Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Flexibility Around Vaccine Mandates Could Alleviate Health Care Rationing
Townhall.com ^ | October 28, 2021 | Jean Morrow

Posted on 10/28/2021 4:28:48 AM PDT by Kaslin

A hospital in Lewiston, Maine has closed its neonatal intensive care unit and has plans to reduce ICU beds by 50 percent as well as medical surgical beds by 40 percent. This isn’t because the hospital is overrun with COVID-19 patients but because, at the end of this month, unvaccinated hospital staff will be terminated.

The result will be restricted access to care and longer wait times. In a word: rationing.

The term “rationing” seems like something that only happens during times of war. But in reality, medical resources are often rationed when demand outpaces supply. Policymakers would be wise to consider how to offer the greatest supply of healthcare services to the greatest number of patients, even if that means offering flexibility around mandates to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

Since the early months of the pandemic, we have seen rationing of health care — from a lack of doctor-patient telemedicine infrastructure to other medical services (tests, procedures, and surgeries) delayed or rescheduled because they were deemed “elective” or “nonurgent.”

These policies, which often led to further patient suffering and worse conditions, were utilized again with the rise of the Delta Variant in summer 2021. COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions also led to delays in diagnosis, treatment, and worse outcomes for cancer patients.

More recently, we have seen hospitals in the States of Washington and Colorado deny transplant patients vital organs needed for survival because they had chosen not to get the vaccine.

“Rationing” is continuing, and the latest development relates to the COVID-19 vaccine.

After the vaccine was fully approved in August 2021 by the Food and Drug Administration, many medical organizations (including the American Medical Association and 60 others), states, and hospitals have started to require the vaccine for personnel.

As the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) recently reported, 39% of all hospitals in the U.S. are mandating that their employees get the COVID-19 vaccine. This summer alone, the Houston Methodist Hospital fired or accepted the resignation of over 150 healthcare staff who did not want to get the vaccine.

Dozens of hospital systems are losing staff due to vaccine mandates. Some polls indicate that as many as 50% of unvaccinated healthcare workers would quit or look for a new job rather than comply with the vaccination requirement.

What is the result? Healthcare staff shortages and ultimately more rationing of care.

For a long time, our nation has experienced medical staffing shortages, from doctors to home health aides to nurse practitioners. With the rise of COVID-19 in fall 2020, the situation worsened: hospitals in 25 states reported a lack of nurses, doctors, and other staff. Additionally, there is an increase in burnout and practitioners going on stress or medical leave.

Vaccine mandates also apply to respiratory techs, nursing assistants, food service employees, billing staff, and other healthcare workers. These professionals are also already in short supply. As one hospital administrator put it, “You may have the finest neurosurgeon, but if you don’t have a registration person everything stops… We’re all interdependent on each other.”

Regardless of one’s perspective on the COVID-19 vaccine, it’s clear that vaccination requirements are exacerbating healthcare shortages.

Some states like New York, which may lose thousands of healthcare workers over its vaccine mandate (including 1,400 recently fired from the state’s largest healthcare provider), are looking into using the National Guard for staffing shortages. However, some regional health care systems don’t qualify for National Guard staffing assistance. Reliance on outside assistance from other burdened states or countries or enlisting the National Guard is not a silver bullet.

Instead, there needs to be robust flexibility.

One potential area for compromise is testing. With widespread COVID-19 testing available and in convenient ways, this should be leveraged for flexibility for our healthcare professionals. For example, Oregon allows for weekly testing for the unvaccinated.

Furthermore, we are learning more about natural immunity.

Over 15 studies demonstrate the power of immunity by previously having the virus. A recent Cleveland Clinic Study deduced that, of those studied, front-line healthcare staff who got the virus did not get reinfected. Additionally, the study’s researchers concluded “individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination.”

Healthcare systems and nursing homes that develop flexibility for workers with previous COVID-19 infections will have a competitive advantage.

Due to demographics and other factors, America was facing a healthcare shortage even before the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic, unfortunately, made things worse. We should now avoid burdening our healthcare system with additional pressure toward rationing.

A potential decline in COVID-19 cases is on the horizon. Until the pandemic is behind us, policymakers and bureaucrats, including in hospital systems, must continue to weigh COVID-19 precautions against other risks. The risks imposed by healthcare rationing are real, to our liberty and to our health.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: covid19; healthcareproviders; vaccinemandate
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-25 next last

1 posted on 10/28/2021 4:28:48 AM PDT by Kaslin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

We don’t need or want “flexibility”.

That’s capitulation.

L


2 posted on 10/28/2021 4:31:51 AM PDT by Lurker (Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending that it is.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

All these medical, EMT, firefighters and police could work through the faake pandemic with no problems but 2o months in they now need to get an experimental jab.

FJB and all liberals and anyone who believes Fauci, the CD and NIH.


3 posted on 10/28/2021 4:33:33 AM PDT by maddog55 (The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Those who make these mandates are plenty flexible - they have their head up their posteriors!


4 posted on 10/28/2021 4:35:42 AM PDT by MortMan (You better bring yours, when you come to take mine. - Creed Fisher)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lurker

Agreed. While the idea of mandates with accommodations such as weekly testing are being bandied about, rarest wife and I are prepared to say “no” and potentially lose our jobs over it. I’m not going to give an inch on this. Mandatory testing for a job where neither of us reports to an office is absurd, and I’m willing to lose my job over it.


