Twenty-one-year-old Texas woman Soren Aldaco, who no longer identifies as transgender, is suing her doctors in excess of $1 million over transgender medical interventions she received as a teenager that left her irreparably damaged.
Soren and her lawyer, Ron Miller, are not only searching for accountability and justice in Soren&#8217;s particular case, but want to send a message to medical insurers.
&#8220;It&#8217;s about catching the attention of insurance companies, that they might want to stop insuring this kind of practice,&#8221; Miller told The Daily Wire. &#8220;And if they stop insuring this kind of practice, practitioners tend to not like to take that risk on themselves, so they stop doing it.”
In the lawsuit filed last week, Soren claims that medical professionals in Texas were guided by their ideology and irresponsibly facilitated treatments and surgeries that have led to Soren&#8217;s “permanent disfigurement&#8221; and have caused &#8220;profound psychological scarring.”
“What happened to me was preventable,&#8221; Soren told The Daily Wire. &#8220;I wanna hold my providers accountable for what they did, and I feel very strongly that ideology was prioritized over my long-term mental and physical wellbeing.”
Feeling uncomfortable with her changing body during what she likened to an overly sexualized era of girlhood, Soren started to believe she was really a boy at age 11.
&#8220;I was growing into girlhood during an era where girlhood is, ya know, plastic surgery ads on social media,&#8221; she said, &#8220;or, dances on TikTok where you&#8217;re shaking your butt.&#8221;
Soren waited until she was 17 to seek medical treatment and was quickly pushed through the system, despite suffering from a slew of mental health issues. Miller said Soren was prescribed testosterone by one named defendant within a matter of minutes of knowing the teen, and without any psychological assessment. 
Miller also said that another medical provider authored a “falsified letter” in support of Soren’s double mastectomy. The letter was supposed to come from a practitioner who had been providing Soren therapy on gender dysphoria for over a year. But while Soren was meeting with this practitioner, the therapy was not in relation to her gender.
Following that double mastectomy, Soren pressed her doctors about the pain and bruising post-op, but was told it was all part of the normal healing process. It wasn&#8217;t.
Just two weeks after surgery, Soren ended up in the ER for the emergency removal of blood clots, which included the insertion of temporary drains for the blood and puss.
“I went to the ER and I was there for eight hours, by myself,&#8221; Soren said. &#8220;I had only local anesthesia while they were actually performing the operation to reopen my incisions, no pain meds. It’s probably one of the most traumatic medical procedures I&#8217;ve had, &#8217;cause, you know, I was awake for the whole thing.”
Miller said the facts of Soren&#8217;s case are &#8220;almost unbelievable.&#8221; 
&#8220;The level of disregard and kind of reckless indifference that these medical professionals had for her health, safety, her wellbeing, both physically and psychologically is just grotesque,&#8221; he told The Daily Wire.
Miller said there is no dollar amount that could actually compensate Soren for what she&#8217;s been through and what she&#8217;s lost, and is seeking far more than $1 million from these medical providers, though this number can&#8217;t be disclosed at this time, per Texas procedure. But the goal is not about a payday.
&#8220;For none of us, is it really about the damages other than how much of a message can those damages send.&#8221;
Soren is certainly not the only young person who is suing over transgender medical interventions. A young female detransitioner named <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/no-one-has-a-right-to-sterilize-a-child-two-detransitioners-sue-doctors-over-medical-interventions" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Prisha Mosley</a>, for example, filed a lawsuit against her doctors earlier this month. The suit was the first of its kind in North Carolina. 
Mosley says she was just 16-years-old when she was put on a path to medically transition and claims healthcare professionals lied to her, both by telling her she could become a boy and “grow a penis,” and by withholding critical information about permanent loss of function from such treatments. 
Another young woman who has since detransitioned, Chloe Cole, is <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-03-02/transgender-patients-chloe-cole-lawsuit-against-kaiser-lgbtq-rights#:~:text=Cole's%20legal%20complaint%2C%20filed%20Feb,distrust%20of%20the%20medical%20system.%E2%80%9D" target="_blank" rel="noopener">suing</a> the Kaiser Permanente healthcare system for her transgender treatment, which included puberty blockers and a double mastectomy. On Thursday, Cole testified before Congress about her experience:
&#8220;Doctors are human, too, and sometimes they are wrong,&#8221; Cole <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5079802/chloe-cole-opening-statement-transitioning-detransitioning" target="_blank" rel="noopener">testified</a>. &#8220;My childhood was ruined – along with thousands of detransitioners that I know through our networks – this needs to stop. You alone can stop it. Enough children have already been victimized by this barbaric pseudoscience; please let me be your final warning.&#8221;
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Soren&#039;s Story: How One Detransitioner Found Peace Outside of Medicalization" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FD_brjpAk2c?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Surgeon picking up surgical tool from tray

Why Soren Aldaco, 21, Is Suing The Doctors Who Facilitated Her Medical ‘Transition’ As A Teen

