Obama’s New Ebola ‘Czar’ Does Not Have Medical, Health Care Background

[LibCampFireClub 635]

Watch the libs in Washington who play music for their blind followers as the Titanic sinks. Nothing to see here. Remain calm. The Kenyan cares about all Americans and will make sure all life boats are deployed. You bet there are enough to accommodate all passengers.

[lostinblue 1,989]

Dr. Nicole Lurie,

Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, She is suppose to to lead the nation in preventing, responding to and recovering from the adverse health effects of public health emergencies.”

Where does she fit in this equation.. And where is she ?

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

I like being manipulated with rhetoric. "Czar" sure sounds powerful, after all it means absolute dictator. But that is trivially untrue. Therefore, what is the real position of this man and what authorities will he actually have, other than reporting to the three people in the chain of command above: the two mentioned, and the president himself. In reality we must put the chief of staff in there too.

Don't we already have a Center for Disease Control? So, what is it doing? Doesn't this kind of admit they aren't up to the task? What is his relation to them? It sounds so ridiculously superficial.

Public health is generally a state-level concern so this guy can't just hijack all the state health care apparatus'. I think Obama is all about perception management. He's choosing words carefully there with Czar for maximum electoral manipulation. These so-called "Swat teams"... these are new positions I gather. You can't just "poof" them into existence. It's another example where the executive branch is phrasing things in the militaristic totalitarian terms. It means special weapons and tactics. That isn't what health care people do.

Why can't we name them what they actually are instead? Are we a bunch of children? I guess.

He is the fall man in case it blows up. Things get ugly, then his rsignation is accepted. Things go well the Admin takes credit. Sad state of politics today

As for states handling health and the federal govt can't hijack the local preparedness.

Sounds like Katrina

Obama apparently believes that Ebola is a political problem Not a public health epidemic that needs to be eradicated as quickly as possible..A political problem to be managed for the remaining weeks heading into the election

.Klain worked as chief of staff for former Vice President Al Gore, Janet Reno, the Senate Democratic Leadership Committee, and the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The new Czar is about to funnel Billions to cronies. Watch for it

Is that Keith Richards ?

[UncleBeer 244]

Who says they couldn't make this worse? How stupid is it to deliberately throw open the borders to infectious non-citizens???

Obama Plans to Let Ebola-infected Foreigners Into U.S. for Treatment

Washington, DC – Judicial Watch has learned that the Obama administration is actively formulating plans to admit Ebola-infected non-U.S. citizens into the United States for treatment. Specifically, the goal of the administration is to bring Ebola patients into the United States for treatment within the first days of diagnosis.

It is unclear who would bear the high costs of transporting and treating non-citizen Ebola patients. The plans include special waivers of laws and regulations that ban the admission of non-citizens with a communicable disease as dangerous as Ebola.

One source tells us that the Obama administration is keeping this plan secret from Congress. The source is concerned that the proposal is illegal; endangers the public health and welfare; and should require the approval of Congress.

[lostinblue 1,989]

Health and Human Services Department Nicole Lurie, Assistant Secretary, Preparedness and Response

By Margot Sanger-Katz

July 16, 2013 Lurie's job is to plan for the unthinkable. A global flu pandemic? She has a plan. A bioterror attack? She's on it. Massive earthquake? Yep. Her responsibilities as assistant secretary span public health, global health, and homeland security. That means a lot of coordination with her colleagues at HHS, as well as state and local officials and other federal agencies. It also means a mission that includes both science and communications strategy. In the digital age, she is working to improve the department's data capabilities—the better to know who lives in a given community when disaster strikes—and its ability to harness social media to deliver messages about how to stay safe. "Both the biggest opportunity and the biggest challenge is to build communities that are more resilient to the types of challenges that come their way," she says. Lurie, 60, is from Connecticut and lives in Maryland with her husband. She's a fitness buff, generally carving time out of her afternoons to run, skate, or practice yoga. Her undergraduate and medical-school degrees both come from the University of Pennsylvania, and she holds a master's degree in public health from UCLA. Lurie keeps her clinical skills sharp by volunteering every week in a community clinic, where she also teaches medical students and residents.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/decision-makers/health/nicole-lurie-assistant-secretary-preparedness-and-response-20130716

Why was she bypassed for a political hack.

“the highest-ranking federal official in charge of preparing the nation to face such health crises as earthquakes, hurricanes, terrorist attacks, and pandemic influenza.”

Nicole Lurie: A Doctor for Her Country After years of experience in both primary care and public health, Nicole Lurie, M.D. ’79, is now the highest-ranking federal official in charge of preparing the nation to face such health crises as earthquakes, hurricanes, terrorist attacks, and pandemic influenza.

