If you’d like to know how the US has reach 200,000 reported #sarscov2 deaths, the Milwaukee coroner’s office is a good place to start. It reports the (anonymized) death certificates of #Covid cases. Just a few of the most recent (sorry about the glare): pic.twitter.com/iUe4wQkO0B
— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) September 21, 2020
Three in a row:
A woman, 90, in renal and heart failure
A man, 84, with prostate cancer, dementia, and heart disease
A man, 88, with heart and renal failure, afib, diabetes, and Parkinson’s (yes, all five, can’t make it up).All in the first 20 cases. All called Covid. pic.twitter.com/VHFt7PE6Ir
— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) September 21, 2020
CDC director agrees hospitals have monetary incentive to inflate COVID-19 data
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield acknowledged during a House hearing Friday that COVID-19 data could be inflated because hospitals receive a monetary gain by reporting COVID-19 cases.
Republican Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri questioned Redfield during a House Oversight and Reform subcommittee hearing on coronavirus containment. He asked about the “perverse incentive” for hospitals to classify deaths as being coronavirus related when the virus didn’t cause the death.
Luetkemeyer voiced concern about how an automobile accident-related death could be recorded as a COVID-related death. In this scenario, the death was recorded as COVID-related because the virus was in the victim’s system, even if the car accident was the major factor.
“As long as you have COVID in your system you get to claim it as a COVID death, which means you get more money as attending physician, hospital, whatever,” Luetkemeyer said during the hearing. “Would you like to comment on that, about the perverse incentive? Is there an effort to try and do something different.”
Redfield responded by telling the congressman, “I think you’re correct in that and we’ve seen this in other disease processes too.”
“In the HIV epidemic, somebody may have a heart attack but also have HIV,” Redfield explained. “The hospital would prefer the DRG [death report] for HIV because there’s greater reimbursement. So I do think there is some reality to that.”
Redfield said that death reporting comes down to what a physician thinks and how he or she classifies a death in a death certificate. He also said the National Center for Health Statistics reviews “all those death certificates.”
“I think it is less operable in the cause of death although I won’t say there are not some cases,” he said. “I do think, though, when it comes to hospital reimbursement issues for individuals that get discharged, there could be some play in that for sure.”
Luetkemeyer previously posed a similar question to Adm. Brett Giroir, Department of Health and Human Services assistant secretary for health, in a July 2 hearing. However, the discussion was halted due to time constraints.
In the July 2 hearing, the legislator also asked about the discrepancy in COVID-19 reporting that saw an automobile death recorded as a COVID-19 death.
MORE:
Now…
Below is a breakdown of how much money each state receives from the Feds per COVID case. As you can see, they’re greatly incentivized to inflate the numbers as much as they can to receive as much money as possible.
Alabama
$158,000 per COVID-19 case
Alaska
$306,000
Arizona
$23,000
Arkansas
$285,000
California
$145,000
Colorado
$58,000
Connecticut
$38,000
Delaware
$127,000
District of Columbia
$56,000
Florida
$132,000
Georgia
$73,000
Hawaii
$301,000
Idaho
$100,000
Illinois
$73,000
Indiana
$105,000
Iowa
$235,000
Kansas
$291,000
Kentucky
$297,000
Louisiana
$26,000
Maine
$260,000
Maryland
$120,000
Massachusetts
$44,000
Michigan
$44,000
Minnesota
$380,000
Mississippi
$166,000
Missouri
$175,000
Montana
$315,000
Nebraska
$379,000
Nevada
$98,000
New Hampshire
$201,000
New Jersey
$18,000
New Mexico
$171,000
New York
$12,000
North Carolina
$252,000
North Dakota
$339,000
Ohio
$180,000
Oklahoma
$291,000
Oregon
$220,000
Pennsylvania
$68,000
Rhode Island
$52,000
South Carolina
$186,000
South Dakota
$241,000
Tennessee
$166,000
Texas
$184,000
Utah
$94,000
Vermont
$87,000
Virginia
$201,000
Washington
$58,000
West Virginia
$471,000
Wisconsin
$163,000
Wyoming
$278,000
SOURCE:
www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/state-by-state-breakdown-of-federal-aid-per-covid-19-case.html
h/t STAX