Why Soren Aldaco Is Suing The Doctors Who Facilitated Her ‘Transition’ As A Teen

Health Insurance

Medical

Readers Pass

TikTok

Transgender

transgender surgery

One of the arguments you hear a lot in the debate over gender ideology, across the political spectrum, is that adults should be able to do what they want. This is the supposedly &#8220;moderate&#8221; position. Several presidential candidates believe it. Millions of Americans believe it, too. As long as you stay away from the kids, they tell you, then there&#8217;s no problem. The moment you hit 18-years-old, do what you want. &#8220;Live your truth.&#8221;
It&#8217;s not hard to see why that position is tempting for so many people. Children obviously can&#8217;t consent to life-altering procedures, including genital mutilation and castration. Adults, on the other hand, are able to consent to a lot of things. They can vote, buy guns, and serve in the military. So, if they want to pay a doctor to carve up their bodies, then what&#8217;s the big deal? That&#8217;s the argument you hear again and again.
No one really means it, though. And you know that because none of the people making that argument would use the same reasoning to justify, say, lobotomies. If you walked into a doctor&#8217;s office today and asked him to drill a hole in your head and sever your prefrontal cortex in order to make you feel better about your life, he&#8217;d say no. If he did it, he&#8217;d lose his license. No amount of informed consent — no matter how old you were — could possibly justify it. It&#8217;s barbaric. Tens of thousands of people&#8217;s lives were ruined by lobotomies. And everyone recognizes that now. No one&#8217;s marching in defense of &#8220;lobotomy-affirming care.&#8221;
So, if you defend these gruesome &#8220;gender-affirming&#8221; procedures on adults, you&#8217;re not really saying that adults should be able to do what they want. You&#8217;re saying that, yes, people can change their sex if they want. You&#8217;re conceding that these procedures — slicing up a woman’s arm to make a fake penis, lopping off healthy breasts, grafting fake nipples onto patients&#8217; chests, et cetera — are medically reasonable. And in the absence of any kind of statistical data about positive long-term outcomes of these surgeries, you&#8217;re trusting the doctors to follow an established standard of care. You&#8217;re assuming they&#8217;re not going to just mutilate anyone who walks in the door, without regard for what happens to these people afterwards.
The problem is that the entire industry of &#8220;gender affirming care&#8221; is a scam. We know that because we just spent weeks investigating the largest providers of so-called &#8220;trans healthcare&#8221; in the country. We went undercover at one of them.
What we found is that there are no real &#8220;standards of care&#8221; governing any of this. To be clear, there are &#8220;standards of care&#8221; on paper, and they&#8217;re provided by the transgender activist group WPATH. WPATH&#8217;s standards are used by major hospitals in this country, including UCLA, UCSF, and Mass General, just to name a few.
How rigorous are these standards, exactly? After a 22-minute video call, the largest &#8220;trans healthcare&#8221; provider in the country — carefully following the WPATH guidelines — approved one of my producers, Gregg Re, for an orchiectomy. That means testicle removal. Now, 22 minutes would be a record time to get approved for an orchiectomy if you had a real medical reason for it, like testicular cancer. It&#8217;s insane to approve any serious procedure that quickly, having just met a patient on a video call for the first time. But that&#8217;s what happened.
We recorded the whole call. At no point did anyone at this health care provider, which is called &#8220;Plume,&#8221; push back in any way. They didn&#8217;t suggest that maybe, this was a rash course of action. They didn&#8217;t verify any of the information Gregg provided, including his fake legal name. All &#8220;Plume&#8221; did was insist that he pay $150. If Gregg did that, they promised to write him a medically sound letter in support of life-altering surgery. That letter, under the WPATH standards, is required for anyone trying to get transgender surgery in the United States. You have to get one of these letters from a healthcare provider and present it to your surgeon. And Plume rubber-stamped Gregg&#8217;s letter in 22 minutes. And not all of that time was spent discussing the surgery, by the way. Some of the conversation was about traffic, and the weather. 
We&#8217;ve uploaded footage of the call <a href="https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor" target="_blank" rel="noopener">on Twitter</a>. In this video call, Gregg assumed the name &#8220;Chelsea Bussey.&#8221; He did not dress up as a woman. He didn&#8217;t wear any women&#8217;s clothing or makeup. He didn&#8217;t go to Party City and dye his hair blue. He just told them he identified as a woman and that he was taking hormones prescribed by his father. Gregg couldn&#8217;t even pronounce the name of the surgery he wanted, calling it an &#8220;orchi-dect-omy.&#8221; He claimed at one point that the reason he wanted the surgery is that it would speed up his nonexistent transition, which the Plume nurse said didn&#8217;t make any sense from a medical perspective. But none of this raised any red flags for Plume. The nurse told Gregg she wanted to write him the strongest letter she could. Watch:
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10/ Plume quickly scheduled Gregg for a video interview anyway. He assumed the identity &quot;Chelsea Bussey.” He didn’t even attempt to pass. He badly mispronounced the name of the surgery he wanted. He made it clear he didn&#39;t know what effect the surgery would have. <a href="https://t.co/ph8UbM3i6r">pic.twitter.com/ph8UbM3i6r</a>
&mdash; Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) <a href="https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1666496328224890880?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 7, 2023</a></blockquote>
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11/ Nevertheless, Plume’s nurse practitioner said she wanted to write the most &quot;solid&quot; letter possible to justify surgery. Gregg tells her that he once wrote an essay in school about being a woman, which everyone thought was ridiculous. <a href="https://t.co/iY7Ec3Q1wd">pic.twitter.com/iY7Ec3Q1wd</a>
&mdash; Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) <a href="https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1666496334226939919?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 7, 2023</a></blockquote>
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12/ Gregg also tells Plume’s nurse practitioner that his father has been prescribing him hormones for years. The nurse doesn’t question this in any way. Instead, she says that arrangement is “perfect.” <a href="https://t.co/YsB4BEkUpu">pic.twitter.com/YsB4BEkUpu</a>
&mdash; Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) <a href="https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1666496338035367937?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 7, 2023</a></blockquote>
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A couple days after that interview, as we documented on Twitter, Plume sent Gregg a letter diagnosing him with significant and ongoing gender dysphoria. Therefore, Plume said, he was an &#8220;appropriate candidate for Orchiectomy.&#8221; According to Plume, testicle removal would help Gregg make &#8220;significant progress&#8221; in alleviating his dysphoria. Even after Gregg followed up with text messages to Plume, explaining that he doesn&#8217;t have dysphoria, they didn&#8217;t retract or amend that letter in any way.
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13/ Three days later, Plume sent this letter to &quot;Chelsea Bussey” – who does not exist &#8212; saying he was experiencing &quot;significant, ongoing gender dysphoria.” The letter strongly recommended “Chelsea” for testicle removal. <a href="https://t.co/WzIMsjygS6">pic.twitter.com/WzIMsjygS6</a>
