Coronavirus Special Report: “Epidemics” Become More Deadly When Living Standards Are Lower

Brandon Turbeville
The Organic Prepper
January 28, 2020

Year after year, the world's public is subjected to a fear campaign surrounding some frightening disease, from Zika virus to Ebola. Each year Western audiences in particular are brow beaten with fear over a disease that, one year later, is scarcely remembered. What is remembered, however, is the reaction of Federal, local, and state governments and the ever growing authoritarian "solutions" provided. The solutions always take the form of "discussions" over even greater violations of individual rights, forced vaccination, dislocation, forced quarantine, and medical tyranny. 

 This year's disease is Coronavirus, a SARS-like upper respiratory illness that has allegedly killed over 40 people in China and is allegedly popping up all over the world, including here in the United States.

For the purpose of this article, we will leave aside questions of how this virus suddenly appeared, its origins, real dangers, and how it is spreading so fast.

Assuming that the threat of Coronavirus is real, there are a number of solutions to the festering pandemic that are acutely being ignored. Travel bans from affected areas, greater screening at airports and other national access points, particularly the U.S./Mexico border have all been largely ignored until recently. A comprehensive policy of treatment and containment of the disease that does not entail the implementation of martial law and the violation of Constitutional rights also appears to be nonexistent.

Yet there is also a more long term set of solutions that must be implemented in order to prevent the disease from spreading and to prevent its appearance in the first place. The end of austerity, the rebuilding of economic opportunity, access to proper nutrition, and the progress and development of the American health system are all essential to treating and preventing Coronavirus and outbreaks from diseases like it.

Austerity begets disease

Throughout history, plagues and disease epidemic can be traced directly to austerity, low living standards, and/or poor sanitation conditions often coupled with inadequate nutrition and lack of available treatment. War and periods of struggle are also precursors to epidemics. Any one of these conditions can themselves beget plague and disease. Yet, when taken together, they are a recipe for devastation and plague.

Medicare To Become Insolvent Sooner Than Expected, Time For An Overhaul

Brandon Turbeville
Natural Blaze
June 18, 2018

A recent report circulating throughout the mainstream media regarding the coming “insolvency” of Medicare and Social Security has sent shockwaves through the United States with many of the Baby Boomer generation concerned that, after working and paying into the program their entire lives, they will be left with nothing when it finally comes time to stop working.

As the Associated Press reported,

Medicare will run out of money sooner than expected, and Social Security's financial problems can't be ignored either, the government said Tuesday in a sobering checkup on programs vital to the middle class.

The report from program trustees says Medicare will become insolvent in 2026 — three years earlier than previously forecast. Its giant trust fund for inpatient care won't be able to fully cover projected medical bills starting at that point.

The report says Social Security will become insolvent in 2034 — no change from the projection last year.

The warning serves as a reminder of major issues left to languish while Washington plunges deeper into partisan strife. Because of the deterioration in Medicare's finances, officials said the Trump administration will be required by law to send Congress a plan next year to address the problems, after the president's budget is submitted.

Forget Socialism And Markets, It’s Time For Universal Healthcare – The System We Need And How To Pay For It

Brandon Turbeville

Natural Blaze

January 25, 2018

After decades of suffering under a private “market-based” healthcare economy, Americans who were also suffering under high unemployment rates, lower living standards, and high stress, found themselves burdened by a private health insurance industry that charged exorbitant rates while denying coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions and refused to pay out for needed medical care for many whom it did cover.

For years, many Conservatives suggested even more de-regulation of the insurance markets and the elimination of any government involvement in the health industry. This, they argued, would create competition and bring about cheaper prices. Many on the left, however, aware that the Conservative argument was based on faulty principles and that it would, in fact, do the opposite of what well-meaning-Conservatives desired, argued for a “single payer” or “universal” program. However, these well-meaning liberals fail to define what they mean by “single payer” and typically rely on even more burdensome methods of funding for such a program; i.e. raising taxes, cutting care.

Ironically, however, Democrats and Republicans, despite years of hurling insults and launching political campaigns against one another, can actually agree upon the ideal healthcare system – forcing Americans to buy private insurance at the barrel of a gun, allowing those companies to raise premiums, and cutting costs by cutting care for the healthcare customer. This was an insurance companies’ dream as well as the dream of Big Pharma and Wall Street. For the American people, it was and already has been a nightmare.

Affordable Care Act - Repeal, Readjust - Regardless, We Want Universal Healthcare And An End To Obamacare Rationing, Insurance Comp. Bailout

Brandon Turbeville
Natural Blaze
January 19, 2017

As Congress now debates the repeal of Obamacare/ACA, it is important to understand what is actually being discussed, the options being put forth, and what we, the American people, actually want. For those of us who want to see a system of Universal Healthcare where every American has access to at least the basic medical available, the current debate has many nuances.

First, it is clear that the ACA must be done away with. Despite what Obama cultists may claim, the ACA is not universal healthcare. Instead, it is a massive bailout for insurance companies, rationing of care, and the implementation of austerity under left cover. It has hurt millions of people by draining money out of their pockets for the crime of being too poor to purchase the rationed insurance from a private company at inflated rates. For the middle class, it has been a major inconvenience. To working and poor America, it has been a disaster.

That being said, we cannot simply return to the previous system where only the wealthy and middle class could obtain adequate healthcare and where the insurance companies simply ran a rationing board of their own, albeit at a smaller scale than what the ACA allows.

So what, exactly, should be we be aiming for?

Hillary Clinton: Rationing Healthcare Before Rationing Healthcare Was Cool

Image Source: NBC News

Brandon Turbeville

BrandonTurbeville.com

March 2, 2016

Americans are only beginning to realize what a colossal mistake allowing the passage of the Affordable Health Care Act actually was. Far from being true universal health care delivery (a system that could easily be created by taxing Wall Street turnover), Obamacare was nothing more than a combination of forced participation in a private market and the ultimate rationing of that health care once the purchase of insurance was made.[1]

Since the passage of the AHA, Americans have seen the premiums they have been forced to buy from private insurers sky-rocket in cost while those on government-based healthcare programs like Medicare and Medicaid have seen cuts and gutting.[2] [3] Those large numbers of individuals who are unable to afford coverage, do not have it provided by their employers, or not enrolled in a government program, are forced to either buy extremely expensive plans or go without. For those that go without, a massive tax penalty awaits at the end of the year. This has succeeded in creating an entire class of Americans who pay large sums of money without actually receiving health care.

In addition, those fortunate enough to receive healthcare through their employers are subject to a special tax at the end of the year to ensure that every American loses something in the deal.

Even more concerning is the trend toward rationing, an inevitable aspect of the law that was part of the plan from the very beginning. With cuts to government programs and, at the same time, forcing Americans to buy private insurance plans, dire decisions will be made by insurance boards and oversight committees such as the CCCCER as well as Medicare and Medicaid boards. Health care decisions will be based on “cost-effectiveness” instead of what is best for the patient.[4]