OBAMACARE 110915

The Affordable Care Act The mandates for employers to provide coverage for employees and their families are expected to be $15,000 per year, equivalent to an additional $6 an hour cost. The fine for not providing coverage is $2,000 per employee per year.

Audio: Scalia lectures Verrilli on enumerated powers (What is left, if the gov't can do this?)
Hotair ^ | 03/27/2012 | AllahPundit The guy who uploaded this to YouTube calls it a benchslap. It's loads of fun, and the point about limited powers will sound familiar. The key part comes early when Scalia jumps in to challenge Verrilli's citation of Court precedent. Those cases dealt with commerce, he says; in this case, the legislation is aimed at people who aren't participating in commerce, i.e. people without insurance. That's a gutpunch to the left since, once you make that move conceptually, the Commerce Clause defense of the statute is hanging by a thread. You can follow his thinking over the rest of the...

Elderly dying due to 'despicable age discrimination in NHS'

Telegraph UK ^ | 3/25/12 | Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor Thousands of elderly people are dying unnecessarily early because despicable age discrimination in the NHS is denying them treatment for cancer, a charity has warned. A lack of treatment or insufficient treatment is contributing to 14,000 deaths a year in people over the age of 75, Macmillan Cancer Support has found, in what it called an unacceptable act of discrimination. Deaths from cancer are reducing in most age groups but at a slower rate in those aged 74 to 84 and are increasing in people aged 85 and over, the report said. The report, The Age Old Excuse: the under...

PHOTOS: This is tyranny: tens of thousands decry HHS mandate in 146 nationwide protests
Life Site News ^ | March 23, 2012 | Kathleen Gilbert WASHINGTON, March 23, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Another Occupy movement has just rocked the United States of America - but with a very different message. Tens of thousands of men and women gathered in 146 protests on Friday, joining a grassroots effort that organizers say grew far beyond expectations. The rallies were held to protest the Obama administration mandate forcing religious universities, charities, and other groups to pay for abortifacient drugs and other birth control for students and employees. But while the purpose of the Occupy protests last Fall was sometimes criticized as being somewhat hazy, the message of this event...

Video: Wasserman-Schultz Admits People Will Lose Their Health Insurance Under ObamaCare
The Hope For America ^ | 3/22/12 | Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Martha MacCallum The bad hair day chairperson of the DNC had a semi-contentious interview with FNC's Martha MacCallum.Wasserman-Schultz was asked about the CBO report which states that 20 million people will lose their health insurance coverage under ObamaCare. She tried to answer that one by stating, essentially, that they won't lose "coverage" even if they lose "their coverage". And that's an important distinction. Because Obama told us that we would be able to keep our existing health insurance plan under ObamaCare. That clip is included at the end of this video. In summary: No, you can't necessarily keep your health insurance plan

Sebelius: Living a Mile from a Grocery 'May Be Too Far to Get Healthier Food'
CNSNews ^ Sebelius: Living a Mile from a Grocery 'May Be Too Far to Get Healthier Food' By Penny Starr March 6, 2012 (CNSNews.com) The administrations definition of a

food desert an urban area where a significant share of the population lives more than one mile from a grocery store came under the microscope during a Health and Human Services appropriations hearing on Capitol Hill Tuesday. Questioning HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, a Republican lawmaker said it was likely most of those present at the hearing lived a mile from their nearest grocery store. Do you think that definition should...

Barack Obamas Sole Article in Harvard Law Review Promotes Abortion

Life News ^ | 8/22/08 | Steven Ertelt Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) How strongly does Barack Obama believe in unlimited abortions? Strongly enough that the only article he wrote for the Harvard Law Review while he was a law school student talked about how fervently believed in legalized abortion. Obamas name wasnt attached to any other legal scholarship during the time. In an article unearthed by the Politico web site, Obama, as the president of the Harvard Law Review, wrote an unsigned article touting abortion. The web site says the article comes in at six pages and is contained in the third volume of the 1990 Harvard Law...

Rep. Michele Bachmann Warns Government May Limit Number of Babies

Opposing Views ^ | 3/7/12 | Michael Allen On Tuesday night, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) appeared on GBTVs 'Real News From The Blaze' to attack government mandated insurance coverage for contraception, which she claimed could lead to the "health care dictator" limiting the number of babies born per family. Rep. Bachmann said: Going with that logic, it isnt far-fetched to think the President of the United States could saywe need to save health care expensesthe federal government will only pay for one baby to be born in the hospital per family. Or two babies to be born per family. That could happen.

UK: More than half care home residents denied basic care, unpublished data shows

The Telegraph ^ | 3/7/2012 | Donna Bowater and John Bingham Older people routinely have to wait up to three months for formal checks for painful conditions such as bed sores, according to figures from the health care watchdog. A quarter were not given a choice of male or female staff to help them use the lavatory and more than a third of care homes surveyed admitted delays in getting medication to residents. Campaigners blamed NHS bureaucrats showing a lack of interest and failing to provide expert assessments for conditions as basic as incontinence. The findings emerged after almost 1,000 elderly people yesterday descended on Parliament to lobby their MPs calling...

Artificial nutrition and hydration should normally be withdrawn, says doctor

BioEdge ^ | 3/2/12 | Michael Cook An American doctor argues in the latest issue of the leading journal Bioethics that artificial nutrition and hydration should be withdrawn from all patients in a permanent vegetative state unless there is clear evidence that they want to be kept alive. Dr Catherine Constable, of New York University School of Medicine, studied bioethics at the Ethox Centre at Oxford University. She argues that the current presumption in favour of maintaining ANH is misguided. It is not in the interests of the patient nor, because of its cost, in the interest of society.However, her argument is not based upon cost,...

Obama in personal phone call to Sandra Fluke: Your parents should be proud
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/02/obama-in-personal-phone-call-to-sandrafluke-your-parents-should-be-proud/ ^ The president clearly thinks its advantageous to keep conservatives preoccupied with his contraception mandate because he sure ensures the topic stays in the spotlight. Today, he did that with a rare personal phone call to Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student who earlier this week testified in support of the mandate by saying that she and her peers are going broke to buy birth control.

Obama Cabinet Secretary: 'The Private [Insurance] Market is in a Death Spiral'

CNS News ^ | February 29, 2012 | Fred Lucas Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday that the days of private health insurance are coming to an end in the United States. The private market is in a death spiral, Sebelius said, contending this would be the case whether or not President Barack Obama's health care law had been enacted. At the Ways and Means hearing, Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) asked Sebelius about the administrations assurances that people who liked their current health insurance plan would be able to keep it under the new law. How about when the president...

California health insurers to raise average rates 8% to 14%

LA Times ^ | 2/24/2012 | Chad Terhune California's largest health insurers are raising average rates by about 8% to 14% for hundreds of thousands of consumers with individual coverage, outpacing the costs of overall medical care. The cost of goods and services associated with medical care grew just 3.6% over the last 12 months nationally, government figures show. But insurance premiums have kept climbing at a faster pace in California. Insurers defended their rate hikes, saying they are based on their claims experience with the customers they insure and not just the broader rate of medical inflation. They also say that healthier members dropped out of the...

Bill to Allow Organ Farming from Unconscious Patients!

First Things ^ | February 23, 2012 | Wesley J. Smith Good grief! A Maryland state legislator has filed a bill that would allow surrogate decision makers to donate kidneys and liver lobes. From HB 449: THIS SUBSECTION APPLIES ONLY TO A PATIENT WHO HAS BEEN CERTIFIED UNDER 5606(B) OF THIS SUBTITLE TO BE IN A PERSISTENT 8 VEGETATIVE STATE. (3) A PERSON AUTHORIZED TO MAKE HEALTH CARE DECISIONS FOR ANOTHER UNDER THIS SECTION MAY AUTHORIZE THE DONATION OF A NONVITAL ORGAN IF THE DONATION IS BASED ON: (I) THE WISHES OF THE PATIENT AS

PREVIOUSLY EXPRESSED BY THE PATIENT; OR (II) A DETERMINATION BY THE SURROGATE THAT THE DONATION...

The Importance of Competition and the Marketplace in Biopharmaceutical Innovation

Forbes ^ | 02/22/2012 | John LaMattina Presidential candidate Rick Santorum recently had an interesting exchange with a mother about the high cost of medicines. As reported by Ed Silverman on February 3rd on his Pharmalot blog, Santorum defended the right of biopharmaceutical companies to make a profit in order to fund R&D and to discover more innovative medications: There are many people sick today who, 10 years from now, are going to be alive because of some drug invented in the next 10 years. If we say: You drug companies are greedy and bad, you cant make a return on your money, then we freeze innovation....

Rasmussens reminder: Majority still favors ObamaCare repeal

Hot Air ^ | February 21, 2012 | Ed Morrissey Perhaps Rasmussens latest poll on ObamaCare will serve as a reminder to the Republican presidential hopefuls that this will be a very productive line of attack in the general election. Given that the HHS mandate springs directly from ObamaCare, it also serves as a guideline on how to handle that issue as well: Despite the controversy over the Obama administrations requirement that Catholic institutions provide free contraceptive coverage for employees, voters opinions on the health care law behind that requirement remain steady. Just over half of voters still want the law repealed. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of...

British government to introduce privatization in health-care system

HotAir ^ | 2/18/12 | Ed Morrissey While the US federal government expands its diktat power over American health care, the British are looking for ways to rescue themselves from their own government-run system. In an attempt to resolve access and provider issues, Prime

Minister David Cameron and the Conservatives want to begin outsourcing work to private practitioners outside the NHS, a reversal of over six decades of public policy:

Obama's Nurse Ratched

American Spectator ^ | 2/16/12 | ROBERT M. GOLDBERG Behind every powerful health care mandate under Obamacare is a power-hungry woman named Kathleen Sebelius. As the Health and Human Services Secretary, she has unprecedented power under Obamacare to control health care decisions, the approval of medical products and the national biomedical research agenda. The Secretary is not only the key player; she is the only one on the field. "The Secretary shall" is mentioned more than 1000 times in the new health care law. Sebelius is using that power to promote a liberal agenda and Obama's re-election. She pushed the contraception edict. Her staff wrote the rules that decided...