&mdash; Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) <a href="https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1666496344045805575?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 7, 2023</a></blockquote>
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There&#8217;s no excuse for that. Plume had multiple opportunities to tell the truth in their letter, and they chose not to. In his intake form, Gregg indicated he didn&#8217;t have dysphoria for 6 months or more. That means, under the current version of the DSM, he never should have been diagnosed with it in the first place. But Plume never once asked Gregg about this in his video interview. Instead they just said he had dysphoria in his letter, which they intended to be used by a surgeon who would then carve up Gregg&#8217;s testicles.
Why didn&#8217;t Plume amend the letter once they were made aware that Gregg didn&#8217;t have dysphoria? As Plume&#8217;s nurse explained, &#8220;in order for the surgery to be paid for,&#8221; the diagnosis would need to remain. In other words, insurance companies won&#8217;t pay for the operation unless the letter contains a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. That&#8217;s why Plume uses templates that include the gender dysphoria diagnostic code. It appears that they plug whatever information patients feed them into the template, whether or not those patients actually have the diagnosis. The templates are provided by WPATH, by the way — Plume admitted that to us.
It&#8217;s not hard to conclude that this operation is fraudulent, but what do insurers think of it? What&#8217;s Aetna and United Healthcare&#8217;s position on paying for surgeries based on cooked-up diagnostic codes? How about Cigna? We understand those insurance companies work directly with Plume. What about David Sacks, whose venture capital firm is one of many that&#8217;s funding Plume? What are his thoughts on this? Is he aware this is happening? Those are good questions. 
But the problem is much bigger than Plume. They&#8217;re far from the only ones doing this. 
Folx, for example, is a major competitor of Plume. They&#8217;re in almost every state in the country. They&#8217;re also extremely well-funded by venture capitalists. Folx, like Plume, also sells letters used to authorize surgeries under the WPATH guidelines. On their website, Folx admits, &#8220;It&#8217;s quite possible the information in a letter may not be specific to you. For example, they may use a gender dysphoria diagnosis, but you really do not have dysphoria&#8230; You may not fit this diagnostic code exactly, but in some cases, the code is needed in order for insurers to pay for the surgery.&#8221; We reached out to Folx to ask about this. They confirmed that a &#8220;diagnosis&#8221; — in scare quotes — was necessary in order for insurance companies to pay out.
Again, that&#8217;s probably news to the insurance companies. But the bigger issue, of course, is what&#8217;s happening to the patients who are mutilated as part of this process. It&#8217;s not just Plume and Folx who are authorizing surgeries like this. There&#8217;s a whole network of doctors who crank out these letters. It&#8217;s called the Gender Affirmative Letter Access Project, or G.A.L.A.P.
Think of the lives these doctors and these companies are destroying for profit. If they&#8217;ll approve Gregg for castration, they&#8217;ll approve anyone. Many of the luminaries in the field will admit that, by the way. On Twitter, we highlighted this training session from the Juniper Center, which is one of the largest gender therapy practices in the Chicago land area. Watch as the licensed clinical social worker, named Ari Groner, explains that she&#8217;ll rubber-stamp whatever letter patients want. She says she&#8217;ll even authorize a suicidal patient for surgery, because she&#8217;s not a &#8220;gatekeeper.&#8221; In fact, Groner says that if her patient is suicidal, that would just make the case for surgery even stronger. Listen to this:
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2/ First, some background. Ari Groner is a licensed clinical social worker who educates doctors on “trans healthcare.” At a recent training session for the Juniper Center, Groner explained that she writes whatever letters her patients want, because she’s not a “gatekeeper.” <a href="https://t.co/8CVUWiYetY">pic.twitter.com/8CVUWiYetY</a>
&mdash; Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) <a href="https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1666496309535072257?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 7, 2023</a></blockquote>
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If you&#8217;re defending &#8220;gender affirming care&#8221; for adults, this is what you&#8217;re supporting. You&#8217;re saying it&#8217;s reasonable for medical professionals to listen to a suicidal patient, who isn&#8217;t thinking clearly, and approve them for surgical castration within minutes. You&#8217;re saying there should be no barriers to this kind of mutilation, whatsoever. At that point, why not bring back lobotomies? What&#8217;s the serious, principled argument against it?
No serious person can defend this industry. It&#8217;s completely corrupted, at every level. It&#8217;s not just targeting children, although it&#8217;s certainly doing that as well. The underlying claims and promises of the entire &#8220;gender affirmation&#8221; industry are lies, and the lies are propped up by even more lies. And we’ll have much more on WPATH soon, and how they became so prominent in this field. It&#8217;s a truly disturbing story. Their supposedly rigorous standards of care are purpose-built to be manipulated, as we&#8217;ve now revealed. 
The practical effect of these WPATH standards isn&#8217;t to protect patients. Instead, the WPATH standards protect doctors who butcher their patients. These doctors understand that they need to follow some &#8220;standard of care,&#8221; or else they&#8217;ll eventually get sued into the ground for malpractice by the patients they&#8217;re disfiguring. So medical providers point to the WPATH standards, and say, &#8220;look — we followed those standards. These gruesome surgeries are in fact legitimate medical care!&#8221;
Now it&#8217;s time to put an end to this. Insurance companies should cut off these providers. Investors should stop funding this barbarism. And at the political level, we need laws so that any doctor who mutilates patients, or lies to insurance companies, goes to prison — regardless of the patients&#8217; age. Florida recently <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/desantis-signs-florida-ban-gender-affirming-treatment-transgender-minors-2023-05-17/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">passed a law</a> outlawing, among other things, &#8220;trans telehealth&#8221; services. They require in-person visits for most of these procedures. That&#8217;s a start — which is why the media and the trans activists are furious about it. They&#8217;re probably going to sue to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1178-you-won-t-believe-what-we-discovered-in-our-undercover-investigation-of-gender-affirming-care">block</a> that portion of the law, just like they blocked the part of the law outlawing child castration yesterday.
But once people see the truth about what&#8217;s happening, the radical gender activists won&#8217;t win that fight. That&#8217;s why we published our investigation today. The truth is obvious and undeniable. Now that the &#8220;standards of care&#8221; have been exposed for what they are, there&#8217;s nothing to stop a flood of lawsuits that could shut down these butchers. We saw it in the U.K. with Tavistock. If something like that happens here, it could save tens of thousands of lives.
This investigation is just one part of what we have planned for Pride Month. We&#8217;re going to expose the full extent of the depravity that you&#8217;re told to believe is &#8220;medically legitimate.&#8221; We&#8217;re going to show you the truth behind all the euphemisms. We&#8217;re going to reveal how exactly activists have managed to hijack the medical profession so they can mutilate patients for profit. 
This is just the beginning.