5 posted on 10/28/2021 4:44:21 AM PDT by rarestia (“A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.” -Hamilton)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
Meanwhile, from PA...

ATTENTION PA PEDES: PA House RINOS Drafting Vaccine Mandate Legislation

6 posted on 10/28/2021 5:06:31 AM PDT by mewzilla (Those aren't masks. They're muzzles. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: rarestia

“Mandatory testing for a job where neither of us reports to an office is absurd, and I’m willing to lose my job over it.”

As you should be because it is absolutely absurd.

This is no longer about “public health” if indeed it ever was. This is about power and control. Resistance is no longer optional. And it must be done in any way one can.

Become that fly in the ointment or sand in the Vaseline. Individually it won’t be much. But cumulatively the effects will be immense. Don’t talk about it, don’t advertise it, don’t make a group plan, and for God’s sake don’t post it on “social media”.

Just do it.

L


7 posted on 10/28/2021 5:07:59 AM PDT by Lurker (Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending that it is.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: mewzilla
And then there's IL...

Illinois Democrats Want To Nuke Conscience Protection Law To Eliminate Exceptions To Vaccine Mandates. The governor and legislature are now proposing to 'clarify' the legislation, by which they mean to prevent people from using it for its intended purpose.

8 posted on 10/28/2021 5:13:19 AM PDT by mewzilla (Those aren't masks. They're muzzles. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

CNN Headline: Virus Mandate expected to greatly lower Healthcare Costs

(what they won’t say is that the mechanism for lowering the costs is to fire half of our healthcare workers)


9 posted on 10/28/2021 5:14:51 AM PDT by BobL (I shop at Walmart and eat at McDonald's, I just don't tell anyone, like most here.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: rarestia

https://www.canadiancovidcarealliance.org/media-resources/ethics-professor-dismissed-for-refusing-vaccine/

An ethics professor in Canada shares your views, and gives this lesson to her Ethics 101 students.


10 posted on 10/28/2021 5:18:42 AM PDT by 21twelve (Ever Vigilant. Never Fearful.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Lurker

Beware of a dog that does not bark and a man that does not talk.


11 posted on 10/28/2021 5:20:47 AM PDT by hopespringseternal
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: hopespringseternal

“Beware the fury of patient men.”

L


12 posted on 10/28/2021 5:23:52 AM PDT by Lurker (Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending that it is.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: hopespringseternal

“Don’t ever mistake my silence for ignorance, my calmness for acceptance, and my kindness for weakness.”


13 posted on 10/28/2021 5:25:07 AM PDT by 21twelve (Ever Vigilant. Never Fearful.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: BobL

And fake “vaccines’ will kill off a large part of the population...


14 posted on 10/28/2021 5:31:27 AM PDT by ridesthemiles ( )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

INSULTING every single worker who worked tirelessly during months of unknown.


15 posted on 10/28/2021 5:35:40 AM PDT by ridesthemiles ( )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Oh, is the word “flexible” coming from the same people who insist that the 2020 election was “fair”?

Stuff it.

Being flexible under these conditions is another version of “going along to get along”.
I will not compromise with this crappola. If you want a vax to protect yourself, fine. It is a good idea for you. If you try and mandate it for anyone, ANYONE, bugger off.


16 posted on 10/28/2021 5:39:41 AM PDT by bobbo666 (Baizuo)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

They are firing nurses/doctors who didn’t get the vax, and refusing treatment to the unvaxxed.

The government has ALREADY taken over healthcare. No need to fret about it happening. It has happened. The government now selects who lives, who dies, who earns money, who doesn’t.

The totalitarian control they wanted, they now have it.


17 posted on 10/28/2021 5:59:53 AM PDT by I want the USA back (Buy a Let's Go Brandon! sticker. Show your disdain for the maniac in the White House. I did.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

All this Hospital needs to do is to STOP Treating patients that have already been Vaccinated, because we all know the vaccine is safe and effective, go home you will be fine...


18 posted on 10/28/2021 6:00:14 AM PDT by eyeamok (founded in cynicism, wrapped in sarcasm)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lurker
We don’t need or want “flexibility”.

That’s capitulation.

Agreed.

It's not an anti-vax thing (for me anyway). I've had all the usual vaccines for someone my age - including a Tetanus booster recently. Before I would consider a covid vaccine I want to see 5 or 10 years of data on long-term effects.

It's not that I'm anti-testing. Knowledge is good, and if you're sick you should stay away from others. That goes for covid, the flu, colds, whatever. That's just common courtesy - which is apparently less and less common these days.

However, when it comes to a government flunky or my company demanding that I get a vaccine or any medical procedure or decision, that I do have a problem with. A big one. You want to see my resolve harden, this is exactly how you do it. For a government to mandate medical procedures and treatments, to force them on people is wrong. If you're feeling good about it, like "Yeah, everyone should have to...it's for your own good." just look up Nazis and what they did. They experimented and forced things on people - to gain knowledge and "for the common good" too. If that doesn't change your mind, you might just be a fascist.

It's not that they are mandating a vaccine (even one that I don't want).

It is that they think they can mandate my personal medical decisions.

This is a bad, very bad precedent if we allow it to stand.

19 posted on 10/28/2021 6:25:48 AM PDT by ThunderSleeps (Biden/Harris - illegitimate and everyone knows it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: ThunderSleeps

Remember when everyone got mad after the idea was floated about drug testing welfare recipients because it was too invasive? LOL.


20 posted on 10/28/2021 6:28:25 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-25 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson