Taypayer Handouts and Ripoffs

UN Shakedown: Swine Flu ‘Could Kill Millions Unless Rich Nations Give £900M’

September 20, 2009

The Observer - The swine flu pandemic could kill millions and cause anarchy in the world's poorest nations unless £900m can be raised from rich countries to pay for vaccines and antiviral medicines, says a UN report leaked to the Observer.

The disclosure will provoke concerns that health officials will not be able to stem the growth of the worldwide H1N1 pandemic in developing countries. If the virus takes hold in the poorest nations, millions could die and the economies of fragile countries could be destroyed.

Health ministers around the globe were sent the warning on Thursday in a report on the costs of averting a humanitarian disaster in the next few months. It comes as officials inside the World Health Organisation, the UN's public health body, said they feared they would not be able to raise half that amount because of the global downturn.

Gregory Hartl of WHO said the report required an urgent response from rich nations.

"There needs to be recognition that the whole world is affected by this pandemic and the chain is only as strong as its weakest link. We have seen how H1N1 has taken hold in richer nations and in the southern hemisphere. We have been given fair warning and must act soon," he said. The report was drawn up by UN officials over the last two months. It was commissioned in July after Ban ki-moon, the UN's secretary general, expressed concern that the H1NI virus could have a severe impact on the world's poorest countries.

It paints a disastrous picture for the world's most vulnerable people unless there is immediate action.

"There is a window in which it will be possible to help poor countries get as ready as they can for H1N1 and that window is closing rapidly," it says.

"Countries where health services are overburdened by diseases, such as HIV/Aids, tuberculosis and malaria, will have great difficulty managing the surge of cases. And if the electricity and water sectors are not able to maintain services, this will have serious implications for the ability of the health sector to function.

"If suppliers of fuel, food, telecommunications, finance or transport services have not developed plans as to how they would continue to deliver their services, the consequences could be significantly intensified," it adds.

The 47-page report provides a detailed breakdown of the basic needs of 75 vulnerable countries with the weakest capacity to withstand an escalation of the virus. Six countries from Latin America, including Cuba and Bolivia, 21 countries from Asia and the Pacific such as North Korea and Bangladesh, and 40 countries from Africa such as Congo and Eritrea are included in the survey.

UN officials say in the report that £700m should be spent on antiviral drugs and vaccines to protect health care workers and other essential personnel as well as cover those suffering from severe illness. They have identified 85 countries that do not have the ability to access vaccines from any other source and intend to cover 5-10% of each population.

A further £147m should be put aside to organise vaccine campaigns, improve communications, monitor levels of illness and improve laboratory capacity in 61 countries, the report claims. The remainder should be used to pay for the WHO and other UN-related organisations to help in these countries as well as an emergency fund for additional antiviral medicines, it argues.

The UN's efforts were boosted last week when nine countries, including Britain and the US, pledged to give the equivalent of a 10% share of their swine flu vaccine supply to help fight the deadly virus's global spread. In Britain, Douglas Alexander, the development secretary, pledged to give £23m.

Some officials within WHO believe, however, that this will not be enough. One said that richer countries were reluctant to pay out all of the money that was needed.

"The downturn means that governments countries are reluctant to give," he said.

Another said: "The money is a trickle, not a flood. It is going to be a struggle. If we are not careful, the virus could destroy a burgeoning economy or democracy."

The UN's request for the money comes as the virus begins to establish itself in some of the world's most vulnerable countries. On Wednesday, health officials told one website that the African continent had recorded 8,187 confirmed cases of swine flu and 41 deaths.

Swine flu was declared a pandemic in June and has since been identified in 180 countries. Pandemic experts believe that the western world, including Britain, is facing a second wave of the virus.

The Government (Via Taxpayers) Is Providing the Swine Flu Vaccine for Free to Distributors, Who, In Turn, Are Charging the Same Taxpayers for the Shots

Initially we anticipate that 3.4 million doses of vaccine will be available. We anticipate being able to start receiving orders for the vaccine by early October. The U.S. government is providing the H1N1 vaccine for free to about 90,000 distributors, including doctor's offices, retail chains and state health departments... The United States has ordered 195 million doses of H1N1 swine flu vaccine from five companies -- MedImmune, a unit of AstraZeneca, Sanofi-Aventis, Australia's CSL, GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis... We estimate that the amount of vaccine that will be available will increase through October... eventually delivery would rise to about 20 million doses a week. - CDC's Dr Jay Butler, September 18, 2009

From the Centers for Disease Control Website

Vaccine Purchase

Q. How will novel H1N1 vaccine be purchased?
A. Novel H1N1 vaccine will be procured and purchased by the federal government and made available for vaccinators at no cost. See section below titled “Vaccine administration fees” for information on cost of administration.

