Health

Hartmann Report -  Could the Covid disaster of 2020 — which Trump botched so badly that America has had more Covid deaths than any other nation in the world except Peru (whose president denied Covid was dangerous) — be what’s fueling the Trump MAGA cult? Are we, in other words, as a nation suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and that’s driving a national mental illness crisis that opened the door for Trump’s cult to grow? ...

All across America, families are being torn apart by the Trump cult, and sometimes the conflicts even lead to violence. The rest of the world has figured this out. Over at the British newspaper The Independent, the headline says it all:

“She Escaped the Religious Sect She Grew Up In. Now She Says Trump’s MAGA Movement is Eerily Similar”

Although the economy right now is doing better than at any time since the 1960s, polls show a majority of Americans would rather believe Trump’s lies that inflation is still with us (it’s down to 1.7 percent now) and the historically low 4.1 percent unemployment rate is “fake news.” And tens of millions of Americans believe him...

Many otherwise normal and sane Americans seem to have gone nuts, leaping down the Qanon or Fox “News” rabbit holes in search of meaning, safety, and explanations for the feelings of doom that they just can’t shake. It’s as if some major event in their lives has created such a trauma that they’ve been knocked off balance, psychologically.

And that may be a big part of the answer, particularly given how neither our insurance industry nor our government-funded health insurance programs typically pay for mental health services that might otherwise help out people suffering from trauma-induced shock.

 Washington Post - About 80% of ERs aren’t fully prepared to handle children’s emergencies. Most U.S. emergency rooms lack key pediatric equipment and supplies, training, policies or personnel tailored to pediatric patients, according to a recent study. Thousands of children’s lives could be saved each year with greater pediatric readiness, researchers said. Kids make up about 20% of ER visits annually.