Saliva Tests Comparable With Nasal Swabs for SARS-CoV-2 Detection
During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, polymerase chain reaction testing with nasopharyngeal swabs has been the standard diagnostic approach, but the method is uncomfortable and requires a trained health professional. Now, 2 meta-analyses have concluded that self-administered saliva tests are on par with nose and throat swabs for detecting severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).
The first analysis, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, examined 37 studies with 7332 paired samples. It found that saliva tests’ sensitivity was 3.4 percentage points lower than that of nasopharyngeal swabs.
The second article included 16 studies involving 5922 patients. It determined the tests’ sensitivity and specificity to be almost identical. Considering saliva tests’ ease of use, comfort, and good performance, “testing centers should strongly consider adopting saliva as their first sample choice, especially in community mass screening programs,” the article’s authors, from Montreal’s McGill University and the US National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, wrote in JAMA Internal Medicine.
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What Was In Ashli Babbitt’s Backpack When She Was Shot Dead by a Capitol Hill Police Officer Will Shock You
A clear case of manslaughter
On January 6th, 2021, Ashli Babbitt, a 14 year Air Force Veteran, was shot and killed by a Capitol Police Officer. The Capitol Police continue to hide details of her shooting death from the American public.
It was the only shooting incident at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The Officer who shot Ashli Babbit reportedly said Ashli’s backpack factored into him killing her. But what was actually inside Ashli’s backpack? So does wearing a backpack give an officer an excuse to shoot you dead now?
In a public statement made by the Police Officers’ Attorney, Mark Schamel, he states the backpack Ashli was wearing compounded the Officers fears.
In the same statement, he directly contradicts himself by saying he could not see the three uniformed officers, only a hallway full of people. He also couldn’t see how far the hallway extended. If he could see Ashli Babbitt was wearing a backpack, he could see the three uniformed officers within the direct vicinity of her.
So what is the truth?
The Officer clearly states Ashli’s backpack compounded his fears and led to his decision to shoot and kill Ashli Babbitt. Due to the slight chance that there might be a bomb or a weapon of some sort, he chose to be the judge, jury, and executioner based upon a what-if scenario.
So what did Ashli Babbitt have in her backpack? Was it a bomb or a weapon of mass destruction? Maybe a chemical weapon or high-capacity firearm?
It was a wool sweater and a scarf.
Ashli Babbitt was killed for carrying a wool sweater and a scarf.
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Caring More About the Punishing the Rich Than Either the Economy or the Constitution
Elizabeth Warren has again proposed a federal wealth tax.
The reality that the Supreme Court could declare a federal wealth tax to be unconstitutional is apparently irrelevant to Senator Warren. The possibility of a deep negative economic consequence to the United States as the result of a wealth tax is apparently irrelevant to Senator Warren. The probability that the stock market would be slaughtered by wealthy investors all simultaneously selling stocks and bonds is apparently irrelevant to Senator Warren. The probability that the only buyers of stocks and bonds after a wealth tax would be foreign governments is apparently irrelevant to Senator Warren.
For a wealth tax to be constitutional, two of the six conservative Supreme Court judges and all three of the liberal judges would be required to determine that a wealth tax is not a direct tax. These Supreme Court judges would need to conclude that more than a century of precedent need be obviated. These justices would need to conclude (a) that the 125 year old Pollak decision was incorrect, (b) Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts was incorrect in what he wrote in NFIB v Sebelius in 2012 and (c) that most of the Supreme Court tax decisions over the past 100 years requiring what is referred to as a recognition event for income to be taxable are all moot. This is a tall order for a Court that reveres stare decisis, the legal principle of determining points in litigation according to precedent.
While there are progressive lawyers and progressive academics who insist that a wealth tax would be constitutional and that the Supreme Court would provide its stamp of approval, there are equally qualified lawyers and academics who believe that a wealth tax would not be constitutional.
Why Senator Warren is not pursuing a wealth tax as a constitutional amendment is a question she has not addressed. Likely, this is because she does not believe the country would support a constitutional amendment to impose a wealth tax. There should be a message in that line of reasoning.
If there is only a 20 percent chance that Senator Warren’s tax plan would be unconstitutional, implementation of a federal wealth tax and creation of programs that would be supported by the wealth tax would be a fool’s errand. (This author believes there is a near 100 percent chance that the current Supreme Court would find a national wealth tax to be unconstitutional.) Congress could not in good conscious implement any continuing new programs after passage of a wealth tax, lest the funds no longer be available in year three or four after a negative decision by the Supreme Court.
If the Supreme Court ruled against Senator Warren’s wealth tax, the Treasury would be forced to return every wealth tax dollar previously collected (with interest) along with eliminating every new program funded with the wealth tax unless other taxes were raised significantly.
Senator Warren’s wealth tax provides for a 2 percent tax on net assets between $50 million and $1 billion and a 3% tax on net assets above $1 billion. Her projections show that $252 billion in federal taxes would be raised in year one. She is wrong by a factor of about 100 percent.
A wealth tax would be accompanied by the sale of assets by taxpayers in order to raise the capital to pay the wealth tax. Should the Senator’s wealth estimations hold true, along with her proposed increase in capital gains taxes, the combination of her new wealth tax accompanied by her new capital gains tax be a tax of 4% to $1 billion and 6 percent for and remaining assets. This would put the total wealth and income taxes raised by Senator Warren’s wealth tax to $500 billion per year.