Vaccine Administration Fees

Q. Will insurance plans reimburse private providers for administration?
A. CDC asked America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) and on behalf of its members, AHIP provided this response:

"Every year health plans contribute to the seasonal flu vaccination campaign in several ways:

a) Health plans communicate directly with plan sponsors and members on the current ACIP recommendations and encourage immunization; they also provide information on where to get vaccinations, and who to contact with any questions.

b) Just as health plans have provided extensive coverage for the administration of seasonal flu vaccines in the past, public health planners can make the assumption that health plans will provide reimbursement for the administration of a novel (A) H1N1 vaccine to their members by private sector providers in both traditional settings e.g., doctor’s office, ambulatory clinics, health care facilities, and in non-traditional settings, where contracts with insurers have been established"

Q. Will private providers be able to charge patients for vaccine administration if they are uninsured?
A. Yes, providers may charge patients if they are uninsured. The administration fee cannot exceed the regional Medicare vaccine administration fee.

Q. Can persons be charged for vaccine administration in public health-organized large scale vaccination clinics?
A. There will be no administration fee for vaccination in public-health organized large scale vaccination clinics.

Ancillary Supplies

Q. Which ancillary supplies will be provided with vaccine?
A. HHS will provide needles, syringes, sharps containers and alcohol swabs.

Q. How will ancillary supplies be distributed?
A. Ancillary supplies will be distributed to the same project area-designated sites as vaccine. Plans for ensuring the distribution of these products are currently being developed.

Cost of H1N1 Flu Shot, Regular Flu Shot

KIRO-TV (Seattle) - One of the area's biggest health insurers says it will cover the cost of H1N1 flu shots when they become available, but how much will the vaccine cost everyone else when it arrives?

The federal government will distribute the swine flu vaccine for free, but that doesn't mean the flu shots will be free.

... King County health authorities said so far the federal government has not set limits on how much health providers and local pharmacies can charge...

For a regular flu shot, the costs at local pharmacies are as follows:

Walgreens $24.99
Bartell’s $28
Rite Aid $30
Fred Myer $25
QFC $25

CDC: U.S. May Need 600 Million Swine Flu Vaccine Doses

CNN - Congress passed a supplemental appropriation for $7.5 billion, which President Obama recently signed, to cover the costs of preparing for the virus, which includes a vaccination campaign, CDC spokesman Thomas Skinner said.

Government Plans Vast Swine Flu Vaccine Effort

BlueCross BlueShield of Maryland - The federal government has spent close to $2 billion to buy up to 195 million doses of vaccine and adjuvant, including the standard shots and the newer FluMist nasal spray vaccine made by MedImmune of Gaithersburg. The government is prepared to buy enough to vaccinate every person -- 600 million doses all together -- if the pandemic or demand warrants it. That could increase the cost to $5 billion for the vaccine alone. It would cost at least $9 billion to administer the vaccine to the entire population, according to the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. Although five companies are racing to produce as much vaccine as possible, the first batches are not expected for two months, in part because the virus grew at about half the projected rate. Production appears to be increasing, but the first 45 million to 52 million doses -- about a third of what officials were anticipating -- won't be ready until mid-October, with about 20 million doses a week expected after that to continue the campaign through the winter.

The Coming Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Bailout

September 1, 2009

Wall Street Journal - Americans are about to re-learn that bank deposit insurance isn't free, even as Washington is doing its best to delay the coming bailout. The banking system and the federal fisc would both be better off in the long run if the political class owned up to the reality.

We're referring to the federal deposit insurance fund, which has been shrinking faster than reservoirs in the California drought. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reported late last week that the fund that insures some $4.5 trillion in U.S. bank deposits fell to $10.4 billion at the end of June, as the list of failing banks continues to grow. The fund was $45.2 billion a year ago, when regulators told us all was well and there was no need to take precautions to shore up the fund.

The FDIC has since had to buttress the fund with a $5.6 billion special levy on top of the regular fees that banks already pay for the federal guarantee. This has further drained bank capital, even as regulators say the banking system desperately needs more capital. Everyone now assumes the FDIC will hit banks with yet another special insurance fee in anticipation of even more bank losses. The feds would rather execute this bizarre dodge of weakening the same banks they claim must get stronger rather than admit that they'll have to tap the taxpayers who are the ultimate deposit insurers.

It isn't as if regulators don't understand the problem. Earlier this year they quietly asked Congress to provide up to $500 billion in Treasury loans to repay depositors. The FDIC can draw up to $100 billion merely by asking, while the rest requires Treasury approval. The request was made on the political QT because, amid the uproar over TARP and bonuses, no one in Congress or the Obama Administration wanted to admit they'd need another bailout.

But this subterfuge can't last. Eighty-four banks have already failed this year, and many more are headed in that direction. The FDIC said it had 416 banks on its problem list at the end of June, up from 305 only three months earlier. The total assets of banks on the problem list was nearly $300 billion, and more of these assets are turning bad faster than banks can put aside reserves to account for them. The commercial real-estate debacle is still playing out at thousands of banks, even as the overall economy bottoms out and begins to recover.

Meantime, even as it "resolves" and then sells failed banks, the FDIC is also guaranteeing the buyers against losses on tens of billions of acquired assets. This is known in the trade as "loss sharing," which is another form of taxpayer guarantee that taxpayers aren't supposed to know about. Most of the losses won't be realized if the economy recovers. But this too is a price of taxpayers guaranteeing deposits. Even as Treasury and the press corps broadcast that the Fed is making money on TARP repayments, these guarantees go largely unnoticed...