Healthcare Freedom, Safety, Right-to-Try, and the Great Balancing Act
Can we get to a place where everyone is happy? No! But we should be able to get to a place where special interests are not calling the shots.
UNFETTERED FREEDOM
People love their freedom, and many of those freedom-loving people love the safety of laws that impugn their freedoms. It is a cognitive dissonance that is not readily intuitive. For instance, we have laws against murder, so you are not “free” to murder who you want. This discussion inevitably leads to the discussion of “natural law” and biblical principles. Suffice it to say that while it is not intuitive - most Americans love a limited set of laws that protect them and their rights - and that is by no means unfettered freedom. Ohioans don’t have - and have never had, unfettered Healthcare Freedom. That is not to say that we don’t have too many laws governing our healthcare and we may need to better define our healthcare laws, business laws, and our right-to-try laws.
HB435
Ohio House Bill 435 is an attempt at a compromise between HB248 which gives Ohioans unfettered vaccine freedom and that of businesses that want the ability to mandate vaccines for customers and/or employees.
Seemingly, everyone is up in arms over HB435 - and they have every right to be so. The way HB435 was introduced and was attempted to be quickly passed out of the House without the traditional proponent, opponent, and interested party stakeholders’ testimony was just a very poor political move. Now, every action will be treated as suspect and it is just that much more likely that the perception is that if it is passed into law that it is being shoved down Ohioan’s throats. With that being said HB435 misses the mark on many levels.
The free-market and liberty-loving guy found within most conservatives is a bit torn in two wrestling with HB435 and the thought of taking rights away from businesses.
On one hand, free-market conservatives traditionally do not want the government telling business owners that they cannot cater to those that are fearful of COVID-19.
On the other hand, private citizens that don’t fear COVID-19 don’t want businesses to tell them that they have to be vaccinated or masked to keep their jobs.
The quandary essentially has the state torn in two and we all know that “United We Stand, Divided We Fall” - we’ve come to this point largely due to fear. But, is that fear justifiable or not?
Is it that some Ohioans don’t fear COVID-19 enough -or- Is it that other Ohioans don’t fear the vaccine enough?
The real question begging to be asked of businesses that want to mandate an experimental vaccine is do they believe they should be held blameless if there are long-term side effects from a mandated vaccine?
Are businesses requiring vaccines exposing the State government to an unacceptable risk that the state may have to take care of at some point in the future?
Capitalism is the single biggest thing that has lifted most of the known world out of poverty. That is why we should not hate businesses even though we are coming to a time and place where we need to be wary of big business and their relationship with our governments. Socialism can be achieved by an overreaction to a big business overreach by the people depriving business owners of their rights. It is one thing to require an untested vaccine and quite another to require a vaccine that has had years of approval.
What are the consequences of businesses requiring an experimental vaccine and then 10 years down the road people start having heart attacks, strokes, or getting cancer? Who pays for that?
It is also ludicrous to say that cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy cannot form a treatment center just for them and require that those being hired take a tested and proven vaccine that has been on the market for many years (like the vaccine for viral pneumonia.) This is supposed to be America.
To wit - the Committee for A Better Ohio has drafted a preliminary document - that does not necessarily hit the mark but offers Ohioan’s protections from employers arbitrarily and without long-term consequence - demanding that you take an experimental vaccine or lose your job, not get hired, or are not allowed to patronize their establishment. Additionally, we are also proposing an expanded right to try legislation
WHY EXPAND RIGHT-TO-TRY?
Ohioans have never had the right-to-try in the sense that it is commonly thought of. Many Ohioans mistakenly believe that if they are experiencing an illness or a malady that currently approved medicine is not effective in treating - then they can access unapproved medication. That is not what happens in most cases.
In Ohio, you have to be determined to be “TERMINAL” with no hope of recovery to be able to try unapproved medicines to save your life. Not that just being declared “TERMINAL” is bad enough but then there is the problem of when you are declared to be “TERMINAL”. Some doctors will wait to declare a person terminal when there is no chance of recovery and others will declare you terminal with enough time to give experimental medicines and treatments a chance to work. Worse yet is that insurance companies may set policies for medical centers and then the bean counters and lawyers are in charge of setting your life and death choices.
If you know there is a relatively good chance you are going to die - shouldn’t you be the one to make the final choice of the medicines that may save you?
Should lawyers and bean counters be making life and death decisions about your medical treatment?
The author of this article acquired COVID-19 before President Trump mentioned the use of Hydroxychloroquine. He was given the medicine as a last resort before he would be intubated. Hydroxychloroquine saved the author’s life. To say that there is zero efficacy for HCQ seems to be shortsighted even if it has a low-chance of success. Ohioans should have options! There are many other medicines that have proven early on in testing to be effective at warding off the cytokine storm of inflammation of the lungs for those that have compromised immune systems. It is this inflammation that can lead to death. Here are some medicines that are at least partially available to ward off COVID-19 inflammation of the lungs.
Thalidomide in conjunction with Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromax'
Tocilizumab (Actemra)
and many others…
Yet, the Ohio pharmacy board and many hospitals and medical centers would rather let Ohioans die than use these potentially life-saving drugs when approved treatments have failed.
Ohioans deserve better laws and legislation!