A16| Thursday, March 12, 2020 **** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
To Your Health: The Doctors Vs. Prosecutors
Regarding Kyle Clark and Andrew
George’s “A Court Corrects a Medi-
cal Injustice” (op-ed, March 7): At-
torneys find a way to change an ob-
jective measurement into an
opinion. An opinion becomes a dis-
agreement in judgment. The dis-
agreement is attributed to bias and
a man is exonerated.
A vascular stenosis is an easy cal-
culation from measurement of a nor-
mal segment of vessel and measure-
ment of the narrowest segment. It
can be done with a ruler on a printed
image and simple math. Many or
most cardiologists visually estimate
the stenosis without measuring, and
such ocular estimates have been
shown to be about 20% higher than
what is measured. Hence, confirma-
tory tests are recommended to en-
sure that good, not harm, is done for
the patient. Recent data indicates
that less than half of the coronary
stents placed in elective circum-
stances seem to be helpful for the pa-
tient. Such procedures are wonderful
for the hospital, the cardiology group
and the cardiologist, as they suck
money from payers. They also endow
the installers with high esteem and
adulation. That said, jail is an inap-propriate remedy for such errors—fi-
nancial penalties and loss of license
are—when such behavior is objec-
tively established.
In the matter of Dr. Richard Pau-
lus, government prosecutors, if the
opinion piece is accurate, misbe-
haved. Such legal overreach is com-
mon and results in an excessively
high (perhaps 10%) false conviction
rate. (A friend was recently wrongly
convicted in this manner.) We would
be better off with the cheating attor-
neys in jail and the cheating doctors
in the poorhouse, so honest people
can live life free and well.
J.JOSEPHPERRY,M.D.,FACC
Salt Lake CityThe prosecutors involved should
be required to spend nine months in
prison, as Dr. Paulus did. This abuse
will continue as long as there are no
repercussions to those involved. Ev-
ery single American should be deeply
concerned about the unchecked, un-
constitutional violations being com-
mitted by unelected government offi-
cials against ordinary American
citizens.
CHUCKMCGEE
Moultonborough, N.H.LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Letters intended for publication should
be addressed to: The Editor, 1211 Avenue
of the Americas, New York, NY 10036,
or emailed to [email protected]. Please
include your city and state. All letters
are subject to editing, and unpublished
letters can be neither acknowledged nor
returned.Socking the Rich on NQDC Hits Many Others
Nonqualified deferred compensa-
tion (NQDC) plans are used by busi-
nesses of all sizes and benefit em-
ployees at all levels, not just those
at the top (“Proposal Targets Execu-
tive Tax Break,” U.S. News, Feb. 28).
Recent data indicate that 69% of
NQDC participants have accumulated
less than $100,000 in their plans. In
addition to building savings, NQDC
gives employees a vested interest in
their organization’s long-term suc-
cess and is critical in recruiting and
retaining talent, which is particu-
larly important in today’s highly
competitive labor market.
The tools are also commonly used
to help the succession transition of
small-business ownership. A client
of one of our members owned a
small lawn-care business and
wanted to retire. He had no chil-
dren, and two employees wanted to
take over the business but unfortu-
nately didn’t have the money to buyit. An NQDC plan allowed them to
pay the founder over time, while
also ensuring all the employees in
the business kept their jobs, custom-
ers continued to be served and the
founder got the full value for what
he built.
The type of ill-advised proposal
put forward by Sen. Bernie Sanders
was strongly rejected during the
consideration of tax reform in 2017
precisely because of all the negative
consequences to employees, employ-
ers, businesses of all sizes and our
economy. Sen. Sanders’s proposal
falls squarely on moderate-income
savers. We should never hand re-
sponsible savers a tax bill for money
they haven’t received and might
never receive.
