🕯️ Covid Memorial Day Online Vigil ⚕️ Tell Congress: Defend Medicaid and CHIP! 🏥
It is unacceptable that the Congress has been entertaining eugenicists connected to the Great Barrington Declaration. That ideology is NOT public health, and it’s not medicine.
Contents:
- Events, Actions, & Campaigns
- Pandemic field notes & “Living with the virus”
- In the News (virus & adjacent media, science, news, and op-eds)
- This is NOT Fine section (gaslighting & other outrages)
- He(a)rd Scuttlebutt (the pandemic grapevine)
Covid Memorial Day National Online Vigil w/Senator Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Greg Stanton
Today, Monday Mar 6, 2023 05:00 PM US Pacific Time (8PM Eastern)
Join Marked By Covid for its annual vigil with Covid Memorial Day legislative champions Senator Elizabeth Warren, Representative Greg Stanton, and Representative Jim McGovern. Poetry by Leslé Honoré will be read by Marked By Covid activist Monica Allen.
www.covidmemorialday.org/vigil
USA - Petition: Tell the White House COVID Response Coordinator to tell the truth about Long COVID!
By STRATEGIES FOR HIGH IMPACT: Jha continues to minimize the risks of COVID infection as well as the numbers of people facing the effects of Long COVID.
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/tell-the-white-house-covid-response-coordinator-to-tell-the-truth-about-long-covid/
USA Letter Campaign: Tell Congress: Defend Medicaid and CHIP!
By Coalition On Human Needs: Eliminating the health insurance of millions of people with low incomes is unconscionable. Access to health care is an inalienable right. We cannot allow one political party with the slimmest of majorities -- that’s controlled by an extreme faction -- to cruelly deny health coverage to millions of people.
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-congress-defend-medicaid-and-chip/
Most voters in the U.S. want to increase funding for Medicaid, but the elected lawmakers decided to cut people off Medicaid instead
Medicaid and CHIP continuous coverage was available because of the Public Health Emergency. But that is being ENDED because of a law passed: Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023. And the Public Health Emergency is also being ended. Even though there’s still a problem to deal with.
The Public Health Emergency (PHE) is a federal declaration made by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that was put in place in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. If it is not renewed every 90 days, it ends. During the PHE, states were able to use additional money from the federal government for health care programs like Medicaid if they kept people covered through Medicaid (called Medical Assistance in PA). This means that although DHS continued to send annual renewal paperwork to Medical Assistance (MA) recipients, people generally did not lose their MA coverage if their income changed or they failed to complete a renewal. A recent federal law ends the continuous coverage requirement on April 1, 2023. Starting April 1, 2023, Pennsylvania and other states will have to start completing disenrollments if households are ineligible for MA at the time of their renewal or do not complete their renewal. Everyone with MA or CHIP coverage will need to submit a renewal to see if they are still eligible.
🗞️ In the news
🗓️ Pennsylvania Health Law Project: Continuous Medicaid Coverage Related to the Pandemic Ends April 1, 01.30.2023 (If a person is determined ineligible for Medicaid, they will be sent a denial notice. They will be able to appeal this decision by following the directions on the notice. If they appeal timely, they will not lose their coverage during this process. In addition to appealing, people may request that DHS reconsider a Medicaid termination within 90 days without having to submit a new application.)
🍎 The Washington Post: Millions could see cuts to food stamps as federal pandemic aid ends. For low-income households enrolled in the program, known as SNAP, the cuts could reduce their benefits by an average $182 per month, according to the USDA. By Tony Romm and Laura Reiley, March 1, 2023 (archive link) (A federal pandemic program that provided extra money to Americans who receive food stamps ended on Wednesday, threatening to complicate the finances of an estimated 31 million low-income people while grocery prices remain high. For some households, the cuts are expected to reduce their monthly benefits by an average of $182, according to the Agriculture Department, which manages the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP.)
This is NOT fine
… on so many levels.
It’s a racist policy recommendation considering the demographic statistics on masking in public. (See below.)
He(a)rd Scuttlebutt… pandemic grapevine 🍇🌱
Marked By Covid went lobbying at San Francisco City Hall last week, advocating for mask requirements to continue in health care facilities and public buildings. Unfortunately the press on the event all pushed a ridiculous pluralistic ignorance lie that wanting masking is not popular when in fact it has remained a majority stance.
It is unacceptable that the Congress has been entertaining eugenicists connected to the Great Barrington Declaration. That ideology is NOT public health, and it’s not medicine. Anti-vax and anti-public health is immoral so it’s inappropriate to have those extremists testifying in Congress and recognized, while disabled, high risk, and older adults are out here fighting for our lives to keep going in the face of crap public health ball dropping from every level of government. We need real public health funded and promoted.
I wrote to my representative in congress and I’m encouraging others to do so also.
“There must be continual additions to our great experiment of how much liberty society will bear.”
— Walt Whitman, 1846