The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response was created in its present form in 2006. It was formed “as a lesson learned after Katrina,” which demonstrated how vitally important preparedness was.

Lurie’s next stop was as senior natural scientist and the Paul O’Neill Alcoa Professor of Health Policy at the Rand Corporation, the nonpartisan think tank based in Arlington, Va. There, she directed its public health and preparedness work as well as its Center for Population Health and Health Disparities. Her work included projects done with the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Public Health Preparedness at HHS, the predecessor of the position she would accept in 2009.

As she explained in testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Bioterrorism and Public Health Preparedness in March 2005, her work included evaluating public health preparedness in California and Georgia; conducting 32 tabletop exercises on hypothetical crises caused by smallpox, anthrax, botulism, plague, and pandemic influenza; and interviewing officials from 44 communities in 17 states. She reported evidence of progress in preparedness, “although I’ll also be the first to tell you that we have miles to go before we sleep, especially as we face the threat of pandemic influenza.” RAND’s research, she continued, emphasized the need for continuing investment in technologies to promote shared “situational awareness.” The researchers also found widespread confusion about who is supposed to do what in a public health emergency –- and exactly when responsibility shifts from local to state or federal entities.

These remain some of the concerns of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, officially created in its present form in 2006. As Lurie put it during her presentation at Penn in May, the office was “formed as a lesson learned after Katrina,” which demonstrated how vitally important preparedness was. The office was meant to be, she continued, “a single focal point” for all activities related to preparedness and response. And there are many. In her current position, Lurie heads a staff of close to 700 people, including offices responsible for making countermeasures, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), for emergency management, and for policy development.

When Lurie’s appointment was announced, Jeffrey Levi, Ph.D., executive director of the Trust for America’s Health and professor of health policy at George Washington University’s School of Public Health, issued a statement: “The President could not have selected a more qualified and capable candidate for the job. . . . Dr. Lurie blends strong medical and subject matter expertise with proven, pragmatic managerial skills.”

Colleagues who cite Lurie’s energy and focus on her job say she has the rare ability to cut through complex issues and balance many priorities simultaneously and with apparent ease. One colleague sums it up by explaining that Lurie is the kind of person who genuinely cares about making things better.

In addition to her responsibilities at HHS, Lurie makes time to see patients who are without health insurance at the Bread for the City clinic in Washington, D.C. How does she fit everything in? “It’s all about managing a team,” she says. “I get to work before 7:30 in the morning and work late. I find my work extremely challenging. I work across HHS, other government agencies, and communities throughout the country. Each component has a wholly different perspective on a problem. Each has lessons from which we can learn. The challenge is to synthesize these lessons so that we can continue to improve our preparedness and do the best job possible for the American people.”

When asked what helps her to confront the inevitable hurdles in meeting such a goal, she considers for a few seconds. “The only way I stay grounded is with a fair amount of exercise each day,” she admits. “I run, swim, and do yoga regularly, and place a high priority on family time.”

Lurie’s office in Washington is large enough for efficiency -– and just that. Dominated by the American flag, it is clearly a place where the business of the country takes precedence. Directly above her computer screen, in direct line of sight, however, is a framed picture of the late Samuel P. Martin III, M.D., former executive director of Penn’s Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics. He was the person Lurie considers her mentor and whom she credits with guiding the educational choices that enabled her to accomplish all she has professionally. In fact, Lurie delivered the first Samuel P. Martin III, M.D., Memorial Lecture and returned to the Penn campus in 2007 to deliver the tenth as well.

On May 19, Lurie delivered the graduation address for the Perelman School of Medicine, and she took a few minutes to tell the new graduates about meeting Martin and the impact he had. When Lurie was an undergraduate at Penn, she did not plan to become a doctor; her goal was to address poverty. As a sophomore, however, she spotted a listing for a course called “Health Care as a Human Right.” But it turned out to be for freshmen only. “Instead, I began working for the professor, a remarkable man named Sam Martin, who became my lifelong mentor. Through him, I came to see medicine as a tool for promoting social justice and reforming the health-care system as a key component of that effort.”

In an interview, Lurie elaborates. “I would say that much of what I have been able to accomplish in life goes back to my roots at Penn.” From the start, she says, she was surrounded by Martin and other people who showed her how to combine a life in medicine with a life in policy. “So many of the issues with which I now deal relate to health economics and the health-care marketplace,” Lurie continues. “How grateful I am for all those courses I took at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. I was exposed to some of the top economists at Wharton and learned from people like Sam and Bill Kissick.” (William Kissick, M.D., Ph.D., who died this year, wrote Medicine’s Dilemmas: Infinite Needs Versus Finite Resources. He taught at Penn’s School of Medicine and the Wharton School 1969-2001.)