MARCR.CADIN
President and CEO
Association for Advanced
Life Underwriting
WashingtonBiden Unlikely to Bring Back Bipartisanship
Regarding William A. Galston’s
“Joe Biden Gets Back in the Ring”
(Politics & Ideas, March 4): Mr. Gal-
ston longs for bipartisanship in
Washington and former Vice Presi-
dent Joe Biden argues that it is still
possible. Whether or not that is
true, Mr. Galston believes that Joe
Biden will “act as though it is and
by so doing increase the possibility
of its restoration.” Does that sug-
gest that if President Trump acts
like he desires bipartisanship, Demo-
crats in Congress will look for com-
mon ground and stop acting like he
is an illegitimate leader?
Mr. Galston credits Joe Biden for
finally finding his voice and saying
he would focus on steps to improve
people’s lives, repair America’s tat-
tered alliances, renew U.S. moral au-
thority and restore dignity and de-
cency in the White House. European
allies certainly will welcome a re-
turn to the Obama-Biden years when
no one in the administration was
uncouth enough to demand that Eu-
rope spend more to defend itself
and the U.S. was willing to bear any
Paris Accord burden to save the
world from climate change.
Vice President Biden learnedfrom the best—his White House
boss—when it comes to reaching
across the aisle. President Obama’s
February 2009 stimulus package
and ObamaCare were passed with a
grand total of zero Republican
votes in the House. After the Demo-
crats lost control of Congress, Pres-
ident Obama whipped out his pen
and phone to get things done. Exec-
utive orders, rule-making and
agency management required no bi-
partisanship. Mr. Biden swept
southern states on Super Tuesday
by tapping into Mr. Obama’s coali-
tion, particularly African-American
voters. A return to the good old
days of pre-Trump bipartisanship is
a fantasy.
ALLENGARRETT
Wilmington, N.C.New York Abandons Broken
Windows, Bail Requirement
Regarding your editorial “The ‘No
Bail’ Fiasco in New York” (March 7):
On June 11, 1996, Evelyn Alvarez, the
owner of a dry-cleaning establishment
on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, was
murdered as she was opening her
shop. The attacker’s fingerprints were
found at the scene and matched to an
individual who had been arrested and
fingerprinted several months before
for turnstile jumping.
Without that prior arrest, one can
only guess at how many more crimes
this individual would have committed.
As it was, a string of attacks on
women he had committed was halted.
Thereafter criticism of the then-con-
troversial “broken windows” policy
decreased dramatically.
One can only wonder what the sur-
vivors and families of the victims of
this man’s crimes make of the confed-
eracy of dunces now running New
York City.
CHARLESRUFINO
Huntington, N.Y.The Virus and Leadership
W
hen President Trump sees a political
threat, his instinct is to deny, double
down and hit back. That has often
been politically effective, but
in the case of the novel corona-
virus it has undermined his
ability to lead.
It’s not accurate, as the
press reported last week, that
the President called the virus a
“hoax.” He said the criticisms of his Administra-
tion were a hoax. Yet his public remarks too often
continue to give the impression that he views the
virus more as another chance for political combat
than as a serious public-health problem.
White House advisers last week said the virus
is being “contained” despite contrary evidence.
On Monday, after suggesting “fake news” was
driving the stock-market rout, the President
tweeted: “So last year 37,000 Americans died
from the common Flu. It averages between
27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut
down, life & the economy go on. At this moment
there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus,
with 22 deaths. Think about that!”
Like the common flu, except the death rate
from the virus may be ten times higher. Like the
common flu, except the U.S. population has no
built-up immunity, so the virus left unchecked
could infect a significantly higher share of the
population at a faster rate, overwhelming the
medical system.
We hope the dire coronavirus prognostica-
tions turn out not to pass, and no one knows how
the coming months will play out. Yet with stock
markets falling, schools canceling classes, com-
panies emptying their offices, and nations lock-
ing down borders and some cities, Americans
want steady leadership.
The biggest failure so far has been on testing
when the Centers for Disease Control and Pre-
vention produced contaminated test kits and the
Food and Drug Administration was slow to ap-
prove private alternatives. The best response to
that is to acknowledge the delay, explain what
happened, and relate when and how the problem
will be addressed. The mistake is to claim there
was no problem.