Nothing Elizabeth Warren can pass in Congress will change the underlying basics of supply and demand. The estimates being made with respect to the funds that would be raised from a wealth tax are wildly optimistic. There would appear to be an assumption that the sale of $500 billion of assets every year to pay the wealth tax along with the necessary income taxes would not be accompanied by a reduction in the price of the assets to be sold.
It is axiomatic that the value of investment assets would decline dramatically if an annual wealth tax was imposed on the wealthy. New investment would decline if not cease. When everyone is a seller, prices go down. Faced with a ten-year $5 trillion tax bill over ten years, the wealthy would not be buying stocks and the value of pension plans would collapse along with the revenues collected.
As pointed out by the Tax Foundation, the only possible buyers would be foreign governments who would be purchasing at bargain basement prices. Who would think that selling America to foreign nations is a great way to move forward toward the middle of this century?
The more famous quote is that a rising tide raises all ships. Senator Warren’s wealth tax would create the reverse which is equally true: A falling tide lowers all ships.
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Washington Must Face the Coming Medicare Crisis
Official Washington, D.C., just got another early warning. The Congressional Budget Office recently confirmed the Medicare trustees’ 2020 report that the Medicare trust fund—the Part A account that funds the hospitalization and related services—faces insolvency in 2026.
Insolvency means that Medicare wouldn’t be able to fully reimburse hospitals, nursing homes, and home health agencies for promised benefits. In 2026, Medicare payments would be immediately cut by 10%, and the payment cuts would continue each year thereafter.
Medicare patients would be hit hard. You cannot cut provider payments for medical services without impacting the beneficiaries of those services.
The COVID-19 pandemic briefly highlighted Medicare’s vulnerability to economic setbacks when the Congressional Budget Office last September projected trust fund insolvency even earlier: 2024.
Statewide lockdowns shocked the economy, spiking widespread business closures and driving high unemployment. These disruptions reduced Medicare’s job-based federal payroll taxes, threatening insolvency earlier than anticipated.
Insolvency two years earlier or later makes little difference. Washington policymakers must soon make some big decisions and cannot escape responsibility for what will happen to the program, its beneficiaries, or the taxpayers.
There is nothing new here. Year in and year out, the Medicare trustees have repeatedly warned Congress and the White House that the Medicare trust fund meets neither short- nor long-term financial standards. It has been routinely running tens of billions of dollars in annual deficits, and is expected to generate red ink well into the future.
A demographic imbalance is increasing the pressure. The trustees report that over the last 35 years, Medicare enrollment doubled, and is projected to grow by 50% over the next 35 years. Meanwhile, the number of workers supporting Medicare beneficiaries is shrinking.
In 2008, there were four workers per beneficiary, but in 2019, that declined to three workers per beneficiary. By 2030, there will be only two and a half workers supporting each Medicare beneficiary.
What to do? If Congress and the White House really wanted to eliminate Medicare trust fund deficits altogether—a big if—the trustees say that Washington could either raise the standard payroll tax from 2.9% to 3.66%, immediately, or reduce Medicare trust fund expenditures by 16%. That is unlikely.
The Medicare trustees nonetheless posit these stark options simply to “illustrate the magnitude” of the changes needed to eliminate deficits and insolvency. They recognize, however, that such immediate changes would be unpalatable, and measures are likely to be more gradual. Even so, the longer Washington waits, the more painful the solutions become.
Any hike in the federal payroll taxes to stave off the impending insolvency would be an untimely blow for small businesses, their workers, and their families following the government lockdowns, the recent economic contraction, and massive job losses.
The other option—cutting Medicare payments to Part A providers even more—carries risks of its own.
The Affordable Care Act already authorizes big future Medicare payment reductions to hospitals, nursing homes, and home health agencies. Within the next 20 years, government actuaries report, Affordable Care Act provider payment reductions will guarantee financial losses and jeopardize Medicare beneficiaries’ access to quality care.
More recently, these institutions suffered a serious financial blow from government edicts to cancel scheduled care in response to the pandemic.
Even though hospital revenues have begun to rebound, and Congress provided hospitals with emergency payments, some hospitals are still struggling financially. This would not be a propitious time to hit them with another cut in Medicare reimbursement rates.
Finally, Congress could turn on the general revenue spending spigot to cover the trust fund losses. That would drop the pretense that Medicare Part A can continue as a “social insurance” program paid for by Medicare beneficiaries during their working lives. But that would pour more gasoline on Washington’s raging fiscal fires, generating even higher deficits and dangerous debt—now estimated at over $27 trillion—beyond that incurred by recent pandemic spending.
Painless solutions are nonexistent. But targeted solutions are available. Congress could enact a temporary Part A premium—the equivalent of a surcharge—to cover the Medicare trust fund’s projected deficit, and eliminate it when the fund is rebalanced.
But addressing the hospitalization trust fund crisis is only the beginning of serious Medicare reform. Washington policymakers must also phase in more substantial changes, including raising the age of eligibility to 67 in harmony with Social Security and indexing it to life expectancy, and further expanding “means testing” to reduce the burdens on middle-income taxpayers and beneficiaries.
The big change would be to build on the successes of Medicare Advantage, Medicare’s system of competing private health plans, and enact a comprehensive defined-contribution program and harness the powerful forces of consumer choice and market competition. That would not only improve the quality of care, but also control costs for beneficiaries and taxpayers alike.
That is a big job, and it must start sooner rather than later. It will take a combination of brains, guts, and bipartisan cooperation. It’s called statesmanship.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/03/09/washington-must-face-the-coming-medicare-crisis
************************************************Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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