Not only does Trump feel no sympathy for the 225,000 Americans who died of coronavirus (so far), he thinks that doctors across America have inflated the death rate to make him look bad.
The Boston Globe reports:
Dr. Abraar Karan, an internal medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, had just finished a 15-hour shift Saturday night when he opened Twitter and saw a video of President Trump on the campaign trail, parroting a roundly debunked conspiracy theory that hospitals have been inflating COVID-19 deaths for financial gain.
At a rally in Waukesha, Wisc., on Saturday, Trump said “doctors get more money and hospitals get more money” if they report that their patients died of COVID-19, as opposed to other preexisting conditions or comorbidities. “Think of this incentive,” the president said, insinuating as he has before that the death toll from the virus is not to be trusted. He then falsely claimed the pandemic, which has killed more than 226,000 Americans, is “going away,” even as the country approaches a third wave of infections.
“When I got out and I saw that, I found it extremely insulting and frustrating,” Karan said of the president’s comments. “This is somebody who just got taken care of by doctors, who just benefited from our medical system — presumably on taxpayer money — and he’s coming out criticizing the health care profession in what seems like a politically motivated attempt to further downplay the seriousness of the virus.”
Trump’s baseless accusations that doctors are overcounting COVID-19 deaths have sparked a surge of criticism from the American medical community. In a statement issued Sunday, the American College of Emergency Physicians called the president’s assertions “reckless and false.” The American College of Physicians, which represents internal medicine doctors, denounced the president’s allegations as “a reprehensible attack on physicians’ ethics and professionalism.” The Council of Medical Specialty Societies said Trump’s claims “promulgate misinformation that hinders our nation’s efforts to get the Covid-19 pandemic under control...”
Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, said Trump’s suggestion that doctors are falsifying COVID-19 deaths is not only demeaning — to health care workers, to those who have died from COVID-19, and to their families — but nonsensical.
“You have to believe a few things for this conspiracy theory to make sense,” Jha said. “One is you have to believe that all the doctors, all the nurses, and all the health care executives are morally corrupt. Second, that you can do widespread fraud across the entire system and no one is really going to pick it up and that there would be no repercussions to this. You would just have to believe things that are so clearly not true.”
The Number is undoubtedly Inflated
The number is inflated
Regarding Donald Trump
His IQ is debated
But lower than a stump
It’s his ego that’s inflated, and truth that’s out to get him. CBK
The inflation of Trump’s ego has outpaced even the inflation of the universe so that his head actually lies outside the physical universe.
It’s going to be difficult if not impossible to bring it back in.
It would take a black hole the size of the universe itself.
He is the black hole of the universe.
He’s definitely a hole.
We need to be aware that psychopathy is also a disease!
Wouldn’t this gentleman be friends with the one who is here in Brazil who is allied with the “terraplanistas” (Flat Earth)?
Trump probably allied himself with those of certain Christian churches that believe the earth is only 6,000 years old even though there is solid proof the contrary.
We need to be aware that psychopathy is also a disease!
Wouldn’t this gentleman be friends with the one who is here in Brazil who is allied with the “terraplanistas” (Flat Earth)?
Wow–this is a new low even for Donald Trump.
This is on par with his comments that Joe Biden would be assassinated three weeks into his Presidency.
https://crooksandliars.com/2020/10/trump-predicts-biden-will-be-assassinated
I would have been in jail if I had made that comment.
Jeez, moeone, I punched the “Liked” button, then realized I need to qualify my “Like”: I like your response, not the dangerous Trumpist idiocy which it exposes. Thanks.
Good grief. My brother was permanently barred from Twitter for saying far less threatening about Trump.
It is very Twittronic that Twitter allows ANYTHING that Trump tweets, given its claimed policy regarding false information.
How Could Any One Person Be Such A Total Putz* !?
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4918159/user-clip-covid-covid-covid
the censored version
As any medical professional and disease or disability advocate knows, the greater likelihood is that they are UNDERcounted. For example, often death certificates will list cause of deaths like pneumonia for people who suffered diseases. We need to excise the Idiot from our lives ASAP.
