Do your part, let’s beat this thing

Three tests, two shots, but just let me know if more is needed.

That’s a short and very superficial synopsis of my personal Covid story, but in truth the story goes much deeper. I suspect that’s the truth for most of us.

This past Sunday morning found me in a long line at a Tampa, Florida, testing site. I had what felt like a terrible head cold with congestion and coughing, and my voice was almost gone. I was hoping to visit with some nieces and nephews and their partners that afternoon, but I wanted to test first.

The results were negative, as had happened with my previous two tests, though my wife had tested positive earlier in 2021 and we had not quarantined because we didn’t know in time. I have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccination and had gotten a booster in November soon after it became available for me.

As of today, reports are that there were 1 million new cases reported on Monday, Jan. 3 (though many think the high number was due to a holiday backlog, but likely still we are having 500,000 new cases per day at least). The president plans to talk to the nation tonight (Tuesday) as the omicron variant is sending cases soaring and raising more questions about where all this is headed.

Last January, many were writing that by January 2022 we would have the Covid-19 epidemic behind us. There are many reasons that did not happen, among them the wildly adaptable mutation abilities of this particular virus. Like the old whack-a-mole game, we’d smack one variant down and another pops up in another part of the world. Researchers, drug companies and health care workers have done an amazing job, but weary as they may be there is work yet to do. Unfortunately, politics has played a role helping the pandemic linger, especially in the U.S. Some said Covid was no big deal, some said the vaccines did not work and were dangerous, others said mask wearing and vaccine mandates were assaults on their personal freedoms. The political divide on Covid issues started with President Donald Trump, but it has lingered and festered long after he has left office. I’ve been skeptical of authority my entire life, someone who just naturally tends to bow up to rules. Not sure where it started, not sure how it has remained a part of who I am, but if someone tells me to go one way, I’m immediately looking in the other direction.

But I also feel very strongly about doing my part for the common good. Tell me to wear a mask because some politician wants me to, I’ll laugh in your face; tell me to wear a mask because it will protect someone’s grandma or their sick father, I’m masking up, no problem. In fact, I can’t under-

Scott McLeod Editor

The line in Tampa, Florida, for Covid testing on Sunday,

Jan. 2. Scott McLeod photo

stand how anyone could feel differently.

Here I am writing my first column of 2022 and we’re not out of the woods yet with Covid. Do your part, think about others, and let’s get this damn thing behind us. (Scott McLeod can be reached at info@smokymountainnews.com)

What else can we say about Cawthorn?

To the Editor:

Apparently, though he took the sacred vows of marriage in front of a cross, meeting Donald Trump’s “needs” is more important to Madison Cawthorn than meeting his wife’s.

What else does anyone need to know about the man?

Mark H. Holden Franklin

Haywood County has dropped the ball

To the Editor:

We are in the middle of another wave of Covid and Haywood County has dropped the ball. Where are our free testing sites? Buncombe County has them. Jackson County has them. Why don’t we?

We have neighbors who are sick and need a proper diagnosis. We have neighbors who have been off work for the holidays and need testing before they can return. We have neighbors who have been in close contact with Covid but don’t have symptoms — they could be contagious. Our stores are out of home testing kits and if they can be found cost approximately $25 for a two-test box. Urgent care tests are reportedly costing $85 to $125. Our neighbors are being told to get online and order free tests through LabCorps but those won’t arrive in the mail for days.

The costs are out of reach for many of our neighbors. For a lot of folks, driving to neighboring counties and waiting for tests to arrive aren’t acceptable options. Meanwhile, our Covid numbers are very likely underreported because of lack of testing or home testing without reporting.

We need free Covid testing sites in Haywood County. We have needed them all along but especially now. What is Haywood County Health and Human Services doing about this? How is the Haywood County Commission directing funding? Testing is one of the key pieces to getting this pandemic under control. Who can make this happen now?

Ann Holtz Waynesville

LETTERS Medicare changes bad for patients

To the Editor:

If you survived the daily bombardment of TV ads for Medicare Advantage plans during Medicare Open Enrollment and chose to stick with traditional Medicare, you could be in for a big surprise. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services “Innovation Center” is “piloting” a program in North Carolina and other states that will move traditional Medicare enrollees into third-party private, for profit middlemen — labeled “Direct Contracting Entities” — without your knowledge or consent, and without congressional oversight.

Traditional enrollees are to be autoaligned in DCEs if their primary care physician becomes affiliated with a DCE. CMS automatically searches two years of a senior’s claim history to find any visits with a participating DCE provider and assigns the enrollee to that DCE. This is all done without your knowledge or consent. The payment model is similar to Medicare Advantage plans, which means it incentivizes DCEs to both “upcode” diagnoses to increase capitation payments and then to spend as little as possible on patient care.