First private, door-to-door euthanasia service opens in Netherlands

LifeSiteNews ^ | 2/8/12 | Matthew Cullinan Hoffman February 8, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Netherlands Right-to-Die Association (NVVE) has announced that it will soon fulfill a promise made last year to open a private euthanasia clinic that offers door-to-door service, for people who cant convince their regular doctor to kill them. According to reports in the Spanish and Portuguese-language press, the clinic will serve clients who wish to end their lives, but have been refused help from doctors for ethical reasons. A report by Radio Netherlands says that the organization has mentioned patients who are in the early stages of dementia and those suffering from chronic psychiatric problems....

Muslims Exempt From Obamacare (not required to provide contraceptives)

http://libertyandpride.com/muslims-exempt-from-obamacare/ ^ There are several reasons why an individual could claim exemption, being a member of a religion that does not believe in insurance is one of them. Islam is one

of those religions. Muslims believe that health insurance is haraam, or forbidden; because they liken the ambiguity and probability of insurance to gambling. This belief excludes them from any of the requirements, mandates, or penalties set forth in the bill. Other excluded groups include Amish, American Indians, and Christian Scientists.

'This is a death sentence': Pensioner with aneurysm that could kill her any minute told NHS
Daily Mail ^ | 2/6/12 | Lauren Paxman When great-grandmother Barbara Judge was told that she needed an operation on her aortic aneurysm and her case had been referred to a special funding panel, she assumed it was a formality. But 10 days ago, the 72-year-old received a letter which said her local NHS trust would not pay for the treatment. Without the life-saving operation, Barbara fears she could die any time. A rupture in the aneurysm--a blood balloon on the aorta--could kill her in minutes. Surgeons in London are confident they can save the grandmother-of-five, but the NHS believe they cannot afford to pay

UK elderly are wasting too many bedrooms (CIVIL WAR if they try this in US.
CFP ^ | 05 FEB 12 | Anna Grayson London, England-In yet another outrageous piece of social engineering from our coalition government, pensioners will be encouraged to downsize to smaller properties allowing local councils to rent their homes out as council houses and manage the tenancy. Local authorities will help older people move from their homes into more suitable accommodation. Grant Schapps, the Housing Minister, who is a conservative member of parliament claims the scheme will solve a socalled housing crisis as well as creating a system that will permit access to various sources of wealth that are currently not being used to pay for care. Read that as...

NICE: Prostate cancer drug too costly for NHS

BBCNews ^ | Smitha Mundasad

A drug that can extend the life of men with advanced prostate cancer by more than three months has provisionally been rejected for NHS use. The health watchdog for England and Wales says the drug's benefits are not enough to justify the price the NHS has been asked to pay. Cancer charities have been angered by the decision about abiraterone, one of the few drugs available to men in the final stages of prostate cancer. A final decision is yet to be made. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer to affect men in the UK. Abiraterone costs just under...

RUSH: Santorum Was Right About Romneycare

www.RushLimbaugh.com ^ | January 30, 2012 | Rush Limbaugh Santorum Was Right About Romneycare January 30, 2012 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Wall Street Journal, Grace-Marie Turner: "Rick Santorum went for the jugular in Thursday night's Republican presidential debate, exposing Mitt Romney's weak and contradictory defense of his Massachusetts health-reform law. Mr. Santorum attacked Mr. Romney's claim that the individual mandate affects only'the 8% of people who didn't have insurance.'Mr. Romney insisted that'92% of the people in my state had insurance before our plan went in place. And nothing changes for them.'Mr. Santorum blasted back that'what Governor Romney said is just factually incorrect,'because the mandate affects 100% of the residents...

Yemeni president heads to US for medical treatment

msnbc.com ^ | 1/28/12 | AHMED AL-HAJ/ AP SANAA, Yemen Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh headed to the United States on Saturday for medical treatment, his spokesman said, the latest stage in an effort to distance him from his country's policies to help ease a transition from his rule. Ahmed al-Soufi, the press officer for the presidency, told The Associated Press that Saleh had arrived in London and would leave later Saturday for New York for medical treatment in the United States for wounds suffered in a June assassination attempt in the Yemeni capital. Saleh left Yemen for to neighboring Oman a week ago, planning to head...

Confirmed: Romneycare = Obamacare

Michelle Malkin ^ | 1/26/12 | Michelle Malkin

Obama's game plan: Do nothing

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 1/26/12 | Debra J. Saunders Toward the end of his State of the Union speech, President Obama observed that Washington politicians should learn from the example of the U.S. military: "When you're marching into battle, you look out for the person next to you, or the mission fails." Obama recalled the successful Navy SEAL mission, which under his watch took out Obama bin Laden, and observed, "the mission only succeeded because every member of that unit trusted each other - because you can't charge up those stairs, into darkness and danger, unless you know that there's someone behind you, watching your back." At first blush,...

Four patients die thirsty or starving Every Day on our hospital wards show damning new statistics
Daily Mail ^ | 1/22/12 | Sophie Borland Four patients are dying hungry and thirsty on hospital wards every day, shocking figures reveal. Dehydration or malnutrition directly caused or was linked to 1,316 deaths last year in NHS trusts and privately run hospitals. The revelation follows a series of damning reports accusing staff of failing to address the most basic needs of the vulnerable, particularly the elderly. Only this month David Cameron was forced to order nurses to carry out hourly spot checks of patients just to see whether they need help eating, drinking or going to the toilet.

Labor unions primary recipients of Obamacare waivers

dailycaller.com ^ | 01/06/2012 | By Paul Conner Labor unions continued to receive the overwhelming majority of waivers from the presidents health care reform law since the Obama administration tightened application rules last summer. Documents released in a classic Friday afternoon news dump show that labor unions representing 543,812 workers received waivers from President Barack Obamas signature legislation since June 17, 2011. By contrast, private employers with a total of 69,813 employees, many of whom work for small businesses, were granted waivers. The Department of Health and Human

Services revised the rules governing applications for health reform waivers June 17, 2011, amid a steady stream of controversial news...

Why the Doctor Wont See You

Townhall.com ^ | January 7, 2012 | John C. Goodman Are you having difficulty finding a doctor who will see you? If you are, brace yourself. Things are about to get a whole lot worse. Right now, the biggest problems are in Massachusetts. If you live in Boston and are trying to see a new family doctor, get prepared to wait more than two months before you ever get a foot in the door. For the state as a whole, the average wait to see a new family doctor is one month. More than half of all family doctors and more than half of all internists are not accepting new...

Doctors going broke

CNN Money ^ | 1/5/12 | Parija Kavilanz

New York - Doctors in America are harboring an embarrassing secret: Many of them are going broke. This quiet reality, which is spreading nationwide, is claiming a wide range of casualties, including family physicians, cardiologists and oncologists. Industry watchers say the trend is worrisome. Half of all doctors in the nation operate a private practice. So if a cash crunch forces the death of an independent practice, it robs a community of a vital health care resource. (Snip) Doctors list shrinking insurance reimbursements, changing regulations, rising business and drug costs among the factors preventing them from keeping their practices afloat

Rejecting Obamacare: Why the Legislature Defunded the State Health Exchange
Michigan Capitol Confidential ^ | 12/28/2011 | Jack McHugh In an end of the year analysis of Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, the Associated Press states that one of the political misses of Snyders first year was he failed to get the GOP-led House to approve spending federal dollars to develop a state health exchange where individuals and small businesses could shop for health insurance. Although the AP considers it a failure for the Snyder Administration, many limitedgovernment proponents believe that it is a good thing the exchange was not created.

Health care exchanges are health care plans regulated by a state where residents can purchase health insurance. Jack McHugh,...

An American's nightmare in a Mexican hospital

American Thinker ^ | 12/18/11 | David Paulin A recent vacation in Mexico turned into a nightmare for a 79-year-old Illinois man. But it wasn't a devastating bus crash that almost killed U.S.-born Alfonso Acosta. It was his stay in one of Mexico's government-run hospitals. According to a harrowing account in the Quad-City Times, a daily newspaper, Acosta suffered a "major head injury, multiple facial fractures, broken ribs and a punctured lung." Yet for five weeks he lay "virtually untreated" at the hospital where he was taken in Toluca, about 40 miles southwest from Mexico City, say outraged family members in the United States who rushed to his

Loved ones not always told their relative is on controversial 'death pathway
telegraph.co.uk ^ | 10:00PM GMT 01 Dec 2011 | Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor Tens of thousands of patients with terminal illnesses are being placed on a "death pathway"

Surgeon Says Obamacare Will Nix Brain Operations for Elderly

Life News ^ | 11/30/11 | Warner Todd Huston/Steven Ertelt Are you an elderly American? Well get ready to be determined a non-essential medical expenditure if Obamacare has any say in the matter which it will if its allowed to become fully implemented. A caller to the nationally syndicated Mark Levin talk radio show last week gave us an appalling sneak peak at the death panels that are about to be unleashed on the country once Obamacare is fully implemented (God forbid). The caller said that he was a neurosurgeon and told talker Levin that the advance briefing that he got from government representatives informed him that anyone over...

No Breast Cancer Screening For Women Aged 40-49, New Canadian Guidelines
Medical News Today ^ | 11/21/2011 | Editor's Choice Women aged forty to forty-nine should not undergo routine mammography screening for breast cancer, according to new guidelines issued by the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care, which were published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). The Task Force also recommends that the screening interval be extended to every two to three years for females aged 50 to 74, from every two years. Women should not carry out clinical breast exams and breast selfexaminations if they have no symptoms pointing to breast cancer, the guidelines also recommend.

Elderly need to be cared for, not killed

Voxy ^ | 11/21/11 | Voxy The Nathaniel Centre - The New Zealand Catholic Bioethics Centre - is appalled at suggestions that legalising euthanasia could be a solution to the increasing number of suicides amongst elderly New Zealanders. Director, John Kleinsman, says that people suffering from depression need extra care and support, not encouragement to die. "The old and the sick can too easily be persuaded, often in subtle ways, that their lives are not worth living. If people are suffering depression, they need help with that - they need support, care and counselling not a license to kill themselves or be killed at the hands...