Matt Walsh

We Just Proved The Gender Affirming Care Industry Is A Scam

Gender

Gender Identity

President <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/biden-administration" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Joe Biden</a> announced that <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/health-insurance" target="_blank" rel="noopener">health insurance</a> signups via HealthCare.Gov surged to a new record this year.
Created by the Affordable Care Act, a signature Obama administration legislative package often referred to as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/obamacare" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ObamaCare</a>, the website facilitated more than 11.5 million Americans seeking insurance between November 1 and December 15, marking an 18% increase since the same period last year. Enrollment for the website, which serves as a private health insurance marketplace and offers subsidies for Americans who earn between one and four times the federal poverty line, remains open.
“I promised to lower costs for families and ensure that all Americans have access to quality affordable health care,” Biden remarked in a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/12/27/statement-from-president-joe-biden-on-record-2022-healthcare-gov-enrollment/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> from the White House. “In recent days, we received further proof that our efforts are delivering record results and bringing families the peace of mind that comes with health insurance.”
Biden added that four in five Americans who obtain health insurance through the Affordable Care Act can expect to pay less than $10 per month; the Inflation Reduction Act extended benefits that were slated to expire by the end of the year.
The number of non-elderly Americans who did not have health insurance amounted to 27.5 million last year, according to an <a href="https://www.kff.org/uninsured/issue-brief/key-facts-about-the-uninsured-population/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">analysis</a> from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Biden added that his administration is “working to make health care a right, not a privilege.” While many leftists believe that health coverage is one of many positive rights, under which others are obligated to take an action on behalf of another individual, many conservatives contend that no such right exists and favor a negative rights framework, under which the government or other individuals cannot infringe upon specific liberties.
The report from the White House comes as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/medicaid-enrollment-to-hit-100-million-include-nearly-one-third-of-americans" target="_blank" rel="noopener">enrollment</a> for Medicaid, which provides health care to low-income families, approaches 100 million people, or nearly one-third of the population, according to an analysis from the Foundation for Government Accountability.
“Our research and data show as welfare enrollment increases, workforce participation decreases,” Foundation for Government Accountability Data and Analytics Director Hayden Dublois remarked in a <a href="https://thefga.org/press/fga-launches-countdown-clock-to-100-million-on-medicaid/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">press release</a>. “We’re in the midst of a nationwide workforce crisis, yet the Biden administration is pushing policies to entice people into government dependency at record levels while limiting opportunities to achieve the American Dream.”
National healthcare expenditures were equivalent to approximately 18% of economic output last year, according to a <a href="https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and-systems/statistics-trends-and-reports/nationalhealthexpenddata/nhe-fact-sheet#:~:text=NHE%20grew%202.7%25%20to%20%244.3,17%20percent%20of%20total%20NHE." target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, while the two programs respectively cost $901 billion and $734 billion.
A recent <a href="https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Paying-Americans-Not-to-Work.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a> from the Committee to Unleash Prosperity likewise found that unemployment insurance and the “dramatic recent expansion of ObamaCare subsidies” can <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/some-families-with-no-one-working-can-receive-up-to-six-figures-of-welfare-in-three-states" target="_blank" rel="noopener">exceed</a> the national median income in 24 states for families with two parents and two children, even with the end of supplemental programs originally passed during the lockdown-induced recession. Such families in Washington can receive more than $122,000, while families in Massachusetts and New Jersey can reap more than $117,000 and $108,000 in annualized benefits respectively.
“The federal government and the states offer a wide array of more than two dozen programs that provide cash assistance or in-kind benefits to low-income families. These ‘safety net programs’ are designed to keep families out of poverty,” the authors wrote. “But the expansion of assistance, especially in subsidized health insurance to families with children and no parents working, can mean that families can earn as much or more income from receiving government assistance than the median household does from working.”

Joe Biden, Barack Obama

ObamaCare Website Signups Soar To New Record Under Biden

ObamaCare Website Signups Up Under Biden

Biden Administration

Executive

Health

Health Care

Obamacare

U.S.

Medicaid enrollment is expected to hit the 100 million mark soon, according to a new report.
The milestone will likely be reached within the next 75 days, a new project from the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) revealed.
“For years, FGA has been warning about the rising number of people on government welfare programs. Now, we’re nearing a grim milestone — nearly one-third of the country will be on Medicaid,” <a href="https://thefga.org/press/fga-launches-countdown-clock-to-100-million-on-medicaid/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> Hayden Dublois, FGA Data and Analytics Director.
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As Americans count down to the new New Year, we have our eye on another countdown&#8230;
100 million individuals on Medicaid in 75 days. This is unsustainable, and the clock is ticking.
SEE IT IN REALTIME: <a href="https://t.co/Y2tR94L2ac">https://t.co/Y2tR94L2ac</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/medicaid?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#medicaid</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/health?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#health</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/work?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#work</a> <a href="https://t.co/w8jCftjpCw">pic.twitter.com/w8jCftjpCw</a>
&mdash; The FGA (@TheFGA) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheFGA/status/1608463549692510209?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 29, 2022</a></blockquote>
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“Our research and data show as welfare enrollment increases, workforce participation decreases. We’re in the midst of a nationwide workforce crisis, yet the Biden administration is pushing policies to entice people into government dependency at record levels while limiting opportunities to achieve the America Dream,&#8221; he added.
The non-profit group explained in a press release that the rapid growth in enrollment is primarily due to the federal government’s continued extension of the COVID-19 public health emergency. While the emergency is in effect, states receive extra Medicaid funding on the condition that everyone enrolled remains locked into the program.
The program has added an additional 24 million Americans to Medicaid, the FGA stated. This number includes more than 21 million people otherwise unable to qualify because they earn too much money or are otherwise ineligible.
“The pandemic-era policy keeping more than 21 million ineligible enrollees on Medicaid is costing taxpayers more than <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/congress-healthcare-malpractice-medicaid-omnibus-bill-republicans-democrats-11671648241?mod=opinion_lead_pos4" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$16 billion per month</a>. Despite the recently enacted legislation allowing states to redetermine eligibility beginning in April, the Biden administration is slow walking the process and hoping states will be sluggish to act,” Dublois said in the press release.
“In approximately 76 days, 100 million people will be on Medicaid. States should begin preparing now so that they can remove the millions of ineligible enrollees and reclaim program integrity as quickly as possible,&#8221; he concluded.
As of November, <a href="https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/status-of-state-medicaid-expansion-decisions-interactive-map/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">39 states and Washington, D.C</a>., have adopted Medicaid expansion that allows additional low-income people to qualify. In addition, the American Rescue Plan Act offered additional incentives in 2021 for even more expansion.
The Biden administration has highlighted Medicaid expansion as a major reason for the nation&#8217;s uninsured rate falling to a record low of 8% this year. Approximately 5.2 million people – including 4.1 million adults ages 18-64 and 1 million children ages 0-17 – have gained health coverage since 2020, according to an August <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2022/08/02/new-hhs-report-shows-national-uninsured-rate-reached-all-time-low-in-2022.html#:~:text=Today%2C%20the%20U.S.%20Department%20of,Harris%20Administration%20in%20January%202021." target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHS).
The agency noted in its full <a href="https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/77ba3e9c99264d4f76dd662d3b2498c0/aspe-ib-uninsured-aca.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> that administrative data from late 2021 and early 2022 &#8220;show a record-high number of people with coverage related to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) – with more than 35 million people estimated to be enrolled in the Medicaid expansion, Basic Health Program, or Marketplace coverage.&#8221;
The Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) of 2020 required states, starting in March 2020, to suspend Medicaid eligibility terminations and maintain coverage for nearly all existing enrollees, in order to receive a 6.2% increase in their Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP). The report stated that the continuous coverage requirement was the &#8220;primary driver&#8221; behind Medicaid growth during the pandemic.

