not safety standards. It’s the hypocrisy of the same leaders not wearing masks themselves and going into crowded gatherings.