Since Obamacares Passage, Millions Have Lost EmployerSponsored Health Insurance

www.weeklystandard.com ^ | November 11, 2011 | JEFFREY H. ANDERSON Throughout the Obamacare debate, President Obama repeatedly promised, If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. Now, Gallup reports that from the first quarter of 2010 (when Obama signed Obamacare into law) to the third quarter of this year, 2 percent of American adults lost their employer sponsored health insurance. In other words, about 4.5 million Americans lost their employer-sponsored insurance over a span of just 18 months. This is not

what the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had predicted would happen. Rather, the CBO had predicted that Obamacare would increase the number of people...

New info indicates Justice Kagan's conflict of interest on ObamaCare

Examiner ^ | 11-11-11 | Anthony Martin When former Obama Administration attorney Elena Kagan was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by Barack Obama, conservatives warned that the nominee was perhaps the most politically partisan Justice that has ever served on the high court. Kagan had served as Obama's Solicitor-General and was responsible for defending his policies in court cases.But new information has surfaced today that may indicate a stark conflict of interest when it comes Kagan and the Supreme Court's decision on the constitutionality of ObamaCare. As a result of a lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch and CNSNews in response to the Justice Department's refusal to...

Woman with Alzheimers euthanized in Netherlands

LifeSiteNews ^ | 11/10/11 | Patrick B. Craine AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, November 10, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) When a 64-year-old Dutch woman with dementia was killed in March, she was the first to be euthanized without the ability to consent, Dutch media reported Wednesday. But anti-euthanasia activists are contesting the claim, saying Dutch patients have been killed without their consent for years. The woman, a long-time euthanasia advocate, had progressed in her illness to the point where she lacked the ability to consent, but a committee of doctors approved the euthanasia nevertheless. She left a note expressing her wish to be euthanized, and her husband and children supported her decision....

Guess How They'll Now Keep Down Health Care Spending in Massachusetts?
Hotair ^ | 11/10/2011 | Joseph Lawler

From the Boston Globe: BOSTONA special commission charged with studying rising health care costs in Massachusetts is recommending the creation of an independent oversight panel to identify acceptable and unacceptable reasons for price variations in care based on which hospital or doctor is used.The Special Commission on Provider Price Reform was created by lawmaker last year. It also recommends that state regulators be given the authority to settle price disputes between insurers and health care providers if the cost of a medical procedure exceeds the market-based median. So, Romneycare is proving to be too expensive. And the fix is a...

Appeals court upholds Obamas health care law

The Washington Times ^ | November 8, 2011 | Paige Winfield Cunningham A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a controversial requirement for Americans to purchase health insurance, becoming the sixth appeals court to rule on challenges to President Obamas health care law that are likely headed to the Supreme Court next year. In a split opinion, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said that the centerpiece of the health care law a mandate for individuals to buy health insurance or pay a fine was an encroachment on individual liberty, but no more so than requiring businesses to serve all customers

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2803148/posts There are actually two messages here. The 1st points out the incredible "benefits" of Universal Healthcare and is very interesting; the 2nd is absolutely astounding - and explains a lot. 1.A recent "Investor's Business Daily" article provided very interesting statistics from a survey by the United Nations International Health Organization. Percentage of men and women who survived a cancer five years after diagnosis: U.S. 65% England 46% Canada 42% Percentage of patients diagnosed with diabetes who received treatment within six months: U.S. 93% England 15% Canada 43%

Percentage of seniors needing hip replacement who received it within six months: U.S. 90% England 15% Canada 43% Percentage referred to a medical specialist who see one within one month: U.S. 77% England 40% Canada 43% Number of MRI scanners (a prime diagnostic tool) per million people: U.S. 71 England 14 Canada 18 Percentage of seniors (65+), with low income, who say they are in "excellent health": U..S. 12% England 02% Canada 06% Check this last set of statistics!! 2..The percentage of each past president's cabinet who had worked in the private business sector prior to their appointment to the cabinet. Here are the percentages. T. Roosevelt................... 38% Taft............................... 40% Wilson .......................... 52% Harding.......................... 49% Coolidge....................... 48% Hoover ......................... 42% F. Roosevelt...................50% Truman........................ 50% Johnson........................ 47% Nixon............................ 53% Ford............................. 42% Carter........................... 32% Reagan..........................86% GH Bush....................... 51% Clinton ......................... 39% GW Bush...................... 55%

And the winner is: Obama.................. 08% This helps to explain the incompetence of this administration: only 8% of them have ever worked in a job not supported by tax money! That's right! Only eight percent---the least, by far, of the last 19 presidents! And these people are trying to tell our big corporations how to run their business? They know what's best for GM, Chrysler, Wall Street, and you and me? How can the president of a major nation and society, the one with the most successful economic system in world history, stand and talk about business when he's never worked for one? Or about jobs when he has never really had one? And when it's the same for 92% of his senior staff and closest advisers? They've spent most of their time in academia, government and/or non-profit jobs or as "community organizers." They should have been in an employment line. Pass this on! We'll NEVER see these facts in the main stream media. "One of the penalties of not participating in politics is that you will be governed by your inferiors." Plato

ObamaCare's Billions In Hidden Pork For Unions

IBD Editorials ^ | November 3, 2011 | Editor Health Reform: How do you funnel billions of dollars to your union pals at a time when the government is running record deficits? Easy, you just tuck the money into ObamaCare. According to a new Government Accountability Office report, the federal government has so far handed out $2.7 billion out of a $5 billion program squirreled away in ObamaCare. The Early Retiree Reinsurance Program is advertized as a way to "stabilize the availability of employer-sponsored coverage for early retirees," according to a Health and Human Services memo. The argument goes that companies are increasingly dropping retiree health benefits,

Pelosi Defends Obamacare Waivers To 1,800 Firms: "They're Small Companies" [Video]

Real Clear Politics ^ | 10/28/11 | Real Clear Politics "They're small. I couldn't speak to all 1,800 of them, but some of the lists that I have seen have been very, very small companies. They will not have a big impact on the economy of our country," Nancy Pelosi said in an interview with CNBC. McDonalds, one of the nation's largest employers in recent years, has received a waiver.

Between 46,000 and 49,000 Massachusetts Residents Fined Under 'Romneycare' Law
Capitol Confidential ^ | 10/25/2011 | Jack McHugh

55-year-old man responsive after nearly being starved to death at hospital

Alliance Defense Fund ^ | 10/21/11 | Matt Bowman FREDERICK, Md. A 55-year-old Maryland man who became temporarily unconscious after suffering a heart attack and a seizure has been saved from being starved to death after an ADF-allied attorney obtained an order in state court on behalf of the mans mother and brother. The man, Daniel Sanger, is now responding to hospital staff after going six days without food and water. Although Sanger told his doctor and his mother I want to live before he went unconscious, Frederick Memorial Hospital removed the public-assistance patient from life-giving food, water, and nutrients on Friday with the permission of his wife

Wesley J. Smith: The "Duty to Die" Advances

The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network ^ | 10/19/11 | Wesley J. Smith Is there such a thing as a duty to die? Some notable voices in bioethics say, yes. They believe that as a matter of distributive justice, when people reach a certain advanced age, severe disability, or very poor health, they owe it to society, their familiesand even themselvesto allow life to (or make it) end. Thus, in 1997, University of Tennessee bioethics professor, John Hardwig, wrote in the prestigious Hastings Center Report, A duty to die is more likely when continuing to live will

impose significant burdensemotional burdens, extensive caregiving, destruction of life plans, and yes, financial hardshipon your family...

Patients go hungry in half of hospitals: Elderly routinely left for hours without a drink (UK)
MailOnline ^ | Oct 7, 2011 | Sophie Borland Nearly half of hospitals visited by undercover inspectors are failing to meet basic nutrition standards, a damning report has warned. Elderly patients are routinely left without anything to drink for hours, with some so dehydrated they are being put on drips. Other patients found themselves regularly being fed by their relatives because nursing staff were too busy to help. Mealtime: But in many hospitals patients must wait hours without food or drink (picture posed by models) Mealtime: But in many hospitals patients must wait hours without food or drink (picture posed by models) The appalling failings were uncovered by the...

Shock Photos: Candidate Obama Appeared And Marched With New Black Panther Party in 2007
Big Government ^ | 10/3/11 | Andrew Breitbart New photographs obtained exclusively by BigGovernment.com reveal that Barack Obama appeared and marched with members of the New Black Panther Party as he campaigned for president in Selma, Alabama in March 2007. The photographs, captured from a Flickr photo-sharing account before it was scrubbed, are the latest evidence of the mainstream medias failure to examine Obamas extremist ties and radical roots. In addition, the new images raise questions about the possible motives of the Obama administration in its infamous decision to drop the prosecution of the Panthers for voter intimidation. The images, presented below, also renew doubts about the transparency...

Don't give out cancer drugs if it's just to extend life: Treatment costs can't be justified,
Daily Mail ^ | 9/26/11 | Sophie Borland

Patients with terminal cancer should not be given life-extending drugs, doctors said yesterday. The treatments give false hope and are too costly for the public purse, they warned. The group of 37 cancer experts, including British specialist Karol Sikora, claimed a 'culture of excess' had led doctors to 'overtreat, overdiagnose and overpromise'. Campaigners dismissed the report, saying it was wrong to write off cancer victims. 'I would hardly call this type of treatment futile,' said Rose Woodward, of the James Whale Fund for Kidney Cancer.

Canadian MDs consider denying fertility treatments to obese women

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/new-health/health-news/canadianmds-consider-denying-fertility-treatments-to-obese-women/article2173941/ ^ | 9/26/2011 | carolyn abraham Canadian doctors are considering a policy that would bar obese women from trying to have babies through fertility treatments provoking debate over whether the fat have the same reproductive rights as the thin. Some studies find obese women face higher risks of medical complications while trying to become pregnant through invitro fertilization (IVF). The science is not certain and some believe a ban would be tantamount to discrimination, yet a growing number of fertility doctors worldwide already bar treatment based on a womans Body Mass Index. Weve had many angry patients say to us, This is discriminatory and I...