Mature adult woman in medical consultation with female doctor – stock photo

Medicaid Enrollment To Hit 100 Million, Include Nearly One-Third Of Americans

Medicaid

A new <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-transyouth-data/?scrolltoken=P9HGXzjK8qvkZvGpRKlFxz0dNvrKUKlTsD8XIZ-TvHxVBKM0OM_Y0MbekaXfg0bCsOsIpQ4rKmijQUByYgAqHsBKfFq9kVU-PjIdxDB0i4PTNUWJKh_I_QKY1uoz8kpq__dSLFjtUjnirlN5eHEtj2VjCmn7e5gzapFQQT_enPgIV3vXqYM-SoeLMWsnvEEG0iMa6UMYcYeF7dHMpIzorx8Mlce8QhiWy7xZ8enSqg.eyJraWQiOiIzIn0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">investigation</a> into insurance claims reveals shocking new insights into how many children in the United States have sought and received <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/transgender" target="_blank" rel="noopener">transgender</a>-related medical treatments.
Left-wing news outlet Reuters published a report on Thursday using data analyzed by health technology company Komodo Health Inc that identified the number of children who received a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, puberty blocking drugs, cross sex hormones, and surgeries in recent years.
Komodo Health Inc analyzed its database of U.S. insurance claims and other medical records on about 330 million Americans. The analysis, which Reuters says is the first of its kind, found that at least 121,882 children ages 6 to 17 were diagnosed with gender dysphoria from 2017 to 2021.
In 2021, Reuters reports about 42,000 children and teens across the United States were diagnosed with gender dysphoria, which is nearly triple the number in 2017, and up 70% from 2020, according to the data Komodo compiled.
Over the five-year period from 2017 to 2021, the number of children with a gender dysphoria diagnosis who started on puberty-blockers or hormones totaled 17,683, rising from 2,394 in 2017 to 5,063 in 2021, according to the analysis. Of these, 4,780 patients had initiated puberty blockers and 14,726 patients had initiated hormone treatment.
“These numbers are probably a significant undercount since they don’t include children whose records did not specify a gender dysphoria diagnosis or whose treatment wasn’t covered by insurance,” Reuters said.
From 2019 to 2021, at least 776 mastectomies were performed on teen girls with a gender dysphoria diagnosis ages 13 to 17 in the United States, according to Komodo’s data analysis of insurance claims. “This tally does not include procedures that were paid for out of pocket,” said Reuters. The Komodo analysis of insurance claims additionally found 56 genital surgeries occurred among patients with a prior gender dysphoria diagnosis ages 13 to 17 from 2019 to 2021.
In addition to the data set, Reuters released an <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-transyouth-care/?scrolltoken=w-0Z84Gp-uYQHFImjLpWNA3r5HIT9-yIuyBSZTBPNeU50SsEIYjJF4u_ibxizWMwBQ4pTfaxz38rn_qaKqouFSxB7nMhksmEzh-G7wckT8RSEQrssc98m9uhQmkZUB9foiji5AHDtrQMfgxMh-I7U4AOLtEDmoG6xga4eUzqpivL4ThQaxKyypE6Sr5jMnVxSNz_1FI-rI3YcCnenrwHs9AFCZVDkNOW1XcWkxXr9g.eyJraWQiOiIzIn0">article</a> on Thursday to provide more context to these numbers, including some of the permanent effects of these treatments and the lack of evidence supporting their use.
“Some changes from hormone treatment are permanent,” said Reuters. “Hormone treatment may leave an adolescent infertile, especially if the child also took puberty blockers at an early age,” said Reuters, adding that experts say other potential side effects are not well-studied. In addition, Reuters noted that children who begin taking puberty blockers during the first signs of puberty who go on to take cross-sex hormones will not be able to achieve orgasm. Puberty blockers &#8220;stunt development of the male genitalia,&#8221; Reuters added.
“Complications from genital surgeries are common,” reports Reuters, citing a California study that found a quarter of 869 vaginoplasty patients, with a mean age of 39, had a surgical complication so severe that they had to be hospitalized again. “Among those patients, 44% needed additional surgery to address the complication, which included bleeding and bowel injuries,” said Reuters.
Reuters explains that their analysis “draws on full or partial health insurance claims for about 330 million U.S. patients over the five years from 2017 to 2021, including patients covered by private health plans and public insurance like Medicaid.” More than half of states pay for gender-transition treatment through Medicaid, said Reuters.
“The data include roughly 40 million patients annually, ages 6 through 17, and comprise health insurance claims that document diagnoses and procedures administered by U.S. clinicians and facilities.” Data on puberty blockers excluded their on-label use to treat precocious puberty.
“While the number of gender clinics treating children in the United States has grown from zero to more than 100 in the past 15 years — and waiting lists are long — strong evidence of the efficacy and possible long-term consequences of that treatment remains scant,” Reuters reports.