Mr. Trump is right that his opponents, in poli-
tics and the media, want to turn the virus into his
Hurricane Katrina. That is inevitable and he
shouldn’t take their bait. The
best defense isn’t to strike back
as if the virus is Adam Schiff. It
can’t be mocked with a nick-
name or dismissed with over-
optimistic assertions that risk
being run over by reality in a
week or a month. On Wednesday Mr. Trump
punched back at an article in Vanity Fair by tweet-
ing: “Our team is doing a great job with CoronaVi-
rus!” Who cares about Vanity Fair?
The best reply is cool and realistic leadership
that marshals the strengths of the government a
President leads. This means letting the experts
speak, not putting himself in the front of every
briefing and speculating about things he doesn’t
know much about. It means showing personal
support, ideally at some point in person, for virus
patients and their front-line caregivers.
Leadership means putting together a response
to economic weakness and what can be done to
help those who lose their jobs, not promising
something he can’t deliver on Capitol Hill or blast-
ing the Federal Reserve for the 100th time. Above
all, leadership in a crisis means telling the public
the truth, lest people begin to tune him out or,
worse, make him a figure of mockery.
Disasters and crises can make or break pres-
idencies—not from the event itself but from
how the public judges a President’s response.
In the last week the Administration’s perfor-
mance has improved, and his speech to the na-
tion Wednesday night was at least a step to-
ward more realism. But the pandemic continues
to build and he still understated the scope of
the health risk. Travel bans are less important
than mitigation efforts at home with thousands
of likely cases already here. Comparing the U.S.
favorably to Europe won’t reassure anyone if
the U.S. catches up.
Mr. Trump did seem to recognize that the
threat to public health is a chance to rise above
narrow partisanship and speak for the whole
country. His main opponent for re-election now
isn’t Joe Biden. It’s the coronavirus.Trump’s main opponent
isn’t Joe Biden. It’s
the coronavirus.
Virus Relief, Good and Bad
T
he coronavirus has had the bad judgment
to arrive in an election year, so Congress
will inevitably respond with what it does
best—spend money. As the
ideas spill out, it’s worth laying
out some principles to sort the
good from the bad and the ugly.
- Target the real hardship.
Americans who need the most
help will be those who lose
their jobs because they or their family members
are sick, especially low-income workers who are
paid hourly rather than by salary. Federal grants
could help make up for lost wages, sick leave, or
special health-care costs.
The precedents here are unemployment in-
surance and disaster relief. The former is tar-
geted at individuals who had been working and
lose their jobs, and both programs are limited.
Jobless benefits expire after a time, with a goal
of encouraging recipients to get back into the job
market when the economy improves.
Disaster relief addresses the immediate harm
to personal property and businesses, and recipi-
ents have to meet certain criteria to qualify. Re-
lief can be in the form of grants or loans, espe-
cially to small business. Congress recently
passed $1 billion in small-business loan subsi-
dies as part of its $8.3 billion virus relief pack-
age, and on Wednesday President Trump asked
for $50 billion more that we hope has some vi-
rus-damage requirements attached. - Make the relief immediate. People who lose
their jobs or are sick need the money now, not
months down the road. One problem, among
many, with the Obama 2009 stimulus program
is that its spending was spread over years. So-
called shovel-ready projects weren’t close to
ready. The worst idea we’ve heard in response
to the coronavirus is for a big new public-works
bill. In other words, to address an epidemic to-
day, the solution is to build more roads in 2021
and 2022. - Target individuals, not bureaucracies.The
further away from people the money goes, the
less good it will do. Senate Democrats on
Wednesday floated a kitchen-sink virus bill
loaded with money for every pet program going
back to the Great Society. One chestnut is “sup-
plemental financial assistance directly to hous-
ing authorities”—that is, the folks at the New
York City Housing Authority
who spend $1,973 per apart-
ment to install new lighting.
