BY BEN BARTEE 4:53 PM ON MAY 27, 2023
I’m not sure how this microcosm of the rot in the American healthcare system slipped by me — until now, thanks to reporting from RFK Jr.’s Children’s Health Defense.
Via Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Medicaid provider bulletin, July 2022 (emphasis added):
Getting vaccinated against COVID-19 is one of the best and safest ways people can protect themselves and their families against the virus. As a participating practice in the COVID-19 Provider Vaccine Incentive Program, we recognize your hard work by offering incentives for helping patients make the choice to become vaccinated.
The COVID-19 Vaccine Provider Incentive Program is open to you if you are a participating Kentucky primary care provider with an Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Medicaid (Anthem) panel that includes members 6 months of age and older. All Anthem members identified as receiving COVID-19 vaccination services are included in the methodology. Vaccine results will be determined by a COVID-19 vaccine claim or by confirmation from the Kentucky Vaccine Registry.
So the child patients victimized by this bribery scheme — which doctors are not required to disclose to their parents despite their sworn fidelity to the Hippocratic Oath that requires they put their patients’ welfare above all other concerns — were all on the government Medicaid program for low-income people.
(For the record, which should be common knowledge by now, children are at such a low risk from life-threatening COVID-19 infection that it’s statistically irrelevant.)
This is reason #1,623 that the U.S. government cannot be trusted to administer a universal healthcare system ethically. While it’s inarguably the case that the current public-private-hybrid U.S. healthcare system is broken, based on outcomes, the solution to simply put the federal government in charge of everything is wrought with moral hazards.
Continuing:
As you continue to help guide patients toward COVID-19 vaccination, your practice will receive $50 per Anthem member 6 months of age and older vaccinated by December 31, 2022. When you will receive your bonus You will receive payment on or before January 31, 2023. This will include payment for Anthem members enrolled in Medicaid 6 months to 4 years of age and ages 12 and older vaccinated between January 1, 2022, and December 31, 2022, and Anthem members enrolled in Medicaid ages 5 to11 vaccinated from June 2022 through December 31, 2022.
Bribing doctors (with taxpayer money) to coerce their patients into getting injected with an experimental mRNA therapy (the manufacturers of which, by the way, are immune from liability for any collateral damage) is totally unethical behavior. It should be criminal.
This cannot be allowed to continue.