Ladies and gentlemen, MSNBC host Joy Reid has a statement to make:
To the anti-government wingers in my thread: so far, the only "spread of Ebola" in the U.S. was caused by a private hospital in a red state.
— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) October 12, 2014A few thoughts. 1) Private hospitals in the United States unselfishly provide healthcare to millions of Americans each year. According to the American Hospital Association, there are 5,723 registered hospitals in the United States. Out of those 5,723 hospitals, 1,025 are for-profit and 2,903 are nonprofit. Just 1,045 are government hospitals. Here is a handy chart:
*Registered hospitals are those hospitals that meet AHA's criteria for registration as a hospital facility. Registered hospitals include AHA member hospitals as well as nonmember hospitals. For a complete listing of the criteria used for registration, please see Registration Requirements for Hospitals.
**Community hospitals are defined as all nonfederal, short-term general, and other special hospitals. Other special hospitals include obstetrics and gynecology; eye, ear, nose, and throat; rehabilitation; orthopedic; and other individually described specialty services. Community hospitals include academic medical centers or other teaching hospitals if they are nonfederal short-term hospitals. Excluded are hospitals not accessible by the general public, such as prison hospitals or college infirmaries.
Medical personnel at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas graciously provided Ebola patient Thomas Duncan, who died last week, with care despite great risk to themselves and other patients
2) How exactly did Ebola get into the hospital, into the "red state" of Texas and into the United States for that matter, in the first place? Why not hold Thomas Duncan accountable for traveling to Liberia, lying on a medical form about Ebola exposure and landing in Dallas after trouncing through multiple airports with thousands of people?
3) The other alternative for Duncan would have been for the hospital to reject him as a patient and refuse treatment all together. Instead, men and women working at the private hospital put their own lives at risk in an effort to save his. A nurse who tried to save him, is now suffering from the disease as a result.
4) Should we have sent Duncan to a government hospital like Veteran's Affairs? Where thousands of have died just waiting for care?
Naturally after much backlash, Reid is attempting to walk things back.
Context to my prior Ebola tweet: I was trying to make the point that politics - red or blue - is irrelevant to the "spread of Ebola."
— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) October 13, 2014
Never change MSNBC, never change.