by John J. Heitmann and Carolyn Mahoney
The Connected Care Program, adopted in the Connected Care Program Order, will make available up to $100 million dollars over a three year period for selected pilot projects. The Program will provide financial support for qualifying purchases necessary to provide connected care services through the Connected Care Program, with an emphasis on providing connected care services to low-income and veteran patients.
You might have read that many of those in Congress greeted the Coronavirus with the words "Never waste a good crisis!"
They've kept their word: the "Connected Care Program," being sold as a way to allow physicians to care for patients by remote control, thus preventing them from getting COVID-19, is, in fact, a givaway to the "Managed Health Care" industry.
If you thought the doctor you'll be "connected" with is the same one you're used to seeing, think again. The person you'll be "connected" to will - during the pandemic and after coronavirus is gone - most likely be a greaduate of a medical school in a foreign country, looking at you through a "connected" video display that's been paid for by your tax money, as part of the best crisis- management-for-profit that your tax dollars can buy.
At best, you'll be "examined" by a competent physician with current training, moonlighting and taking advantage of time-zone differences to pick up some extra cash - at worst, by an unqualified person who couldn't pass the admittance boards in the U.S. even if (s)he could get a special-needs visa to help with the "crises" that the best legislators money can buy have been trying so hard not to waste.
Bill Horne Moderator