Still, the Medicaid portion of the plan is bad enough. Children, after all, are at practically zero risk of serious illness or death from COVID-19, but they are at significant risk from the vaccines. There is absolutely no reason for doctors to be pushing them to get vaccinated.
At least there wasn’t until the Biden plan came along. In fact, doctors’ groups lobbied for the Medicaid reimbursements because they claimed their members couldn’t afford to take time to talk to parents about the vaccines.
Time reported in December:
Pediatricians remain the most trusted source of information for Covid-19 vaccines. Overall, 77% of parents said they trust their child’s pediatrician or health care provider a great deal or a fair amount, and that trust remained high across party, race and ethnicity. Providers know this and they want to use their power of persuasion on each family. But they often have limited time and are also trying to help patients catch up on medical care they missed during the pandemic, ask about any chronic disease issues or figure out why a patient is sick now, and ensure parents know about regular annual vaccines their children still need.
“You make an audible on the line of scrimmage every visit. If somebody has got a lot of genuine questions and the conversation is going well, you steal an extra three or four minutes for the conversation, and you take it out of the next visit,” [Dr. John] Waits[, CEO of Cahaba Medical Care in Alabama,] says. If a parent seems to really shut down, he might move on more quickly and revisit the issue another time.