China and India Making Inroads in Biotech Drugs

New York Times ^ | 18 Sep 2011 | Gardiner Harris Chinese and Indian drug makers have taken over much of the global trade in medicines and now manufacture more than 80 percent of the active ingredients in drugs sold worldwide. But they had never been able to copy the complex and expensive biotech medicines increasingly used to treat cancer, diabetes and other diseases in rich nations like the United States until now. These generic drug companies say they are on the verge of selling cheaper copies of such huge sellers as Herceptin for breast cancer, Avastin for colon cancer, Rituxan for nonHodgkins lymphoma and Enbrel for rheumatoid arthritis.

ObamaCare Undermined by Study that RomneyCare Killed 18,000 Jobs, Cost $8 billion

Rick Perry.org ^ | September 15th, 2011 | Staff AUSTIN President Obamas socialized medicine plan was dealt a serious blow today by a new Beacon Hill Institute study showing that Governor Mitt Romneys RomneyCare plan has cost 18,000 jobs and $8 billion. If RomneyCare killed 18,000 jobs in Massachusetts, imagine what ObamaCare will do to a U.S. economy already hurting from too much liberalism, said Perry spokesman Ray Sullivan. These government-mandated health schemes kill too many jobs and cost too much. RomneyCares job-killing results are another reason ObamaCare must be stopped. Yesterday, Governor Romney defended RomneyCare at a town hall meeting in Sun Lakes, Arizona,

Report: Romneycare a killer (Study finds Bay State lost thousands of jobs)
http://www.bostonherald.com ^ | Thursday, September 15, 2011 | Frank Quaratiello The Bay States controversial 2006 universal health-care plan also known as Romneycare has cost Massachusetts more than 18,000 jobs, according to an exclusive blockbuster study that could provide ammo to GOP rivals of former Gov. Mitt Romney as he touts his job-creating chops on the campaign trail. Mandating health insurance coverage and expanding the demand for health services without increasing supply drove up costs. Economics 101 tells us that, said Paul Bachman, research director at Suffolk Universitys Beacon Hill Institute, the conservative think tank that conducted the study. The Herald obtained an exclusive copy of the findings.

OBAMACARE

No Place For Gov't

IBD Editorials ^ | September 14, 2011 | Staff Health Care: Another federal judge has ruled that ObamaCare's individual mandate is unconstitutional. It's hard to see how a court could possibly decide any other way. Presiding in Harrisburg, Pa., district court Judge Christopher Conner ruled Tuesday that the law's individual mandate that requires those who don't have health care insurance to buy it "cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny." Conner, who is

the third federal judge to overturn the law in part or in whole, reminded the Democrats of the elementary principles they ignored when they passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Not ObamaCareBut

Mich. to require BMI reports on kids

AP ^ | 14 Sept 2011 | KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN Gov. Rick Snyder plans to direct doctors in Michigan to begin monitoring the body weight of their young patients and provide the data to a state registry in one of the most extensive government efforts to address the growing problem of pediatric obesity, the Associated Press has learned. The move would help track the state's growing obesity problem while opening the way for doctors to be more proactive in offering advice, Snyder spokeswoman Sara Wurfel told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The Republican governor will announce the initiative Wednesday as part of his proposal for improving Michigan residents' health.

Obama HHS: Doctor malpractice, disciplinary data no longer public

fiercehealthcare.com ^ | Sept 14, 2011 | Alicia Caramenico While the healthcare industry promotes enhanced transparency, the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) is taking a step in the other direction, shutting down the once-public National Practitioner Data Bank, reports The Kansas City Star. As a result, the public can no longer access information on malpractice and disciplinary actions against thousands of doctors. "We have a responsibility to make sure under federal law that it remains confidential," said Martin Kramer, spokesman for the HHS's Health Resources and Services Administration, which oversees the Data Bank. The HHS defends the shutdown, noting that the names of doctors were getting leaked...

Pa. Fed Judge Knocks Down Key Obamacare Health Care Requirement

AP ^ | 9 /13 11 | Marc Levy HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) The requirement in the national health-care overhaul law that individuals buy health insurance is unconstitutional, a federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled Tuesday in a question that the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to settle. The suit decided by Judge Christopher C. Conner in Harrisburg is one of more than 30 lawsuits nationwide that have been filed over the 2010 law that is President Barack Obama's signature initiative. Conner, who was appointed to the federal bench in 2002 by President George W. Bush, said the individual mandate is an unconstitutional extension of authority granted to the federal

Health reform has sent costs soaring

NY Post ^ | September 12, 2011 | Betsy McCaughey The actuaries at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services now forecast health-care spending to reach 19.8 percent of GDP by 2020, up from 16.6 percent when President Obama took office. And half this spending (49 percent) will be by government. The actuaries predictions suggest that, in the long run, the largest threat to the nations solvency isnt Medicare; its the Obama health laws vast expansion of Medicaid, which will cost more than Medicare once baby-boom demand peaks. Simply put, the presidents reform is converting Medicaid from a temporary safety net to a permanent, taxpayer-paid health entitlement, replacing private insurance....

http://www.dailynews.com/health/ci_18848233 Medical fraud in Valley alleged 91 charged involving $295 million in false billings.

GP's ordered to ration cancer scans (British socialized medicine)

Daily Mail ^ | Sept. 8, 2011 | Sophie Borland Family doctors have been ordered to ration the number of patients they send for life-saving cancer scans to save money. They are being told to slash the number they refer to hospital for tests including ultrasounds, MRIs and CT scans commonly used to spot tumours. Last night experts warned the cost-saving measures increased the risk of patients being diagnosed too late and dying unnecessarily. Britain has one of the lowest cancer survival rates in Europe, and experts say late diagnosis is

to blame. The cuts are being brought in despite Government pledges to give GPs better access to cancer tests...

Private hospital operations to cut NHS waiting times

BBC ^ | 7 September 2011 The NHS in Wales has been given the go ahead to use private hospitals to help cut waiting times for orthopaedic surgery. The Welsh Government said local health boards should explore all possible ways of meeting targets. The Conservatives said Labour had to clarify its policy and the Lib Dems that it was "muddled and inconsistent". Prior to May's assembly election, the previous government ruled out the use of the private sector in the NHS. A plan to treat orthopaedic patients in south Wales within the target time of 36 weeks lists the use of the independent sector among a...

Goldberg: Obamacare impacts Americans' access to drugs (Commiecare shortages begin)

Star-Telegram ^ | 9/03/11 | Robert Goldberg Goldberg: Obamacare impacts Americans' access to drugsBy Robert Goldberg Special to the Star-Telegram Posted Saturday, Sep. 03, 2011 Call it Obamacare's Final Destination Tour. People whose lives should be saved by new and existing cancer drugs are driving from hospital to hospital in search of medicines in short supply -- thanks in part to Obamacare's implementation. Over the past two years, shortages have developed for more than 180 drugs, including cancer treatments. The shortfall is the result of stricter FDA regulation, government price controls on already discounted but complex drugs, and policies that discourage the use of new medications.

GE Healthcare cutting 81 jobs

JS ONLINE ^ | 8-23-11 | John Schmid GE Healthcare Ltd. is cutting 81 jobs at its Milwaukee and Waukesha facilities, or 1.2% of the company's positions in southeastern Wisconsin, the medical

technologies division of the General Electric Co. said Tuesday. In response to questions, a GE spokesman said notifications were sent out on Friday and that GE is reducing staff in response to the economic uncertainty in the U.S. and Europe. GE, which employs about 6,500 in southeastern Wisconsin, provided few other details. GE's medical technology operations in the region, based in Waukesha, Milwaukee and Wauwatosa, manufacture equipment for diagnostic imaging and Xray equipment; computed tomography; magnetic

Canadas feds paying full maternity benefits after abortion

LifeSiteNews ^ | 9/2/11 | Patrick B. Craine OTTAWA, Ontario, September 2, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Pro-life Canadians have complained for years that they are forced to pay for the direct killing of unborn children through the countrys health system. It turns out they are also paying for abortive mothers to get full maternity benefits. Canadas employment insurance guidelines reveal that a woman who aborts her child after 19 weeks gestation is eligible to receive 17 weeks of maternity leave, the same as a mother who gives birth. For an abortion occurring before 19 weeks gestation, the woman can collect sick leave for the same length of time.

Age, wage to play big roles in health cost

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel ^ | 8/28/11 | Guy Boulton People who are young, healthy and have good jobs that don't provide health benefits will pay more for health insurance under federal health care reform. People who are older, or have health problems, will pay less. So will those who work in low-paying jobs and buy insurance on their own. At the same time, the number of people without health insurance in Wisconsin would drop by 340,000 by 2016. Those are among the key projections in a report released last week by the state Office of Free Market Health Care on how health care reform will affect Wisconsin.

The 6-Year Search for a Family Doctor in Canada

Professor Blog for Economics and Finance ^ | 8/23/11 | Mark J. Perry

From the article "The Soul-Destroying Search for a Family Doctor," about a woman's six-year search to find a family doctor in Canada, where the single-payer system is frequently plagued with shortages for primary care physicians. Although once you manage to find one, you are entitled to receive their medical services for "free" (and there might be some long waiting times): "When the man took my registration papers and said congratulations, you have a family doctor, I confess I had to hold back a few tears. I had just spent three hours of my Saturday standing in line (pictured above)

Coventry Hospital 'removed healthy part of brain' (more NHS hijinks!)

BBC ^ | 8/23/11 A Warwickshire hospital trust has admitted liability after a man suffered permanent brain damage after he was subjected to unnecessary brain surgery. John Tunney, 63, from Sutton Coldfield should have been given tablets to control a pituitary gland problem. But instead he was subjected to an unnecessary biopsy by a surgeon who then wrongly removed part of his brain rather than the tumour. The former paramedic is now partially sighted and needs full-time care. University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust said the surgeon involved was no longer involved in such surgery. Richard Kennedy,

U.S. Scrambling to Ease Shortage of Vital Medicine

New York Times ^ | August 19, 2011 | GARDINER HARRIS WASHINGTON Federal officials and lawmakers, along with the drug industry and doctors groups, are rushing to find remedies for critical shortages of drugs to treat a number of life-threatening illnesses, including bacterial infection and several forms of cancer. The proposed solutions, which include a national stockpile of cancer medicines and a nonprofit company that will import drugs and eventually make them, are still in the early or planning stages. But the sense of alarm is widespread.

The Federal War Against Medical Technology

IBD Editorials ^ | August 18, 2011 | BENJAMIN ZYCHER

At about $75 billion annually, U.S. private-sector investment in medical technology is substantial, and a large body of research demonstrates that the economic returns to these investments are enormous. But emerging federal policies are likely to create powerful disincentives for the research and development of medical innovations, in particular, pharmaceuticals and medical devices and equipment. Two such policies the emerging process for comparative effectiveness reviews and the new auction design for durable medical equipment implemented by the Medicare program are not yet front-page news. But new research from the Pacific Research Institute shows that these policies will yield...

Never-Confirmed Medicare Director Announces New Obamacare Paperwork Requirement

Cybercast News Service ^ | 8/18/11 | Fred Lucas A proposed federal health insurance regulation set to take effect next year requires insurers to provide consumers with explanatory summaries of their plans, but the insurance industry contends this could be costly to enrollees, and offer little benefit. The new rule part of the $1 trillion Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare was announced Wednesday by Donald Berwick, President Obama's recess appointee to be director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Berwick has never been confirmed or subjected to a confirmation hearing by a Democrat-controlled Senate.

Health coverage, rates rise in Massachusetts: Romney law fails to bend cost curve
The Washington Times ^ | Tuesday, August 16, 2011 | Paige Winfield Cunningham Five years after Gov. Mitt Romney signed Massachusetts groundbreaking health care legislation, it has met its chief goal of extending insurance coverage to most residents but with costs rising faster than inflation, lawmakers face the challenge of how to pay for it all. Although the law has extended coverage, it has done little to fundamentally change the way consumers shop for health care, which analysts say is the only lasting solution to ballooning costs. Massachusetts uninsured rate plunged to the lowest in the nation, from 6.4 percent to 1.9 percent, after the law was enacted in 2006. The rest...

Man With Breast Cancer Denied Medicaid Coverage Because He's Not a Woman
ABC News ^ | 08/08/2011 | ALICIA TEJADA and COURTNEY HUTCHISON For Raymond Johnson it was bad enough being diagnosed with cancer when he was just 26 and with no health insurance, but his shock was only aggravated when he was denied Medicaid, because rules say men are not covered for breast cancer. Johnson, a construction worker from Charleston, S.C., is one of the roughly 2,000 men who develop breast cancer each year -- just 1 percent of all breast cancer cases. But doctors say even though the numbers of cases may be small compared to the number of women who get the disease, what male breast cancer patients suffer is...

Shock: When Joe Wilson Said "You Lie," The President Was In Fact Lying
ace of spades blog citing bryan preston ^ | August 11, 2011 Wilson's shouted comment was in response to Obama's claim that none of the ObamaCare dollars & treatment would flow to illegal immigrants. You'll never guess... "The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Tuesday that it has awarded $28.8 million to 67 community health centers with funds from the Obamacare health reform law. Of that $28.8 million, approximately $8.5 million will be used by 25 New Access Point awardees to target services to migrant and seasonal farm workers, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Spokeswoman Judy Andrews told CNSNews.com. HRSA is a part of HHS. Andrews said that...

Obamacare: Free Birth Control for All! (You think you won't be paying for it?)
National Review ^ | 08/12/2011 | Deroy Murdock The Obama administration forces the public to subsidize peoples sex lives. To understand how the Obama administration is running America into the ground, consider the Department of Health and Human Services August 1 decree ordering, essentially, free birth-control pills for all women. Through this brand-new entitlement announced the very day that Congress voted to reduce the national debt Washington mandates more giveaways, not just to poor women, but to every woman in America, regardless of employment, income, or trust fund. By

Aug. 1, 2012, Obamacare will require insurers to cover BCPs. Further, HHS guidelines state that health plans...

Joe Wilson ("You Lie!") Was Right: ObamaCare IS Funding Illegal Aliens
StandWithArizona.com ^ | 08-11-2011 | John Hill <p>Remember Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) and his outburst at Obama's 2010 State of the Union address? Here's a refresher.</p> <p>Obama said his healthcare plan would not cover illegal aliens - twice. Wilson said "You lie!" to the outrage of many, and for which he was later censured by Pelosi & Co.</p>

http://capoliticalnews.com/blog_post/show/9339 Medicare to penalize hospitals that readmit patients too soon-Obama to Cripple inner city hospitals
Written by CA Political News on August 04, 2011, 02:43 AM

Medicare to penalize hospitals that readmit patients too soon Christina Jewett, California Watch, 8/3/11

Medicare soon will start docking payments to hospitals if they have a higher-thanexpected level of patient readmissions within 30 days of being discharged. The move doesn't bode well for 10 California hospitals already identified by Medicare as having high readmission rates for patients with pneumonia or heart failure.

(UK) 'Miracle' MS Pill Won't Get NHS Funding

Sky News ^ | 8/5/11 | Rhiannon Mills Multiple Sclerosis campaigners have claimed thousands of patients will be denied a tablet once hailed a breakthrough in treating the condition. Fingolimod is the first pill to treat MS, but now NICE, the health watchdog, has ruled it should not be funded by the NHS because it is not cost effective. Amanda Cook from Norfolk has taken the tablet for the past three years. She told Sky News: "This tablet has

changed my life completely. I think it's a very disappointing decision. "It takes away another option for MS therapies and I think it's the wrong decision."

http://www.breitbart.tv/uncovered-video-obama-explains-how-his-health-care-plan-willeliminate-private-insurance/

Uncovered Video: Obama Explains How His Health Care Plan Will Eliminate Private Insurance
breitbart.tv ^

The budget arguments in Washington are raising concern about future industry shifts, too, as lawmakers try to squeeze savings and revenue from the drug companies. Two weeks ago, the industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America warned that proposed cuts by President Obama to drug reimbursements in Medicare Part D would have a devastating effect on American jobs. And medical device makers say they will cut jobs unless Congress reverses a new 2.3 percent device tax imposed by the health care overhaul that takes effect in 2013. The employment reductions have followed a wave of company mergers producing overlapping responsibilities, as well as more outsourcing of research and trimming of sales forces. Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., said it was meeting its target of cutting 20,000 jobs by the end of this year after its $41 billion purchase of Schering-Plough in November 2009. From that merger through 2015, the company said, restructuring will save more than $4 billion a year in combined operational costs. The environment we operate in is changing rapidly and dramatically, and these steps will help us more efficiently serve customers and patients around the world, Kenneth C. Frazier, president and chief executive, said in a statement. Mr. Frazier, in an earnings call with analysts, said Merck would cut 13 percent of its employees, the top end of an estimate in the statement saying 12 to 13 percent. The jobs are cut from a base as measured Dec. 31, 2009, the statement said, a time that Merck employed 100,000 people, according to its annual report. The company now employs 91,000.

The new round of cuts, Mr. Frazier said in the analyst call, would come disproportionately from the elimination of nonrevenue-generating positions such as administrative and headquarters personnel, consolidation of office facilities and ongoing sale or closure of manufacturing sites, including Animal Health facilities. Jami Rubin, analyst with Goldman Sachs, said the cuts were very good news for investors. Merck announced second-quarter sales of $12.1 billion, up 7 percent over last years quarter, and profits of $2.9 billion, up 9 percent, largely in line with estimates. Merck stock fell by more than 2 percent on Friday, closing at $34.13 amid a market sell-off caused by disappointing economic and political news from Washington. http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/merck-plans-more-job-cuts/

ObamaCare projected to cost more than doing nothing

hotair.com ^ | July 29, 2011 | Bruce McQuain Promises, promises, promises. President Obama promised the passage of the Affordable Care Act would lower health care costs across the board, making health care more affordable. The entire premise of the massive government intrusion in that market was to lower costs and make insurance more affordable. A new study says that doing nothing would actually have been slightly less expensive. The irony is this isnt some opposition think tank which has put up these numbers but the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services:

Poll of Dutch doctors shows broad acceptance of euthanasia

LifeSiteNews ^ | 7/29/11 | Thaddeus Baklinski NETHERLANDS, July 29, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - An opinion poll conducted by the Een Vandaag Institution of 800 general medical practitioners shows that there is a broad acceptance of the practice of euthanasia and a general willingness among Dutch doctors to offer euthanasia to people in their care. The survey was conducted from 21 to 27 July and published in the Dutch press. The poll found that 86.5% of Dutch doctors would cooperate in principle with a request for euthanasia, while only 7.9% said they would not cooperate. 64.6% said they were under pressure regularly or sometimes to commit euthanasia. Increasing...

U.S. will pay for half of all health care costs by 2020 (US doomed while Democrats play games)
cnn ^ | 7/28/2011 | By Parija Kavilanz The U.S. government will foot the bill for half of all health care costs in the United States by 2020, according to a government report released Thursday. That's up from 44% just two years ago, and reflects both the rising cost of health care and the fact that millions more people will have access to it under health reform, said the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Total health care spending is expected to nearly double to $4.6 trillion in 2020 from $2.6 trillion in 2010. The agency makes these projections annually, but this is the first year that they...

Report: 1 in 8 employer insurance plans getting the axe since Obamacare

Daily Caller ^ | 7/25/11 | C.J. Ciaramella One in eight small businesses have had or expect to have their health insurance plans terminated since the passage of President Obamas health care reform. This figure comes from a National Federation of Independent Business report which surveyed small businesses one year after the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The report, released today, found prevailing negative attitudes about the laws impact among small business owners. Among the most striking of NFIBs findings was the number of employer health insurance plans that have been or will be eliminated since PPACAs passage 12 percent, or one in...

