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ANALYSIS:Trump Baselessly Accuses Doctors Of Overreporting Covid Deaths For Financial Gain
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President Donald Trump repeated an unfounded accusation at a campaign rally in Michigan on Friday, asserting U.S. doctors are misrepresenting the number of coronavirus fatalities because they receive "like $2,000 more" if they report Covid-19 as the cause of a patient's death, a baseless charge that has angered many in the medical community.
You know, our doctors get more money if someone dies from Covid, you know that right," Trump told supporters at a campaign stop in Waterford Township, Michigan Friday afternoon.
The president claimed that in Germany and other foreign countries, if a patient has cancer and is "gonna be dying soon" and subsequently catches Covid-19, doctors in those nations say that individual died of cancer.
U.S. doctors, according to Trump, “when in doubt, choose Covid," Trump baselessly claimed, which led to laughter from his crowd of supporters.
Key Background:
Trump made a similar accusation last Saturday at a rally in Wisconsin, telling his audience that other countries "report differently." The president claimed that doctors in the U.S. "get more money and hospitals get more money" for each Covid death. "Think of this incentive," he added.
The American Medical Association responded to the allegation by tweeting, "let's be clear physicians are not inflating the number of COVID-19 patients." Ashish K. Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, wrote that Trump's charges were false and offensive and that they demonstrate "a fundamental misunderstanding of how hospital billing works." Jha added, "to hear our President demean doctors who, along with nurses, have put their lives on the line to manage this public health disaster is beyond the pale."
The president of the American College of Physicians characterized Trump's comments as "a reprehensible attack on physicians' ethics and professionalism.", The CDC reported last week that the official Covid-19 death count (229,200 as of Friday afternoon) "might underestimate the total impact of the pandemic on mortality," as an estimated 299,028 more persons than expected have died since January 26, 2020. ...
Donald Trump Jr., falsely claimed Thursday evening that the number of Americans dying from Covid-19 has dropped to "almost nothing," despite the U.S reporting more than 1,000 fatalities for a second consecutive. The president's son referred to medical experts expressing grave concerns about potential dangers related to the recent Covid spike as "morons." ..
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