Their tenants may need a
check if they lose their job, but
why reward the housing bu-
reaucrats?- Avoid new mandates on business. Progres-
sives will try to use this crisis to require employ-
ers to provide mandatory paid sick leave to all
employees. The idea will be to start at seven
days, and claim it’s temporary, but once in place
the mandate will never go away. Soon it will be
90 days, raising the cost of hiring. If Democrats
want to pay for virus sick leave, have Uncle Sam
write the checks. - Beware new or expanded entitlements dis-
guised as emergency relief.Senate Democrats
want to expand “benefit levels” for food stamps,
as you’d expect. But they also want “new pan-
demic SNAP authority” to provide additional
food assistance for public-health emergencies.
This looks suspiciously like an increase in food-
stamp eligibility that wouldn’t go away when the
health-crisis does.
Congress may also try to expand eligibility for
Medicaid, or increase the federal share of pay-
ments in the state-federal program. But the
heavy federal share, which can be as high as 90%
for some recipients, already increases the incen-
tive for states to enroll more able-bodied adults
at the expense of the needy. If the states need
money for virus-related health relief, write them
a check based on the number of state cases and
let them decide how to spend it.
We’ll have more to say in the future about tax
cuts and proposals to bail out industries. Our
larger point today is that government’s role in
this crisis should be to address a genuine short-
term hardship, not to permanently expand the
size of government and the burden on taxpayers.
These spending ideas won’t provide much of an
economic stimulus, though they might help con-
sumer confidence. They should end when the vi-
rus threat does.
The goal is to relieve
hardship, not expand
the welfare state.
Pain and Suffering for Profit
H
ardly a business doesn’t expect to be
harmed by the coronavirus pandemic,
but you had to know that trial lawyers
would find a way to turn a
buck from all the pain and suf-
fering. Sure enough, a Florida
law firm is now seeking to
shake down Princess Cruise
Lines for causing emotional
distress to passengers recently
quarantined off the coast of California.
Chalik & Chalik Law has filed two lawsuits
against Princess Cruise for gross negligence.
Two of the plaintiffs are parents of one of the
attorneys who filed the lawsuit, and they are
seeking $1 million in damages.
“We believe the cruise lines have a pattern
of putting profits over their passengers,” attor-
ney Jason Chalik told legal newsletter The Re-
corder. “They’re afraid if they stop running the
ships they’ll lose money, when that’s what they
should do for the safety of their customers.”
He says more lawsuits may be coming.
But passengers joined the cruises at a time
when news about the virus was already spread-
ing fast around the world. An-
other 3,000 people last month
were quarantined on a Prin-
cess Cruise off the coast of
Japan at the orders of govern-
ment officials.
Mr. Chalik nonetheless
says that few of the 3,500 on the California
cruise were screened for coronavirus. “Passen-
gers were simply asked to fill out a piece of
paper confirming they were not sick,” the law-
suit says. But coronavirus tests weren’t widely
available.
Hotels and restaurants could also be sued
under this “gross negligence” standard since
any customer who walks through their doors
could carry the virus. And if the U.S. govern-
ment stopped the Princess Cruises from dock-
ing, why is the company responsible?Where there’s a
coronavirus patient,
there’s a trial lawyer.
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
OPINION
THE WALL STREET JOURNALThalidomide Is a Legal,
Useful Drug for Some Cases
In his review of “The Invention of
Surgery” by David Schneider, John J.
Ross points out an error, but makes
one of his own (Books, March 7). In
saying that thalidomide was flagged
by the FDA in the early 1960s due to
the “heroic skepticism of the lead
reviewer, Dr. Frances Kelsey,” Mr.
Ross states that thalidomide was
never approved by the FDA. In fact,
thalidomide was ultimately ap-
proved by the FDA in 1998 for the
treatment of erythema nodosum lep-
rosum, an inflammatory complica-
tion of leprosy.
Thalidomide went on to be used
in, among other indications, multiple
myeloma and, ultimately, an analog
of thalidomide, lenalidomide, became
the standard of care for this disease.
LAWRENCEZASLOW
Chappaqua, N.Y.Pepper ...
And Salt