One-Year Later: Small Businesses See More Harm, Not Help, From Democrats Health Care Law
House Ways and Means News ^ | July 25, 2011 | by Dave Camp A new report released today by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the nations largest small business advocacy group whose membership consists of 350,000 small business owners nationwide, provides further evidence that the Democrats health care law is adding higher costs, new taxes and increased deficits. The key findings from the report provide a stark contrast to the promises of

lower costs that were repeated over and over again by the President and other supporters of the Democrats health care law.In reality: 75 percent of small businesses that offer health insurance do not believe the law will slow the...

Hospital tells families to use Skype to save cost of visiting sick patients (U.K.)
DailyMail.U.K. ^ | 23rd July 2011 Doctors recommend internet chats to save cash Family members of mental health patients have been urged to stop visiting their sick relatives in hospital and instead talk to them on Skype. Officials at Berkshire Healthcare NHS Trust want to stop bedside visits in an attempt to save cash earmarked for relatives' travel expenses. Mental health patients in Berkshire are due to be relocated from Ascot, Maidenhead and Slough to Reading. Under the proposed scheme, some relatives would qualify for travel expenses to visit their sick family member. As part of plans to help save 4million-a-year, the Foundation Trust has suggested...

Business Leaders Former Progressive Supporters, Dont Like Socialism

Flopping Aces ^ | 07-22-11 | Curt In a belated effort that makes people wonder whether CEO positions are hereditary, business leaders are finally realizing the oppressive nature of Marxism. Steve Wynn, Las Vegas based CEO in the hospitality business has finally noticed that the Obama doctrine is strangling business and investment, he is one of many Democrat businessmen speaking out against Obama and his Socialism. During a conference call on Monday, Wynn called Obama: "the greatest wet blanket to business, progress and job creation in my lifetime." Wynn a former fervent supporter of the Obama Myth, still considers himself a Democrat; but he and several...

UK eugenic abortion stats released thousands killed for Downs, cleft lip, club foot, etc.
LifeSiteNews ^ | 7/21/11 | Hilary White

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/uk-eugenic-abortion-stats-released-thousands-killedfor-downs-cleft-lip-clu

UK eugenic abortion stats released thousands killed for Downs, cleft lip, club foot, etc.
In total, nearly 18,000 babies were aborted between 2002 and 2010 on the grounds of suspected disability. 1,189 were killed after the upper legal gestational age limit of 24 weeks. The figures show that these include 482 killed for Downs syndrome in 2010 alone. In the same year, 181 abortions were attributed to musculoskeletal problems such as club foot, while 189 unborn children killed for anencephaly and 128 for spina bifida.

Mother dies as 150 heart patients told they are at risk from Hepatitis B in NHS hospital outbreak
Daily Mail ^ | 7/22/11 A mother has died and hundreds of patients could be infected after hepatitis B was apparently spread by unclean surgical equipment at a hospital. Patients who have received any kind of heart surgery at the hospital in recent months have been informed that they may have contracted the virus. The woman who died, who has not been named, is believed to have caught the infection from another patient, possibly after surgeons used the same probe during two operations.

Blunt talk from Home Depot CEO about Obama and economy
http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2011/07/21/blunt-talk-from-home-depot-ceoabout-obama-and-economy/ ^ IBD: Whats the single biggest impediment to job growth today? Marcus: The U.S. government. Having built a small business into a big one, I can tell you that today the impediments that the government imposes are impossible to deal with. Home Depot would never have succeeded if wed tried to start it today. Every day you see rules and regulations from a group of Washington bureaucrats who know nothing about running a business. And I mean every day. Its become stifling. If youre a small businessman, the only way to deal with it is to work harder,

This chart shows the jobs slowdown after Obamacare was passed http://hotair.com/archives/2011/07/20/report-private-sector-job-creation-ground-to-a-haltalmost-instantly-after-obamacare-passed/ America provides 31 percent of all global scientific research and development funding. 87 out of 143 Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine have gone to Americans. http://americaintheworld.typepad.com/briefings/2008/08/health-care-in.html Carter attempt to limit doctor supply faces tough going in congress. Feb 1979 http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp? _nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ198603&ERICExtSearch_SearchType _0=no&accno=EJ198603

http://townhall.com/columnists/johncgoodman/2011/07/16/where_are_all_the_new_jobs/p age/full/

A Job Killing Law? http://factcheck.org/2011%2F01%2Fa-job-killing-law%2F This chart shows the jobs slowdown after Obamacare was passed http://hotair.com/archives/2011/07/20/report-private-sector-job-creation-ground-to-a-haltalmost-instantly-after-obamacare-passed/ There are 1,500 waivers

Report: Private sector job creation ground to a halt almost instantly after Obamacare passed
Hot Air ^ | 20 Jul 2011 | Tina Korbe

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/07/20/report-private-sector-job-creation-ground-toa-halt-almost-instantly-after-obamacare-passed/ A new report out yesterday from The Heritage Foundation shows private sector job creation dropped dramatically almost immediately after President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) into law. From the recessions low point in January 2009 until April 2010, when Obamacare went into effect, the private sector created about 67,600 jobs a month. After the president signed PPACA into law, that number slowed to a meager 6,400 jobs a month a more than 90 percent decrease or less than one-tenth the previous rate. As the report states, correlation cannot prove causation

Wesley J. Smith: Abandoning the Disabled to Assisted Suicide in the UK

First Things/Secondhand Smoke ^ | 7/16/11 | Wesley J. Smith The UK is falling off a vertical moral cliff on the assisted suicide issue. It remains a crime. But the Public Prosecutor of England and Wales has stated that if, after a complete investigation, it is determined that family or others who assist suicides did it for an altruistic reason, there will be no prosecution. Indeed, the death could even by accomplished by the assister, and nothing will be done.What is the message of that directive? That the assisted suicides of people with disabilities and serious illnesses dont matter as much as those of othersso long as the motive is...

Dems' parade of health-care lies

NY Post ^ | July 15, 2011 | Michelle Malkin

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/dems_parade_of_health_care_lies _r9nIlZqgamDYkr6Da67VYN

Number of healthcare waivers nears 1,500

The Hill ^ | 7/15/11 | Sam Baker The Health and Human Services Department granted 39 new waivers last month from part of the healthcare law, bringing the total to just shy of 1,500.In September, HHS will stop the process of granting a new batch of one-year waivers at the end of

each month. Companies have until Sept. 22 to file their initial application for a oneyear reprieve and seek an extension to carry them through the next three years. Department officials said they decided on the September cutoff because, by then, every company that thinks it needs a waiver would have had time to apply.

California Workers Comp Doctors Take Aim at State Fund Contract

The Insurance Journal ^ | 7-15-11 | Chris Rizo A controversy in the California workers compensation market over a revised provider contract threatens to erupt into an all-out legal brawl as doctors for injured workers and applicants attorneys take aim at the states largest carrier.

Big push for home births: Too many babies are being born in hospital, say doctors
Daily Mail ^ | 7/14/11 | Sophie Borland Women should no longer assume they will give birth in hospital with a doctor on hand. In a watershed moment, leading medical experts declared that mothers should be given more opportunity to have babies at home because a maternity ward is not necessarily the 'safer option'. A report by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists suggests that as many as a third of all women should give birth 'without a doctor going anywhere near them'. It calls for a radical shake-up in the NHS which could lead to thousands more women having babies at home,

Paul Ryan Schools HHS Secretary on Patient-Centered Medicare Reform

Heritage.org ^ | 7/12/11 | Kathryn Nix This morning, the House Budget Committee invited Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to a hearing on the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), the lefts weapon of choice for tackling Medicares $38 trillion in unfunded promises to Americas seniors. Both sides of the debate agree that extensive reductions to Medicares runaway spending are needed, and have even

proposed comparable targets for growth in spending. The key difference, then lies in who makes the difficult decisions regarding seniors health care under the chosen direction for reform: Patients, or bureaucrats? Sec. Sebelius argued that IPAB, a board of unelected officials tasked...

Sebelius: Obamacare's Penalty on Small Businesses a 'Great Incentive' for Growth

CNSNews ^ | 7/12/11 | Nicholas Ballasy (CNSNews.com) - Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius told CNSNews.com on Monday that a provision in President Barack Obama's health-care law that requires small businesses to begin buying health insurance for their workers when they hire their 50th employee--or otherwise pay a penalty to the federal government--"will actually be a great incentive" for businesses to grow. CNSNews.com asked Sebelius, Part of the health care law requires small businesses that grow to over 50 employees to provide health insurance to their employees or face a penalty [starting in 2014]. Do you think that may affect their incentive to grow--small...

ObamaCare, ObamaCars, and Government-Mandated Broccoli

Pajamas Media ^ | July 10, 2011 | Rick Richman Ready for the government to regulate the interstate commerce in your stomach? Last week, the Sixth Circuit upheld the constitutionality of ObamaCare in a 2-1 decision, producing three opinions running a total of 64 pages. To understand the issues fully, you also need to read Judge Roger Vinsons erudite 78-page opinion holding ObamaCare unconstitutional. Or you could watch this fascinating debate at Harvard featuring three of Americas best constitutional lawyers. But there is an even quicker way to focus on the central constitutional issue: read the panel discussion from Sundays This Week, in which George Will posed a challenge that none of...

Doctors Keeping Very Sick Babies Off Life Support

Fox News ^ | 7/8/11 | Reuters A study of babies in intensive care suggests that doctors are getting better at recognizing situations where infants are sure to die or have severe brain damage -and are often holding back on life support when that's the case. The findings "reflect increasing awareness by the medical community of the need to limit interventions of minimal or very questionable benefit, and particularly if those interventions potentially include significant pain or suffering to the patient," said Dr. Renee Boss, a neonatologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, who wasn't part of the new research. Over the past 30 years, Boss...

Tons of links

What Difference Has RomneyCare Made?