A dear friend, Bonnie Lesley,was co-founder of Texas Kids Can’t Wait. She wrote me in early July and told me she was in intensive care and the end was near. I asked her if it was COVID and she replied that the doctors told her she had the flu. She died on July 5. She had all the COVID symptoms but was not counted. Her passing was a great loss to the children of Texas.
dianeravitch . . .uhh-huh . . .right in the stomach. So sorry to hear. . . . CBK
Very sorry to learn about this. COVID is such a randomly destructive beast.
Sorry for the loss. I am not to your age yet, but the constant assault of the death of our friends and acquaintances has already begun. Rest assured those of us who read and comment here are community.
It is generally agreed that mist of the people who died from the 1918 pandemic actually died not from the virus itself but with the bacterial pneumonia that accompanied the viral infection.
I knew it. It’s just not fair that our beleaguered Prez now has doctors working against him. This may prevent him from holding rallies in 34 states in the next two days. Some many rallies. So little time. Makes me sad (:
Go get him, SDP.
Oops. I’m so distraught. I meant 😦
Did everyone see that a top aide to VP Pence was asked whether he was worried about holding big rallies in Wisconsin, where COVID-19 cases are rising?
His reply was that he wasn’t worried because VP Pence had access to the best doctors and medical care!!!
And that, in a nutshell, is the current Republican party. Is has been completely infected with diseased people like that high level Pence aide who do not have the capability to care about anything except their own immediate self-interest and the self-interest of those whose power enriches them.
These people have seized unprecedented power over our country right now. Anyone who is not voting for Biden and democrats down to local dog catcher is enabling them.
Trump is in DENIAL about so much.
He has to be. What a WRETCHED human being and so STUPID, too.
He has always BLAMED others for his own shortcomings. He’s a VERY SICK person and UNFIT to serve.
He is in denial about everything including the fact that he is in denial. And even about the fact that he is in denial about being in denial.
It’s denials all the way down.
A New Nobel Prize
Trump denies
He falsifies
Denialwise
It justifies
A Newbel Prize
“For telling lies”
*The Newbel Lies Prize Awarded by Sweden’s chief Epidemiologist who also does not believe in masks.
Or, as Trump has called it repeatedly, the Noble Prize. LMAO!
He’ll certainly never get either a Noble OR Nobull Prize
The Fullabull Pieces Prize, maybe
By the way, Sweden has now surpassed the record it set for new daily infections set during the first wave.
Heckuva job, Tegnell.
If Tegnell were not on the committee awarding the Prize, he would certainly be a contender for the Newbel Lies Prize.
It.is.not.a.human.being.
Mary Trump is on all the time now, & it’s important that people listen to her.
More than one thousand health care professionals have died trying to save patients that have contracted Covid. Others continue to work long, grueling extended shifts in hospitals. Trump does these professionals a disservice by accusing them of trying to make money from Covid. Most doctors in hospitals are salaried employees. If they work overtime, they may be paid for more hours, but they are not getting rich. Like teachers their pay is not determined by the volume of patients. Once again the liar in chief is projecting his profiteering motives onto professionals that are courageous first responders who put their lives on the line daily to save others. Trump is a disgrace.
retired teacher Yes, money is his horizon which is connected with his motivations. Others’ motivations are on a different plane: a sense of professional integrity and a genuineness of spirit, both supported by a history of well-developed feelings.
Trump cannot understand, on principle. So for him, THEIR horizon MUST BE equivalent to his own. What a perfect dolt. CBK
I like GregB’s name for Trump, “The Idiot.” This is particularly appropriate because the term “idiot” comes from the Greek “idios,” meaning “one’s own.” One who can’t see beyond his own nose is an idiot.
And yes, Trump suffers from a psychopathology–malignant narcissistic personality disorder. What makes something psychopathology, technically, is when it involves gross distortions of reality. Trump continually grossly distorts reality to correspond to his inflated and unreal notions of his own worth, value, genius, etc. This is just one more example of the general phenomenon.
Trump LITERALLY believes that there is a vast, national conspiracy of scientists, doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals inflating the SARS-CoV-2 numbers to make him look bad. This is but another example of his psychopathology, of his distorting reality in service of his malignant narcissistic personality disorder.