Naked sexy woman breast with black markings for breast augmentation surgery

New Insurance Data Reveals Shocking Number Of Minors Obtained Transgender Surgeries

Children

LGBTQ

minors

President Joe Biden burst into yelling during a speech in Pennsylvania on Friday where he was aiming to talk about matters related to the economy in an effort to boost his low approval rating.
&#8220;Imagine being the parent making the minimum wage or twice the minimum wage and having a child with type one diabetes, knowing that if you can&#8217;t and have no insurance, knowing if you cannot get that money for the insulin, the child may die,&#8221; Biden said.
&#8220;In addition to your child, it strips you of your dignity dammit,&#8221; Biden exclaimed. &#8220;Can you imagine looking at your child and you know what they need and not be able to do it? Many of you have lost children. Many of you have seen, imagine, it&#8217;s outrageous.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Biden erupts during Pittsburgh infrastructure speech. <a href="https://t.co/38nlCVujJK">pic.twitter.com/38nlCVujJK</a>
&mdash; The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) <a href="https://twitter.com/TPostMillennial/status/1487168028878028804?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 28, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
TRANSCRIPT:
<blockquote>JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT: Imagine being the parent making the minimum wage or twice the minimum wage and having a child with type one diabetes, knowing that if you can&#8217;t and have no insurance, knowing if you cannot get that money for the insulin, the child may die. In addition to your child, it strips you of your dignity dammit. Can you imagine looking at your child and you know what they need and not be able to do it? Many of you have lost children. Many of you have seen, imagine, it&#8217;s outrageous. We have an answer. At the same time, same is true, [inaudible] community based services for seniors and people with disabilities.</blockquote>

Joe Biden

WATCH: Biden Erupts During Speech In Pennsylvania

speech

State workers in Nevada who are in enrolled in public employee healthcare plans will have to pay up to $55 more a month if they haven’t received the COVID-19 vaccine.
Nevada will become the first state to do this, ABC News <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/unvaccinated-nevada-state-workers-pay-insurance-surcharge-81529592">reported</a>, with the state Public Employees&#8217; Benefit Program Board voting on Thursday to charge unvaccinated workers more to “offset the costs of testing those who haven&#8217;t gotten shots are required to undergo in certain workplaces.”
DuAne Young, Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak’s policy director, told the outlet that “This is pandemic has been shouldered on the burden of everyone. And now this particular burden — the testing — should be shouldered on the burden of those who refuse to” get vaccinated.
The increase in healthcare plan cost won’t go into effect until July 2022, ABC reported.
Nevada requires workplaces with a vaccination rate below 70% to test weekly for COVID-19 outbreaks. More from ABC:
<blockquote>Officials said coronavirus-related claims filed by state workers were on track to surpass $6 billion in 2021. By charging state workers and their dependents age 18 and older, the plans will help offset the cost of testing people who refuse to be vaccinated.
Laura Rich, the benefit program’s executive officer, said some public sector plans — including for workers at the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport — have imposed surcharges on unvaccinated employees, but, to her knowledge, Nevada would be the first state to impose a systemwide surcharge on public employee plans.
She compared the premium to a smoking surcharge and said it would help underwrite roughly $18 million in annual testing costs. With thousands of unvaccinated workers, she said administrators had to decide the extent to which tax dollars should pay for the medical costs of those who chose not to get vaccinated.</blockquote>
The Las Vegas Review-Journal <a href="https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/nevada/nevadas-unvaccinated-state-workers-to-pay-insurance-surcharge-2489711/">reported</a> the prior to the Board’s vote on Thursday, “all costs related to employee testing, which was required on a weekly basis as of August 2020, were covered. Through September, the board estimated, the state has spent $3.3 million testing employees for COVID-19.”
“The board cited a plan in Dallas, which implemented incentives for employees to get vaccinated as well as surcharges, and private companies such as Delta. But Nevada would be the first state to implement the surcharge statewide,” the outlet added.
One board member, Tom Verducci, also lamented the fact that state employees hadn’t received a raise in several years.
“I think of the soul out in Lovelock working for the Department of Corrections is paying $800 a month in a trailer with three kids,” he told the Review-Journal. “I have a hard time with this one.”
Dean Heller, a former U.S. Senator from Nevada who is now running for governor, told the Review-Journal that the decision to charge unvaccinated workers higher healthcare premiums was “beyond despicable.”
“This is one of the most arrogant, disrespectful, and power-hungry moves any Governor has ever made toward the working men and women of our state,” he said in a statement. “It is beyond despicable to force employees to undergo testing, then demand they pay out of their own pockets for the mandate. I’m sure our workers are outraged, and rightfully so. They deserve a better Governor.”

Southeast Asian female doctor giving vaccine shot on her male patient in a medical clinic

Nevada Will Charge Unvaccinated State Workers $55 A Month More For Health Insurance

COVID-19 Vaccine

Nevada

In an embarrassing error, Uber reportedly sent some of its drivers and delivery workers an email last month in which the ride-sharing giant offered to pay for at least some of their health insurance costs. Two weeks later, Uber acknowledged a mistake had been made.
According to <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/10/22528148/uber-drivers-health-insurance-mistake-error">The Verge</a>, an email on May 26 was sent with the “enticing” subject line, “It’s a great time to get health coverage.”
The email, sent to an “unspecified number of the company’s drivers and delivery workers” announced, “Uber can help cover your healthcare costs.”
“Drivers and couriers for Uber are classified as independent contractors, making them ineligible for employer-sponsored health insurance plans. For years, many of these workers have lobbied for more benefits and protections, only to face strong opposition from Uber,” the report continued. “So one can only imagine the shock from drivers who opened this email and saw an offer for subsidies ranging from $613.77 to $1,277.54, depending on the type of insurance plan they had and the amount of hours they worked each week.”
“If you need health coverage, there’s no better time to apply for a healthcare plan,” the email read. “More people than ever before will qualify for financial help with their health coverage. 4 out of 5 who enroll in a health plan can find a plan for $10 or less per month, with government financial assistance. You may be eligible for more savings and lower costs on health coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace.”
“After you submit your application, you have 30 days to enroll in a plan. Coverage starts the first day of the month after you enroll,” the email concluded, directing viewers to “Learn more.”
On June 9, Uber issued a correction. “On May 26th, we sent you two emails with the subject line ‘It’s a great time to get health coverage,’” the later email began.
“One of these two emails told you that Uber can help cover your healthcare costs. Unfortunately, we made a mistake sending this email to you, as this policy only applies to drivers and delivery people in California,” Uber continued. “If you signed up for a healthcare plan based on this information between May 26 and today and you want to cancel your plan, Uber will reimburse your first month’s premium.”
The email then provided the recipients with instructions for requesting such a refund.
&#8220;Our support teams are working directly with anyone who was affected and we regret the error,&#8221; said a spokesperson for Uber, according to <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kvkeq/uber-accidentally-offers-drivers-health-insurance-then-retracts-offer">VICE</a>.
Vice added that Jake Stergos, an Uber driver in St. Louis, Missouri received both emails and does not have health insurance. 
&#8220;It is genuinely galling that Uber took two weeks to send a clarification that we are not receiving health insurance,&#8221; Stergos said. &#8220;It&#8217;d be really nice if I could receive health insurance from Uber. I haven&#8217;t been to the doctor in years.&#8221;

