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If we needed yet another example of what’s
wrong with health care in this country, we
got it. Sharing the headlines with reform this summer has been concern about the H1N1 — better known as swine flu — virus. As fall arrives, health officials are worried that the highly contagious and potentially deadly virus could mean big problems.
Drug companies have come up with a vaccine that will be available to those most susceptible to the virus in a week or so. Our government paid for those vaccines.
Or, put more accurately, we paid for those vaccines with our tax dollars.
Earlier this summer, the Department of Health and Human Services announced the availability of $350 million in grants to help states prepare for HINI and the fall flu season. A total of $260 million in public health emergency response grants will go to local agencies, like health departments, to help with things like vaccination campaigns.
Ninety million dollars in hospital preparedness grants will be distributed nationwide to help those institutions ready for a potential surge in patients an outbreak could cause.
These millions are in addition to whatever sum Uncle Sam is paying the five companies it hired to produce the actual vaccine.
That the government would use our money to help protect us from a pandemic flu seems appropriate and logical. That the amounts are staggering is evident.
Doctors will receive the vaccine, along with syringes and other necessary supplies, free of charge.
94.9%