One of the first stories I heard from my students when I started school last fall was that a “person they knew” had been killed in a motorcycle accident. He had tested positive for Covid, so Covid was the cause of his death.
Urban legends are even crazier than ancient superstitions.
Ugh! didn’t help his idol worshippers home, from the freezing Nevada rain. ☹️
You have to believe a few things for this conspiracy theory to make sense.
But that’s not how Trump works. He’s capable only of reacting, not of reasoning.
All he needs to justify conspiracy is that it damage him.
Rome is burning
Sweden is bleedin’
Americans dying
Trump is lying
Omg … I love your poem, Fred. It’s so right on.
This 3rd wave of infections are higher than ever and it hasn’t peaked yet.
The conspiracy theory comes from the fact that it does cost more to treat patients with Covid 19 in the hospital setting. More time in the hospital, expensive medications, more PPE used, longer ICU stays etc….all resulting in extra costs that the hospitals bill to insurance companies. Insurance Cos. are having a fit because they are having to pay out more money. Once the crazy QAnon crowd gets hold of any kind of information, they spin it and spread it far and wide. There is also the conspiracy theory that the funeral homes are getting more money to process those who have died of Covid 19….and that widows/widowers are receiving more death insurance funds if their loved one died from Covid 19. It just never ends and trump loves the attention that it gets him when he spouts the lies.
Malignant Narcissist and Sociopath or Psychopath (your choice) Donald Trump just attacked one of the most respected and trusted professions in the world.
#1 for Respect
https://www.valuewalk.com/2019/03/top-10-most-respected-professions/
#3 for Trust
https://www.more.com/lifestyle/top-5-most-trusted-professions/
While Trump is at the other end of that list. As a Business executive and now lying politician, he belongs to two of the most distrusted professions in the world.
Global poll: Politicians the ‘least trusted’ profession in the world
https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/01/11/americas-most-least-trusted-professions-infographic/#3299649a7e94
This is quintessential Trump, Transactional Man.
Everyone’s out for himself, like me.
Everyone looks at the value of today’s transaction: Wall St responds to this qtr’s profits, not what they indicate for 10 yrs down the line. Not the long view, not the ‘big picture.’ [I’ll be dead by then.]
Everyone measures the value of available data against this qtr’s goal, & chooses which data to report accordingly.
So why would hospitals report data that triggers bear market, that pushes against the immediate goal of an economy that bounces back despite covid– when bull economy ensures them paying clients (or at minimum, reimbursable losses)?
Must be something in it for them.
Oh, yeah. They get bigger reimbursements for covid patients.
So, it’s come down to this question:
Which states, after the kidnapping and separations of babies and toddlers from their parents, after the multiple allegations of rape and sexual assault against the President, after his failure to deliver the massive infrastructure jobs program for workers, after the tax cuts for the wealthy at a time when income and wealth disparities have reached new highs, after his constant dog-whistles to white supremacists, after his call to SHOOT unarmed asylum seekers, after his gassing of people exercising their First Amendment rights, after his having taken school lunches from hundreds of thousands of poor kids, after his raping of our environment, after the 25,000 documented lies to the media, after the abandonment of our allies, after the climate change denial, after the insane nonresponses to the pandemic (inject disinfectants?), after the Orange one’s revelations of his profound ignorance (send astronauts to the sun? nuke hurricanes?), after the President’s having made us a laughing stock in the world to the extent that when he speaks to international bodies, they laugh in his face–after all this, in how many states will the majority of the people STILL vote for the Pandora’s Box President? Which will become THAT infamous?
I need a drink (or two, or three) after reading that summation. I knew it, just makes me queasy when it’s all put together. Makes me queasier knowing that I could spend all night until daybreak adding to the list.
Indeed you could. I started this and then said to myself. OK, Bob. Stop. Just stop.
It’ll make sense later.
After Con-ey Barrett, “I like beer” Cavemanaugh, and four other Supremes ensure the continued reign of Jabba the Trump?
Bob Shepherd I don’t know about you, but I’ll have to see some serious evidence to think of Cavanaugh as anything but a intellectually stunted, petulant lowlife. CBK
Yup. Another frat boy
“Paranoia strikes deep in the heartland”
(Paul Simon and Buffalo Springfield)