Townhall.com ^ | July 9, 2011 | John C. Goodman

Howard Dean Reveals Medicaid Is "Not Just For Poor People" (video)
RealClearPolitics ^ | July 8, 2011 | RealClearPolitics http://realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/07/07/howard_dean_reveals_medicaid_is_n ot_just_for_poor_people.html

Howard Dean says the only way you're ever going to control healthcare costs in this country is to get rid of the "perverse incentive that we [doctors] have to do as much as we possibly can." Howard Dean, a doctor, says government health care beneficiaries should be given a "set amount and tell them 'this is what you get.'" Dean says government health care users should be told the benefits that are provided and "let them figure out how to do it." "We use Medicaid not just for poor people. We use Medicaid for the basis of our universal health care for kids under 18. which we've had for 20 years in Vermont as a result of an

expansion of Medicaid," Fmr. Gov. Dr. Howard Dean (D-VT) said on MSNBC. Dean ran for President in 2004 and served as DNC chair from 2005 to 2009. "The problem with Medicaid is that it doesn't have that much of a constituency because not that many politicians care about poor people. The Republicans clearly don't care about them all. Obviously Orrin Hatch thinks they're the enemy."

GAO: Children on Medicaid Have Worse Physician Access Than Uninsured Children

http://blogs.forbes.com/aroy/2011/07/05/gao-children-on-medicaid-have-worse-physicianaccess-than-uninsured-children/

Canada: Doctors Must Get Consent Before Cutting Lifesaving Care

Life News ^ | 7/1/11 | Alex Schadenberg http://www.lifenews.com/2011/07/01/canada-doctors-must-get-consent-beforecutting-lifesaving-care/

GAO: Children on Medicaid Have Worse Physician Access Than Uninsured Children
http://blogs.forbes.com/aroy/2011/07/05/gao-children-on-medicaid-have-worsephysician-access-than-uninsured-children/ Forbes ^ | 7/5/11 | Avik Roy When I first began writing about the University of Virginia surgical outcomes study the one that evaluated nearly a million major surgical operations from 2003 to 2007, and found that Medicaid patients were 13 percent more likely to die in-

hospital than those with no insurance at allthere were skeptics. And I get why, because the studys findings were counter-intuitive: we spend more than $400 billion a year on a welfare program, only to get worse health outcomes? Those invested in the political success of Obamacare had even more incentive to attack the UVa study, as our new health law adds 16...

Canada: Doctors Must Get Consent Before Cutting Lifesaving Care

Life News ^ | 7/1/11 | Alex Schadenberg http://www.lifenews.com/2011/07/01/canada-doctors-must-get-consent-beforecutting-lifesaving-care/ The Rasouli family and the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) have won a precedent setting decision in the Court of Appeal for Ontario.EPC applauds the unanimous decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal to uphold a lower court decision which requires that doctors obtain consent from substitute decision-makers before unilaterally withdrawing life-support where such a decision is anticipated to result in the death of the patient. The unanimous Court of Appeal ruled that it is necessary for doctors to raise any objections or concerns they may have about consent before the Ontario Consent and Capacity Board who has the jurisdiction to...

AP Exclusive: Fuzzy math in health law formula

Associated Press ^ | Jun. 30, 2011 3:34 AM ET | RICARDO ALONSOZALDIVAR The glitch mainly affects older adults who are too young for a Medicare card but have reached 62, when people can qualify for early retirement from Social Security. (snip) To see how the Social Security wrinkle would work, consider a hypothetical example of two neighbors on the same block. They are both 62 and have the same income of $39,500 a year. But one gets all his income from working, while the other gets $20,000 from part-time work and $19,500 from Social Security. Neither of them gets health insurance on the job. Instead, they purchase it individually. Starting in 2014,...

Organs of those killed by euthanasia being used (harvesting)

The Telegraph ^ | 14 Jun 2011 | Simon Caldwell Doctors are impressed by the superior condition of lungs taken from people who killed by lethal injection compared to those extracted from those killed in accidents... Surgeons in Leuven between 2007 and 2009 successfully transplanted four pairs of lungs from people who died from euthanasia. The authors of the study, Initial Experience with Transplantation of Lungs Recovered From Donors After Euthanasia, insisted that doctors were acting strictly within Belgian guidelines on euthanasia, which was legalised in 2002. They reveal how donors were admitted to the hospital a few hours before the planned euthanasia procedure. A central venous line was placed...

Legally killed: 21 dementia victims given lethal injections by Dutch doctors in 2010
The Daily Mail (UK) ^ | June 29, 2011 | Mail Foreign Service Dementia sufferers are being killed by doctors in Holland under the countrys euthanasia laws, official figures are to reveal. A total of 21 patients with early-stage dementia, including Alzheimers, died by lethal injection last year, according to a forthcoming annual report. This is the first time dementia sufferers have been included in the countrys euthanasia statistics. None of the cases is thought to have involved any illegal act on the part of health professionals, and each time the patient was considered capable of giving their consent. But the figures have caused alarm among critics who say the pool of patients...

ObamaCare Puts Big Dent in Hiring

Human Events ^ | June 29, 2011 | John Rossomando ObamaCares implementation is causing many employers across the country to think twice about hiring as they consider the impact of its rules and regulations. More than 3,500 pages of regulations have been penned since the law passed last March, and their impact is already being felt. I know for a fact that the mandates in ObamaCare are discouraging the creation of new jobs, said Tennessee GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander, the third-highest-ranking member of the Senate Republican leadership. And I will be specific. I met with the chief executives of the chain restaurants in America, who are the largest employer in...

Euthanasia on the rise in Holland: now being applied to patients with dementia
LifeSiteNews ^ | 6/27/11 | Jeanne Smits June 27, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Euthanasia is on the rise in the Netherlands, and it is taking an even uglier turn than many would have expected. Cases of euthanasia have risen from 2,500 in 2009 to 2,700 in 2010; but even more shocking, last year 21 persons suffering from the early stages of dementia, but who were otherwise in good health, were euthanized. All of these 21 mercy killings were subsequently approved by the official euthanasia follow-up commission. This 2010 annual report on euthanasia has yet to be published, but key figures were released by the official news channel, NOS,...

RELEASE: Wal-Mart, SEIU, CAP Join In Support for Health Reform, Including Employer Mandate
Center for American Progress ^ | June 30, 2009 | Drew Brookie Wal-Mart SEIU Join In Support for Health Reform, Including Employer MandateWorkers Caring for Seniors and People With Disabilities Need Minimum Wage and Overtime Protections. As the nations largest private employer, the nations largest union of health care workers , we have worked closely in support of health care reform we are coming together to to reform our nations health care system.

The breast cancer patients TOO OLD to save: (U.K. NHS)

DailyMail.U.K. ^ | 6/15/11 | Sophie Borland

Employers Drop Insurance Over Obamacare

Townhall.com ^ | June 12, 2011 | Bob Beauprez McKinsey & Co., the high profile global business consulting firm, surveyed 1300 businesses and found that "30 percent of employers will definitely or probably stop offering [employer-sponsored insurance] in the years after 2014." That's the year

that the full impact of ObamaCare is scheduled to kick in. Several other surveys have reached similar conclusions. Another study found that among businesses with a "high awareness" of what ObamaCare is all about, more than half are planning to drop health care insurance benefits for their workers. The result spells death to private insurance and life to nationalized healthcare just as conservatives predicted....

Older people receive worse NHS cancer care

The Telegraph ^ | 6/9/11 | Martin Beckford Older people with cancer are more likely to die in England than in other leading countries because of "age bias" in the NHS, according to a new report. The study from the Kings Fund found that pensioners tended to be diagnosed with the disease later and were less likely to receive surgery. Some 15,000 people over 75 in Britain die prematurely from cancer each year compared with better-performing countries, according to estimates. The report said there was substantial evidence that older patients were under-treated on the NHS and that their chances of survival were poorer as a result. It found...

Prime Minister under fire after waiting lists for NHS tests soar
The Telegraph ^ | 6/9/11 Tens of thousands of patients a year spend more than four hours waiting in Accident and Emergency departments, according to official figures. They show that 50 per cent more people waited beyond the target time, equating to an extra 185,800 patients a year spending more than four hours in A&E. Meanwhile the number of patients waiting several weeks for vital health tests on the NHS has tripled within 12 months. They show that 14,163 people are now being forced to wait longer than six weeks for scans and internal examinations, after targets for treatment times were scrapped.

There were 40 million people without insurance out of 312 million Americans. That included the illegal aliens, people in-between jobs, and the rich.

The old way was when companies were stuck hiring Americans and competing for the labor force. Companies would offer benefits to entice people to come to work for them. Being a contract employee, I always carried my own insurance for my family, and it was affordable. Then in the late 80s, they started hiring foreigners thru the H1-B program. Those H1-B foreigners undercut us Americans, eventually lost their jobs, but stayed here as illegals. Soon afterwards, the green immigration trucks disappeared on our freeways and in construction yards. Hospitals were overrun by the illegals and shut down. Others raised their rates. Most of my healthcare payments were no longer a tax write-off. All of this could be avoided if we mandated E-Verify and denied Birthright Citizenship.

The ultimate NHS indignity: Body of hospital patient left to die in corridor (U.K.)
DailyMail.U.K. ^ | 6/8/11 FULL TIILE: The ultimate NHS indignity: Body of hospital patient left to die in corridor is ignored for hours... before staff simply drag him away 'He went to them for help and they left him out in the corridor to die', says Peter Thompson's daughter Senior nurse claims it was 'the appropriate method of handling the situation' Two heartbroken parents have slammed 'inhumane' nurses who left their dead son lying in the middle of a hospital corridor and stepped over his corpse for more than ten hours thinking he was asleep. CCTV captured staff pulling the lifeless body of Peter...

OK - Just What Is the Ryan Medicare Plan? Educate Yourselves and ignore the hype and rhetoric
American Thinker ^ | 06/07/2011 | John McGlaughlin Much chatter today centers on the Ryan Medicare Plan, a proposal to reform Medicare first proposed by Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan as part of "A Roadmap for America's Future" to guide the House Budget Committee under Republican Party control. Though hype and rhetoric surround the subject, little real understanding has seeped down into the public at large. Let's try to sort it out. To understand where Ryan is heading, one must first understand the basics of Medicare. The current Medicare program provides single-payer medical care insurance for people 65 and over as well as people under 65 with certain disabilities...