Uber

‘We Made A Mistake’: Uber Accidentally Tells Some Drivers They’ve Got Some Health Insurance

Doctor money

How Health Care Price Transparency Can Save Americans Money And Put Consumers In Charge

Donald Trump

Price Transparancy

PragerU’s latest <a href="https://www.prageru.com/video/price-transparency-how-to-fix-healthcare/">video</a> features Will Bruhn, co-founder of <a href="https://www.restoringmedicine.org">Restoring Medicine</a>, a grassroots movement of doctors, nurses, students, business leaders, and everyday citizens from across the United States that are demanding a more honest and fair health care system. The key to bringing down the soaring costs of health care, Bruhn contends, is price transparency. 
Bruhn begins by highlighting how prices for the same procedure can <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5450906/">differ wildly</a> by hospital or provider. When “researchers compared prices amongst 53 hospitals for a standard heart procedure,” not only did they find a “10-fold difference in price for the same procedure across hospitals, ranging from $44,000 dollars to $448,000 dollars,” but also that there was “no correlation between higher prices and better quality of care.” This is not an isolated incident, given that “<a href="https://healthcostinstitute.org/hcci-research/hmi-2019-service-prices">other studies</a> have shown there can be up to a 39-fold variation in price for a simple blood test across medical centers in the same metro area,&#8221; he adds.
The issue, Bruhn argues, is that “we have no idea how much we&#8217;re paying for healthcare services,” and when it comes to medical procedures, consumers are unable to “shop” for a satisfactory price in the same way as airline travel.
“Imagine if the airlines didn&#8217;t post prices,” Bruhn asks. Instead of knowing the price in advance, you will be billed after your flight because the airlines “don&#8217;t know what the cost of fuel will be that day.” This, Bruhn says, is “precisely what we are dealing with in American healthcare.”
Continuing, Bruhn states that the reason you don&#8217;t know how much a procedure or treatment costs prior to being treated is because medical billing is &#8220;a ridiculously complex dance between hospitals, insurance companies and various middlemen.” Not only do private agreements and “secret deals” determine the price, “medical costs are skyrocketing” for patients, meaning that “Americans are having more and more trouble paying the bill,” with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/author-paints-grim-portrait-of-us-health-care-and-our-soaring-medical-debt-he-also-suggests-potential-solutions/2019/09/12/069485d6-d4cb-11e9-9610-fb56c5522e1c_story.html">nearly 20%</a> of Americans in some form of medical debt.
Those who have insurance through their employers, Bruhn warns, also aren’t safe, with wage increases failing to keep up with <a href="https://www.kff.org/report-section/ehbs-2019-section-6-worker-and-employer-contributions-for-premiums/">employee contributions</a> to healthcare premiums. The result? “That salary increase you so richly deserved was eaten up by the increased insurance premium you had to pay.”
What makes matters worse, according to Bruhn, is that “the ever-increasing cost of medical care” is not “reflected in the quality of the care you were getting,” with “little or no correlation between what you pay and what you get.” This raises the obvious question: “How do we get out of this mess?”
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Price Transparency: How to Fix Healthcare" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vYwR-DTzKr0?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
“A big part of the answer,” Bruhn says, “is price transparency, something almost every American wants,” with “almost <a href="https://www.texaspolicy.com/healthcare-price-transparency-wins-in-court/#:~:text=According%20to%20a%20national%20survey,in%20healthcare%20should%20be%20disclosed.&amp;text=Some%20advocates%20of%20the%20proposed,to%20make%20lower%20cost%20choices.%E2%80%9D">9 out of 10</a> Americans say they favor price transparency for medical services.”
Bruhn argues that this makes perfect sense, since Americans don’t have access to either of the two factors which ensure that they have the proper information to make an informed decision: price and the quality of a good or service. Not only that, since “<a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/439308-price-transparency-is-key-to-a-functional-health-care-market">60% of healthcare is shoppable</a>,” such services present opportunity for competition.
Bruhn also states that the benefits wouldn’t end there. Citing an <a href="https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/welcome-ad?toURL=/clinical-care/wasteful-spending-us-healthcare-estimated-760-billion-935-billion">estimated</a> annual wastage of $760 billion in the US healthcare system due to “administrative complexities,” transparent upfront prices would allow medical centers to “cut a significant portion of their administrative staff that’s now involved in billing and debt collection.”
“Furthermore,” Bruhn continues, “if pricing was transparent, Americans could actually start pushing the market towards rewarding those who offer a fair and honest price, and pushing out the bad actors.”
Ultimately, more Americans would have access to healthcare.
Concluding, Bruhn argues that “we don&#8217;t need the government to take over our health care.” Instead, “we need the government to get out of the way.” Pointing to procedures like laser eye surgery, MRI testing and plastic surgery as positive examples, Bruhn says we should “let entrepreneurs innovate in the healthcare space,” since when they do, “prices go down and quality goes up.”
&#8220;Price transparency not only lowers costs, but it puts the patient back in the center of what medicine is all about: helping those in a time of need,&#8221; Bruhn concludes.
PragerU is the world’s leading educational nonprofit focused on changing minds through the creative use of digital media. You can make a <a href="https://donate.prageru.com/give/316306/#!/donation/checkout">tax-deductible donation here</a> to help PragerU continue to reach millions of young people with their videos.