It was because of exposure to Penn faculty that she ultimately applied to and was selected to be a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar. The Clinical Scholars program comprises academically exceptional physicians who have completed their training and have an interest in public policy, community health, and health-services research. According to Lurie, it was through the Scholars Program that she first met people who were considered giants in their field of medicine, people with whom she continues to confer.

http://news.pennmedicine.org/inside/2014/02/nicole-lurie-a-doctor-for-her-country.html

[Curmudgeon 227]

Who says they couldn't make this worse? How stupid is it to deliberately throw open the borders to infectious non-citizens???

God forbid that the US would actually help a country in crisis. How appalling. Deliberately putting US folks at risk, Obolo must be trying to kill US citizens. Presumably he's got a plan lined up to replace us white folks with his black African brothers? I'm scared now.

Edited October 18, 2014 by Curmudgeon

[lostinblue 1,989]

God forbid that the US would actually help a country in crisis. How appalling. Deliberately putting US folks at risk, Obolo must be trying to kill US citizens. Presumably he's got a plan lined up to replace us white folks with his black African brothers? I'm scared now.

His duty is to help our country,

[UncleBeer 244]

God forbid that the US would actually help a country in crisis. How appalling. Deliberately putting US folks at risk, Obolo must be trying to kill US citizens. Presumably he's got a plan lined up to replace us white folks with his black African brothers? I'm scared now.

Dig: these are non-citizens. There are laws in place to prevent sick folks from coming to the US; they're there for a reason. More of the preznit's "pen & phone" lawlessness.

And given the CDC head's testimony to Congress the other day, where he says "this needs to be stopped in Africa" (although apparently his concern strangely enough goes up to- but does not include flight bans), how does importing deathly ill and contagious people to our shores accomplish this?

[lostinblue 1,989]

The democrats war on women continues ... You replace a capable woman with all the qualifications for a man that doesn't understand what normal lab values would be. So sad. ...

[Darnell 8,478]

I'm starting to feel bad for Lurie now - who knew that Obama hated women so much ?

[Dakine10 5,452]

I'm starting to feel bad for Lurie now - who knew that Obama hated women so much ?

Gary knew. He told us every day.

[JohnR! 5,495]

Several unnamed sources at the White House have confirmed the rumors to be true, that the purpose of 0'bola's choice for Ebola Czar was purely to upset some VJ members. They also confirmed 0'bola is ecstatic he succeeded.

:rofl: :rofl:

[UncleBeer 244]

Turns out we don't have to worry too much about the new Ebola czar's qualifications; apparently he won't start work for 5 or 6 months.

It's good to see the preznit taking this so seriously.

[rlogan 2,036]

Dr. Nicole Lurie,

Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, She is suppose to to lead the nation in preventing, responding to and recovering from the adverse health effects of public health emergencies.”

Where does she fit in this equation.. And where is she ?

Exactly the right question, and is the SAME example: Katrina's disasterous Federal response by FEMA in particular but other agencies too: that led to the creation of this new bureaucracy that sounds exactly like the one who should be dealing with Ebola.

Either it failed, or it is simply being ignored for the political expediency of saying there is a new "Ebola Czar". Why are we not working through existing public health institutions? This new guy, ironically, headed the disaster (!) agency FEMA which is better known as a slush fund for cronies. Massive waste and fraud. He was deep into the Solyndra scandal, advising the President back them publicly, against the warnings of people supervising them.

Obama is always talking in these allegories instead of concrete facts. He said the new Czar is for the purpose of dotting all of our "I"'s and crossing our "t".s. That's gibberish. I am sick of being told not to panic by the government and media. Jesus, we are not children. The president's job in part is to inform. So why does the word "quarantine" not appear in his vocabulary instead of "dictator", "gunslinger", "butt-kicker", etc. Stop telling me not to pee my pants and that the new superman has come to town.

This guy who brought Ebola in and died came because there was no travel ban. He lied to get in. That is why you have to ban. So I refuse to accept the argument a travel ban does no good. This was how it got here, and despite a fever.... despite the hospital staff in Dallas KNOWING he came from Liberia and being sent home with a 103 fever... hospital staff being warned a SECOND time by an untrained companion that he was from a viral outbreak of Ebola... the hospital staff violated basic QUARANTINE protocols.

So why is my president talking gibberish and treating me like a kindergartener instead of speaking directly to the subject here. He isn't showing me that HE is grasping the basic epidemiological problem here in quarantine mechanics.

[Karee 4,189]

Seems they should just do away with the medical exam requirement for immigrant visas. What's the point if they're going to let anyone in with a tourist visa?

Edited October 18, 2014 by Karee