Upcoding is fraud in that the provider is getting paid a higher rate for a service that was not provided. It encourages rationing of care, because the DCE can keep as profit any of the capitation payment that is not spent on patient care. It is also about F

To the Editor:

This is in response to another Trump hit piece disguised as an opinion letter to the editor. I thought Trump derangement syndrome was cured. Come on man, get over it! No one cares.

Trump has been gone from office for almost a year now. OK, if you expect the small number of people who actually read these op-eds to be influenced by your words, don’t hold your breath. Why are we still talking about the former president? I guess he is still in the obsessed minds of liberal progressive Democrats.

The letter writer quoted The International Institute of for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. This institute was formed by people appointed by foreign entities to promote democracy and election integrity throughout the world. By the way, we are a republic, not a democracy. Sounds to me like just another do-nothing organization run by foreign bureaucrats.

So exactly what does the lowering ranking for the U.S. mean? In my opinion it is proof that liberal progressive Democrats are ruining our country. The people who control our elections are in the hands of the individual states of America. It has been proven there is fraud in elections. A person who is running for office has the right to challenge an election, something the Democrats know all too well.

So Donald Trump is to blame, including causing democracies all around the world major harm. I don’t agree. You accuse him of all this havoc but as usual there is absolutely no proof he has caused any of it. Maybe people are just fed up with the liberal progressive liars who try to bully and badger conservatives. The corrupt news media is an extension of the Trump-hating Democrats. These accusations are just a continuation of the left-wing liberal Democrat agenda.

An insurrection by definition is a violent attempt to take control of a government. The left leaning media along with the radical democrats said Jan. 6 was an insurrection. What weapons were used? Where were the machine guns, the cannons, tanks? They were only armed with Trump signs and hats. But Trump is blamed and accused of overthrowing a democracy. Do you Trump haters realize how nutty this sounds? This was no insurrection. It was unfortunate and should have never happened, but who’s to say it wasn’t instigated by leftist infiltrators.

How can you say because of one man we as a nation are more or less doomed? I think you really should be more concerned about the present President Joe Biden who is chomping at the bit to put the remaining nails in the coffin. He and his administration are the most incompetent people ever to walk into the White House. He has in just 12 months caused chaos at our southern border by allowing mass caravans of illegal aliens to enter our country. Trump had the border under control. He is asking Americans to get vaccinated while thousands of illegals are not required to. This is insane. Inflation is running rampant because of our puppet President Biden shutting down pipelines and helping Putin put in his pipeline.

I do agree with you, however, that the politicians in Washington have not been doing their jobs for years. We the American people are to blame, not Trump! We don’t hold Congress accountable, oh wait, some Republicans are but not Democrats. You can Blame Trump or I can blame Biden, but actually slowly over the years we were being sold out by all of our corrupt government politicians. The Democrats died with Kennedy and the party is no longer recognizable. A house divided will not stand and a corrupt society will fall. Cancel culture, wokeness, liberalism, socialism, communism, anti-police leftists and Antifa had infiltrated our society long before Trump arrived. God help us.

Dennis Ford Franklin

twice as lucrative as Medicare Advantage plans. Advantage plan are required to spend 85% of revenues on patient care. It is estimated that DCEs will only spend 60% of revenue on patient care while 40% can be kept for overhead and profit compared to 15% for Medicare Advantage plans.

It should be noted that traditional Medicare spends 98% on patient care and only 2% on overhead and nothing on profit.

A recent Kaiser Health News report that ran at npr.org on 11/11/2021 showed that switching seniors to Medicare Advantage plans has cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars more than keeping them on original Medicare. Medicare overpaid private health plans by more than $106 billion from 2010 through 2019 because of the way private plans charge for sicker patients.

Author of the report, Richard Kronick, former federal health policy researcher and a professor at the University of California- San Diego, called the growth in Medicare Advantage costs a “systemic problem across the industry,” which CMS has failed to rein in. Medicare Advantage plans have demonstrated that injecting a profit motive into patient care actually leads to higher costs for taxpayers with tragic consequences for patients. Why should we think that DCEs, with double the profit incentives, would be an improvement for traditional Medicare enrollees?

If you want to keep traditional Medicare, call your congressional delegation and ask them to demand HHS halt this insidious DCE program immediately; hold hearings on DCEs; and establish congressional oversight of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation Center. Jane Harrison Haywood County

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