PragerU Price Transparency

PragerU: Price Transparency: How To Fix Healthcare

Prager University

Americans can get a coronavirus test for free, but if they wind up in the hospital for treatment of COVID-19, they could face tens of thousands of dollars in bills – even if they have insurance.
For the uninsured, they can expect to pay anywhere from $42,486 to $74,310 for coronavirus care, according to a recent analysis by independent nonprofit <a href="https://go.aws/2UsQs2E" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">FAIR Health</a>. And for those with insurance, out-of-pocket costs could be a portion of $21,936 to $38,755. That isn&#8217;t what they&#8217;ll pay, but many have deductibles that range from $5,000 to $15,000 for long-term care like hospitalizations.
&#8220;To determine the estimates, FAIR Health drew on its database of over 30 billion private health-care claim records, and on estimates of Medicare and Medicaid costs, to project U.S. costs for COVID-19 patients requiring inpatient stays using diagnosis-related groups associated with pneumonia,&#8221; <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/01/covid-19-hospital-bills-could-cost-uninsured-americans-up-to-75000.html">CNBC</a> reported.
&#8220;FAIR also ran a slightly different cost analysis of COVID-19 medical care using procedure codes associated with influenza and pneumonia,” continues CNBC. “Using those metrics, FAIR found uninsured Americans with COVID-19 could pay an estimated average of $73,300 for a 6-day hospital stay, while insured patients could expect to pay a portion of the $38,221 average cost billed to insurers.&#8221;
COVID-19 is the disease people get from SARS-CoV-2 (SARS stands for &#8220;Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome”). To determine the cost, Fair Health tallied the cost for the most often used treatments and services for patients suffering from influenza and pneumonia. Fair Health noted that some people would not require all the same services and treatments.
Americans could face huge bills even if they&#8217;re not hospitalized for COVID-19.
&#8220;Danny Askinsi, based in the Boston area, told Time magazine that she tested positive for COVID-19 and is uninsured. Her testing and treatment involved three trips to the ER before she was tested, resulting in a nearly $40,000 medical bill,&#8221; <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-covid-19-treatment-testing-costs-2020-3">Business Insider</a> reported.
&#8220;And two people who didn&#8217;t test positive, but received other related treatment and testing, received bills for over $3,000. Add up all these high medical costs for matters of life and death during a pandemic and you see a broken healthcare system at a time when Americans literally can worst afford it,” according to Business Insider.
Numerous health insurance companies, including massive ones like Anthem, are now passing portions of the cost on to consumers in the form of deductibles – and Anthem can decide after a subscriber&#8217;s trip to the emergency room that the trip wasn&#8217;t an emergency after all.
&#8220;Anthem has introduced a restriction on emergency care coverage, effectively denying most if not all coverage if they decide after your ED visit that you didn’t have an emergency condition. Say you went to an emergency department for severe abdominal pain and nausea that sounded like your cousin’s appendicitis, only to find out the cause was a nasty stomach virus,&#8221; <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2018/03/09/anthem-insurance-emergency-care/">StatNews</a> reported in 2018.
&#8220;After the dust has settled, Anthem reviews the bill and decides that your visit was inappropriate and could have been treated in your doctor’s office or at an urgent care center,” StatNews writes. “The company then covers only a fraction of the cost, if any, and you are responsible for most of the bill. What’s more, this expenditure would not count towards your deductible or out-of-pocket limit.&#8221;

Money

Being Hospitalized For Coronavirus Could Cost Americans Tens Of Thousands – Even If They Have Insurance

COVID

On Tuesday, Vice President Mike Pence announced that the Trump administration was able to get major insurance companies to agree to waive copays on coronavirus testing.
“I&#8217;m pleased to report that as you requested, Mr. President, that all the insurance companies here, either today, or before today, have agreed to waive all copays on coronavirus testing, and extend coverage for coronavirus treatment in all of their benefit plans,” Pence announced during a meeting with President Donald Trump and insurance CEOs, according to <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/486816-pence-major-health-insurers-have-agreed-to-waive-copays-for-coronavirus">The Hill</a>. 
The VP, who was tasked last week to help lead the effort in combating the coronavirus,  added that insurance companies also agreed to avoid any &#8220;surprise billing&#8221; by making prices for coronavirus-related treatments available to patients up front.
The health insurance companies that attended the meeting, and are seemingly onboard with waiving such copays, include UnitedHealth Group, Anthem, Cigna, Humana, Aetna and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, The Hill reported.
According to Pence, the companies represent nearly 240 million Americans.
The coronavirus has infected more than 700 people in over 30 states and killed nearly 30 people, the Johns Hopkins University tracker estimates, <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/10/insurers-tell-white-house-they-will-cover-virus-te/">The Washington Times</a> noted Tuesday.
During a press conference Monday, Pence said that there will be more people who test positive for the virus in coming days as testing increases throughout the nation. The vice president emphasized that the &#8220;vast majority&#8221; of people who contract the virus will fully recover and those at greatest risk are the elderly.
The vice president encouraged Americans to visit <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html">Coronavirus.gov</a> to understand the risks, learn about necessary precautions, and get updates about the virus.
According to the site, which has been updated periodically, coronavirus, or COVID-19, developments will likely include &#8220;more instances of community spread.&#8221;
&#8220;It’s likely that at some point, widespread transmission of COVID-19 in the United States will occur,&#8221; the site states. &#8220;Widespread transmission of COVID-19 would translate into large numbers of people needing medical care at the same time. Schools, childcare centers, and workplaces, may experience more absenteeism. Mass gatherings may be sparsely attended or postponed.&#8221;
&#8220;Public health and healthcare systems may become overloaded, with elevated rates of hospitalizations and deaths,&#8221; coronavirus.gov noted. &#8220;Other critical infrastructure, such as law enforcement, emergency medical services, and sectors of the transportation industry may also be affected. Healthcare providers and hospitals may be overwhelmed.&#8221;
&#8220;At this time, there is no vaccine to protect against COVID-19 and no medications approved to treat it. <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nonpharmaceutical-interventions/index.html">Nonpharmaceutical interventions</a> would be the most important response strategy,&#8221; the site added.
The &#8220;nonpharmaceutical interventions&#8221; section hyperlinks to recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which includes the following:
<ul>
<li>Staying home when you are sick.</li>
<li>Covering coughs and sneezes with a tissue.</li>
<li>Washing hands with soap and water or using hand sanitizer when soap and water is not available.</li>
<li>Staying home if you have been exposed to a family or household member who is sick.</li>
<li>Covering your nose and mouth with a mask or cloth if you are sick and around people or at a mass gathering in a community where the pandemic is already occurring.</li>
</ul>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/major-sports-leagues-impose-new-policies-over-coronavirus">Major Sports Leagues Impose New Policies Over Coronavirus</a>

President Donald Trump And Vice President Mike Pence

Trump Admin Gets Major Insurance Companies To Waive Copays On Coronavirus Testing

Mike Pence

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