The View from Right Field

Lessons for the Next Pandemic from this Pandemic

The Financial Times reported on Monday¹ that Tedros Adhanon Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization, is calling on China to “give full access” to a team from WHO to investigate how the pandemic emerged.  Yeah, right.  Like China is going to do that.  They haven’t done it so far; they’re not going to do it now.  It’s sort of silly to keep calling for it.

But what I found more interesting about the article was this paragraph:

“The two most prominent theories [as to the virus’s origin] envisage either a zoonotic jump from animal to humans via Wuhan’s wet food markets or contagion stemming from an accidental leak from the city’s virology laboratory.  But no scientific consensus has emerged from the debate, and Tedros reiterated that all options remained “‘on the table’.”

When the Dog Actually Catches the Bus. Republicans on Obamacare, Roe v. Wade, and Now 2023

It’s an old joke: Dogs are always chasing buses (among other things).  But do they have any idea what they would do if they actually caught it?

Which is what happened to Republicans on both Obamacare and Roe v. Wade.¹  After Obamacare passed, the Republicans had a clear position on what they would do if they got back in power: Repeal it.  It was simple, and the House, which flipped to the Republicans in the 2010 election, voted to repeal Obamacare a number of times.  Of course, it was easy to do.  Until the 2014 election, the Democrats still controlled the Senate, so no repeal passed by the House would ever become law and it didn’t matter much about the details.

National Health Insurance – The Other Kind

When people think of health insurance, they normally think of the insurance that pays their medical bills.  And when they think of national health insurance, they think of a national system that either provides people health care or pays their bills.  England has a National Health Service that does the former.  The United States has Medicare, which does the latter.¹

But I would suggest there is another kind of national health insurance.  The purpose of this kind of national health insurance isn’t to pay bills or provide services.  It is, rather, to make sure there is enough capacity in the health care system so that you can get care when you need it, separate and apart from who pays for it.

Vaccine Equity

It’s interesting how ideas bounce around the world.  Back in February and March, the stories in the United States were about how hard it was to get the vaccine and whether shots were being distributed “equitably”.  There were complaints that minority communities were not getting their fair share of vaccines and that whites were getting shots that “belonged” to minorities.

Much the same thing happened earlier this month in New Zealand.  David Seymour, the head of ACT New Zealand, a right/libertarian party, got in trouble for publishing a “Priority Access Code for Maori” for Covid vaccinations.  But as Mr. Seymour explained, his publishing of the code had no practical effect.  The code wasn’t private; other people knew it; and the people giving the shots were vaccinating anybody who showed up anyway.  Plus, New Zealand has had fewer than 2,000 cases of Covid and just two deaths since January 1, so it really doesn’t matter the exact order in which people get shots.  The key is getting them vaccinated.

Designing Things For the People Who Use Them

Tim Harford wrote recently about the problems he had interpreting the instructions for a mail-order Covid test.¹  It was, he said, a matter of what behavioral economists call “the curse of knowledge,” i.e., “the difficulty a well-informed person has in fully appreciating the depth of someone else’s ignorance.” 

As Mr. Harford notes, “[a]nyone who has assembled a Lego set can attest that, with enough care, it is possible to provide clear instructions even for complex tasks.”  The problem is that too often people don’t take “enough care.”

Waiving IP for Vaccines – Or Actually Doing Good

The Biden administration has, perhaps not surprisingly, agreed to support a temporary waiver of intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines.  It sounds good on the surface, but I can’t help but wonder if the better solution might be to just pay Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna to make as many doses as they can as quickly as they can.  They know how to make these vaccines.  They have the best idea on how to ramp up production.  Instead of giving away IP to people and companies who may or may not know how to make these vaccines, why not just buy more doses from the people who do know how to make them. 

The United States could volunteer to pay the costs.¹  The total cost would probably disappear in the rounding with all of the programs the Biden administration is already proposing.  And giving away vaccines would be a great foreign policy move.  Russia can’t afford to do it, and China doesn’t have vaccines that work as well as these.  But we do can it.  We can help the world.  And that’s something you do when you can.

Can Washington Ignore the Coming Medicare Funding Crisis? Springfield Says Yes.

The Chicago Tribune last Friday had an Op-Ed by Robert Moffit on the coming insolvency in the Medicare trust fund.  The Congressional Budget Office has confirmed the Medicare trustees’ report that the fund, which covers hospitalization costs and related services, will run out of money in 2026.  Unlike Covid-19, this crisis has been obvious for years.  Paul Ryan was talking about it, and proposing plans to deal with it, more than a decade ago.  But Democrats ignored him and most Republicans did, too.  Especially once Donald Trump got nominated and elected.

But with date for insolvency of 2026, the headline on Mr. Moffit’s Op-Ed reads, “Washington can no longer ignore the coming Medicare crisis.”  Unfortunately, I think this underestimates our politicians in Washington.  The only choices in this situation are hard ones, and Washington has been ignoring this problem for years (as I said above), even though the solutions a decade ago would have been far easier.  I am sure the people in Washington can continue to ignore it.

Polio – and the Covid-19 Vaccine

With Covid-19 and everything else that is happening, polio isn’t something most people think about right now.  But I do – because I remember when polio was a big deal. 

In the early 1950s, 25,000 or more children were getting polio every year.  Some years it was more.  In 1952, it was 58,000, and in 1953, it was 35,000.  But then, in the spring of 1955, it was announced the Salk vaccine worked!  I don’t remember much about it, I was only six at the time, but I remember getting a shot early in the process.  Maybe it was because of what was happening in Joliet, where I lived.  I don’t know.  But what I do remember is getting that shot and how happy my mother and dad were when I got it.

And that’s why I am getting the Covid-19 vaccine.

Little Sisters of the Poor and Free Birth Control

There was considerable outcry earlier this week when the Supreme Court upheld Trump administration regulations under Obamacare that provided the Little Sisters of the Poor, and other religious groups, did not have to provide free contraceptive services under their health plan.  Well, actually, it was more complicated than that.  The Obama administration had not required the Little Sisters to provide free contraceptive services; it required the Little Sisters’ health plan to provide free contraceptive services, without charging the Little Sisters for the services.¹  The problem for the Little Sisters was, as I understand it, that they did not feel comfortable with what they had to do in order to opt-out of providing free birth control.² 

Apparently, 70,000 or more women could be left without free birth control under the Trump administration regulation, which bothers (outrages) a lot of people.  But the point is, which a lot of people seem to miss, is there is a simple way to make sure free contraceptive services are provided to all women without forcing groups like the Little Sisters to violate their religious principles: Have the federal government pay for it.  If free birth control is that important, just pass a law and provide for it.  Nobody’s religious principles are violated,³ and women get free birth control. 

We Need More Capacity in the Medical System. And It’s Going to Cost Money.

It is clear we need more capacity in the medical system.  More rooms; more ICU units; more equipment.  On hand and ready to use.  If you cut things too close, you may not have enough in an emergency or a pandemic.  

But if we want more capacity, it is going to cost money, and somebody is going to have to pay for it.  We don’t have to argue about that now.  Other things are more important at this point.  But we are going to have to discuss it in the future; when this is over.  Because more won’t be free.