Date: January 31, 2023
Host: Jim Schneider
Guest: Twila Brase
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Twila Brase is the president and co-founder of Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom. She’s a registered nurse, a certified public health nurse, and author of the eight-time award-winning book, Big Brother in the Exam Room: The Dangerous Truth About Electronic Health Records. She’s the speaker on the daily Health Freedom Minute heard on stations across the nation. Additionally, her efforts led to a national law requiring parent consent for research using newborn DNA, a national campaign exposing HIPAA as a data-sharing rule, an online nationwide directory of direct-pay-practices, The Wedge of Health Freedom and the Patient Toolbox designed to help patients understand their options in coercive situations and maintain control over their treatment decisions.
Yesterday the White House reported that President Joe Biden intends to end the COVID-19 national and public health emergencies. This won’t happen today, nor will it happen retroactive to September 18th of 2022 when he said on the 60 Minutes TV program that the pandemic is over. Instead, he will end the emergencies over 3 months from now on May 11th, 2023. Why then?
Twila noted that since the Republicans are now in charge of the House, they are clamoring for the end of the emergency declarations, so she believes Biden wants to claim to be the one who ended it rather than letting the Republicans force his hand.
Could this be due to some legislative activity? For instance, there’s HR-382—The Pandemic is Over Act as well as HR-497—The Freedom for Healthcare Workers Act. This latter piece of legislation removes the vaccine mandate on healthcare workers around the nation. As Twila explained, the Biden administration has been clinging to the mandate that communicates that as a condition of participation in Medicare and federal programs, all healthcare providers and workers have to be vaccinated or they will be terminated unless they meet an exemption. This act would completely eliminate the mandate and let workers go back to their jobs, let hospitals be more fully staffed, and not threaten healthcare workers with having to take an experimental vaccine.
Next is HR-139—The Stopping Home Office Works Unproductive Problems Act of 2023, otherwise known as the Show Up Act of 2023. Twila commented that so many government workers are now at home and there’s the general sense that there may be a lack of productivity going on as well as wasted space and energy in government buildings. So this bill would not allow any expansion of telework practices and policies so it’s really about calling such individuals back to work at their respective government agencies.
Another factor is House Joint Resolution 7 which basically says that the national emergency declared by the president is terminated.
Another factor that may be pushing President Biden to end the pandemic on May 11th involves a new set of rules and guidelines including the government stopping COVID treatments, shots, etc. Then again, some things Congress may want to keep such as access to telehealth. Then there’s about 15-17 million people who were allowed to enroll in Medicare who aren’t eligible when they should have been paying for coverage on their own.
So as President Biden attempts to wind down the pandemic, there are a lot of details to work through. Jim and Twila discuss much of it on this edition of Crosstalk.
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