And I thought EMTALA, Obamacare, and Medicaid Expansion was supposed to "fix" this? - Granite Grok

And I thought EMTALA, Obamacare, and Medicaid Expansion was supposed to “fix” this?

But as always, “mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money” is needed when two simple letters strung together would suffice (but that would require self-control and self-responsibility; two former ideals that were considered to be virtuous in our pre-Progressive past).  From an article titled “Amid gonorrhea outbreak, health officials urge for thorough STD screenings”, the Concord Monitor decided that personal behavior wasn’t at fault here for skyrocketing (and “unexpected!”) rates of STDs.  Nope, a preventative “no” never enters into their equation – after all, “urges” must be consummated in our no boundaries / no regrets morality, right?  Nope, here’s the reason why this article caught my eye (picked apart here, reformatted and emphasis mine):

…The sexually transmitted disease had reached outbreak levels in New Hampshire, according to the department. Between 2007 and 2013, the disease had stayed level at about 130 cases per year. Then, in 2016, the department got 465 reported cases – a 250 percent increase. “The amount of increase has certainly been surprising to us,” said State Epidemiologist Dr. Benjamin Chan. Chan and his office are now conducting research to figure out why more people are contracting the disease, but there are other STD increases to worry about. From 2011 to 2015, cases of chlamydia in the Granite State went up by 22 percent and syphilis rose by 81 percent.

It’s not just New Hampshire; America’s STD rates are at an all-time high, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Doctors and public health officials attribute the increase to a few different factors, including lack of access to health care and screening and a decrease in condom use and people having multiple partners.

Well, gollllllly – multiple partners, eh?  Who’d a thunk it?  Yet,  the “reason” totally escapes them?  Yet, they won’t blame that as the Numero Uno problem with this epidemic,

it’s the lack of access to health care.  Really?  Are you kidding me?  The EMTALA law made it mandatory that anyone going into a hospital’s emergency room had to be taken care of regardless of anyone’s ability to pay.  Obamacare made millions of people pay more so that the uninsured could have policies.  Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion did even more to “cover” people (and raise even more taxes) to cover this “behavior epidemic”. HOW THE HECK CAN THERE BE A LACK OF ACCESS???? We’ve socialized the entire cost of mitigating bad decisions – is this author nuts? Or willfully ignorant?

Yep, I went there – just like the “obesity epidemic” and the “opioid epidemic”, this “epidemic” is behavior based.  It is decision based – I will or I will not.  This Progressive ideology has all but taken away “personal agency” (the idea that we humans are better than animals in that we can control ourselves).  That’s how it used to be – make a decision and bear the results.  Now, no one is at fault for anything (unless you are a conservative).  Progressives have created an atmosphere where almost any problem is no longer a personal responsibility and all bad decisions are mitigated through a socialized cost structure (you did bad but I have to pay for it – but not you). But I digress – more on the healthcare access schtick:

 

Allen said she thinks the reason for the STD rise is not so much that people are more promiscuous than they used to be; rather, the problem is lack of access to health care for people who can’t afford health insurance.

The lack of awareness of the author, one Ella Nilson, is stunning in not pushing back on this idiotic statement by one nurse practioner Rachel Allen.  This is both “no judgementalism” at its worse and a blindness to what Govt has done to the healthcare market to boot.  Seriously a lack of healthcare again?  What do they want – a doctor and a nurse standing at your bedside with a bottle of pills and a tray of matching needles?

If people are uninsured …“I don’t think that people’s sexual practices have changed drastically,” she said.

Eyebrows going high enough to meet my hairline on that on – and then set my hair on fire. With all of the ways that Govt will see that you are taken care of, that first bit is all but Mountain Dew spewing. Enough with the uninsured / lack of access already!  But a tad more on that promiscuous bit:

For instance, younger people or people with multiple or new sex partners should get tested once a year for gonorrhea and chlamydia, especially if they are not using condoms.

After all, do you know where your partner(s) have been?

Higher risk populations, like gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men are recommended to be screened at least once a year for STDs, while IV drug users are recommended to get tested for HIV at least once a year. “Anybody can get these infections but there are certainly populations that are higher risk,” Chan said.

And WHY are they at higher risk?  There’s that P word again.  Look, what you do on your own time is your own business but make no mistake, your mistake gets added to the stats.

 

One barrier to a thorough screening is simply that getting specific about sex can be uncomfortable for doctors and patients. For instance, patients might feel like a doctor is judging them and doctors might not want to give the impression that they’re assuming something about a patient’s sex life.

Yeah, heaven help us for being “judgemental” – my doctor looks at my weight every time I go in.  Lately, he nods approvingly as I’ve kept the 50lbs I lost off my frame.  Before that, not so much.  That kidding aside, have we become a society that so bends over backwards to be non-judgemental that our brains have fallen out and we can’t tell right from wrong anymore?  Have we transitioned to one that anything everywhere at anytime is just dandy (unless you are a conservative then throw away the key as you walk away from the jail cell).

 

Oh, and we can’t make anyone embarrassed – that would be setting up an societal norm (er, do we have any anymore?):

At the Equality Health Center, Allen gets around the discomfort by asking every patient the same question on an intake form to make sure no one feels singled out. Allen said she tells each patient, “I care about your health and I ask everyone this. I’m not here to judge anyone.”

Yeah, everybody’s a Precious Snowflake and we can’t hurt anyone’s feelings. Even if it saves your life (or someone else’s)  Maybe if you told them to stop, you wouldn’t have to see them as often (and they’d be healthier – and isn’t that the entire goal?).

Besides screening, the Department of Health and Human Services is trying to prioritize easier access to STD treatment.

 

“We have a hard time tracking down partners and getting them into care,” Chan said. “Many of the people we contact either don’t know or aren’t willing to share the names of their sex partners.” Allen said that it’s particularly difficult to get sexually active young men to come in for testing and treatment on their own, which made expedited partner therapy a good way to get more people treated.

“That’s a tool that we’ve lost,” she said.

Tool?  No, the real tool that’s been lost is a sense of get married first and then don’t fool around outside of that coupling. To hold up the act of becoming one as something more than just effortless fun or an anonymous hook-up.  Sure, I may be an anachronism with that outlook in today’s world, but guess what – I have NEVER had to worry about this group of diseases nor of the long term consequences of them. And it is special, too.  But thanks to my generation, the Boomers, and the sexual revolution they started with the Pill coming online in the 60s, consequences of a serious decision were masked (at least the baby part).

But then again, I’m not a Progressive.

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