Obama solicitor general: If you don't like mandate, earn less money
Washington Examiner ^ | 06/02/11 | Philip Klein President Obama's solicitor general, defending the national health care law on Wednesday, told a federal appeals court that Americans who didn't like the individual mandate could always avoid it by choosing to earn less money. Neal Kumar Katyal, the acting solicitor general, made the argument under questioning before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, which was considering an appeal by the Thomas More Law Center. (Listen to oral arguments here.) The three-judge panel, which was comprised of two Republican-appointed judges and a Democratic-appointed judge, expressed more skepticism about the government's defense of the health care...

Medicaid (AND Medicare) to Quit Paying for Preventable Events ( read what they consider as such)
Medpagetoday ^ | June1, 2011 | Emily P. Walker WASHINGTON -- The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced that hospitals and healthcare providers will no longer be reimbursed for

treating their Medicaid patients for illnesses, injuries, or readmissions that should have been prevented. A final rule announced Wednesday enacts a portion of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that prohibits states from making Medicaid payments to providers for conditions that are deemed "reasonably preventable." In 2008, Medicare stopped reimbursing hospitals for treating conditions, infections, or illnesses that were acquired in the hospital, and for any readmissions associated with treating those hospital-acquired conditions. The Medicaid list of what

UK: Health Secretary - funding crisis threatens the NHS [funding black hole]
The Telegraph ^ | 6/1/2011 | Andrew Porter The National Health Service is facing a 20 billion-a-year funding black hole that will threaten its founding principles unless the Coalitions controversial reforms are brought in to prevent it the core values of the NHS are under threat as never before from a financial crisis that will see annual health spending double to 230 billion a year without urgent reform. While insisting he would never privatise the NHS, Mr Lansley warns that its future as a universal service, available to all and free at the point of use will be at risk within years if radical change is blocked. Mr...

Obama's IPAB Board Will Control Medicare Decisions

Newsmax ^ | 5/27/11 | Betsy McCaughey

Obamacare cut Medicare by $575 billion over next decade and used $410 billion to expand Medicaid. Robbing Grandma to benefit Medicaid recipients (takers). Medicare will spend $14,731 per senior in 2019, instead of $16,162 if the health law had not passed. Less care for seniors and redistributing the wealth to the government dependent poor. Congress controls the countrys purse strings but will loose control of Medicare as Obamacare creates a new office called IPAB (Independent Payment Advisory Board). IPAB is a cost-cutting panel that will decide what is unnecessary for seniors.

Paul Ryans plan would give each new Medicare enrollee a choice of private health plans and a premium paid to the plan they choose. The money would come from preventing expansions to Medicaid and returns the funds raided from Medicare.

New England Flu: It's Catching

IBD Editorial ^ | May 24, 2011 | Staff Health Care: This week, Vermont's governor will sign legislation establishing a single-payer system. The Green Mountain State is catching the same sickness that afflicts Massachusetts. When Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin signs the bill Thursday, Vermont will become the first state to overtly move to a single-payer health care system. It is, inarguably, a government takeover. While more than half the states are trying to stand astride the rail down which the runaway government health care train is speeding, Massachusetts and Vermont are clearly chugging hard in the other direction. States where officials have wisely questioned ObamaCare's constitutionality have made a...

Two patients died after waiting in ambulance outside 'full' Oldham hospital unit (UK)
Manchester Evening News ^ | 5/21/11 Two patients died after being left waiting in ambulances outside an over-stretched hospital. The patients, believed to have been in their 80s, couldnt get into the Royal Oldham Hospital for seven and 20 minutes respectively. They were assessed by ambulance crews as very sick and were both suspected of having suffered heart attacks. The A&E department was so busy that all but the most urgent cases were being sent to other hospitals at the time. All five resuscitation beds at Oldham were full. The two patients were assessed and treated by a casualty doctor and senior nurse in the ambulances....

The Obamacare Diaries Continue: Latest Waiver Scam Goes to the AARP
American Medical Society ^ | May 20, 2011 .., the problem of the Obamacare Waivers continues with the latest Obama-PelosiReid game of favoritism going to the AARP. Everyone knows that if we allocated just part of the trillion(s) given to the PPACA legislation to pay for uninsured care, combined this with an honest buy-in of physicians who could contribute charity care in exchange for tax credits (for instance) to oversee reasonable outcomesbased changes to how medical and surgical care is delivered and payed for, and threw in open interstate competition for insurance companies, that wed be most of the way there toward meaningful reform. Add to these basic...

Gov. Sarah Palin on Pelosi districts Obamacare waivers: Seriously, this is corrupt
Daily Caller ^ | 5/17/2011 | Matthew Boyle <p>What other GOP candidate has even mentioned this?? Not a one.</p>

HHS: Pelosi had no influence on healthcare waivers to her district

The Hill ^ HHS: Pelosi had no influence on healthcare waivers to her district By Mike Lillis and Julian Pecquet - 05/17/11 02:53 PM ET House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had no influence on the healthcare waivers granted last month to businesses in her district, an official with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said Tuesday. Republican leaders on and off Capitol Hill had slammed the Obama administration for granting a growing number of health-reform waivers to constituents of the top House Democrat. But Steve Larsen, director of HHS Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, said those businesses were...

Nevada secures partial waiver from federal health care law

The Daily Caller ^ | 5/17/11 | Karoun Demirjian Nevada got a partial waiver from the health care law a significant development that Democrats are dismissing as par for the course and Republicans are claiming as a political victory. The Health and Human Services Department announced late Friday that Nevada had secured a statewide waiver from certain implementation requirements of the Obama administrations health care law, because forcing them through, the department found, may lead to the destabilization of the individual market.

Massachusetts: The Canary in the Coal Mine for ObamaCare

PajamasMedia ^ | 5/12/2011 | Paul Hsieh http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/massachusetts-the-canary-in-the-coal-mine-for-obamacare/? singlepage=true Five years ago, Massachusetts adopted its universal health care plan, which served as the template for President Obamas subsequent national health care legislation. However, Massachusetts problems of rising health costs and worsening access foreshadow similar problems for the rest of America as well as how to avoid them. The Massachusetts Medical Society recently reported that the state law has resulted in longer patient wait times [and] continued difficult access to primary care physicians. The average wait time in Massachusetts to see an internal medicine physician is now 48 days double the national average. Over half of primary care practices are no longer accepting new patients. Fewer physicians are accepting the state-run Commonwealth Care and Commonwealth Choice insurance plans. So although Massachusetts politicians frequently boast that they have increased coverage, many patients cannot find doctors to provide them with actual medical care.

Obama Admin Defends Dropping Doctors Conscience Protections

Life News ^ | 5/11/11 | Steven Ertelt In a letter to several pro-life groups complaining about President Barack Obamas decision to drop some of the conscience protections for medical professionals, the administration is defending the decision. Several pro-life groups sent a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius warning her of the alarming effects on patients that will follow the Obama administrations recent move to strip the medical community of key conscience protections on abortion. As LifeNews.com reported in February, the Obama administration overturned some of the conscience protections the Bush administration put in place to protect pro-life medical workers who dont want to be involved in certain...

State declares Obamacare unconstitutional, null and void

WND ^ | April 28, 2011 | Bob Unruh President Obama's signature accomplishment to date, the Obamacare health care reform law that is just a year old, twice has been ruled unconstitutional by federal judges, and it is expected eventually to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. But it's now taken another shot across the bow, in a vote in the North Dakota legislature where lawmakers determined it "likely" is unconstitutional and "may violate its true meaning and intent as given by the founders." The lawmakers decided that "no provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010...

GOVERNORS EXECUTIVE ORDER PROHIBITS STATE AGENCIES FROM IMPLEMENTING OBAMACARE

Idaho Governors Office ^ | April 20. 2011 | Mark Warbis C.L. Butch Otter GOVERNOR NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT: Jon Hanian April 20, 2011 (208) 334-2100 11:028 GOVERNORS EXECUTIVE ORDER PROHIBITS STATE AGENCIES FROM IMPLEMENTING OBAMACARE (BOISE) Governor C.L. Butch Otter issued

an executive order today imposing a State prohibition on receiving federal funding for or otherwise implementing the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act often called Obamacare. Executive Order 2011-03 uses portions of House Bill 298, a so-called nullification bill that was approved by the Legislature this year. The executive order directs State agencies not to establish new programs, promulgate rules or accept federal funding...

UK: Hospital wards will close to save money, say NHS finance chiefs
The Telegraph ^ | 4/20/2011 | Martin Beckford Almost half of trust finance directors questioned by a leading health think-tank said they would lose beds and reduce treatments as the NHS seeks to save 20billion. Others said they would cut their workforces, prescribe fewer drugs and try to ensure inpatients are discharged more quickly. Few thought they could save money through politically popular reductions to back office functions despite the Governments insistence that savings can be made without front-line services or clinical staff being lost. The first in a new series of quarterly NHS monitoring reports published by the Kings Fund on Wednesday also highlights official figures showing...

RomneyCare Is A Bust
Boston Herald ^ | April 12, 2011 | Michael Graham As governor, Mitt Romney accomplished a feat that most Republicans would have thought impossible. With the single stroke of a pen he convinced the liberal population of Massachusetts that they, too, hate government-run health care. As a health care plan, Romneycare is an unmitigated fiasco. It has caused costs to skyrocket, insurance premiums to soar and nonprofit providers like Blue Cross to suffer hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. But as a political policy, Romneycare is nearly unparalleled in Republican history. It has destroyed one front-runners presidential hopes (Romneys) and helped undermine an entire presidency. For, as Barack Obamas...

38% of Massachusetts Voters view RomneyCare favorably

Politicons- Politically Conservative ^ | April 7th | Henry D'Andrea A new poll from Suffolk University/7NEWS shows that just 38% of Massachusettss voters say RomneyCare is working in their state. 49% say RomneyCare isnt working and 13% were undecided. Interestingly enough, 54% said it would hurt Mitt Romneys 2012 Presidential run, while 22 percent felt it would help; and 22 percent were undecided. Of these same voters, 57% view President Obama favorably and 35% unfavorably.......

Judicial Watch Obtains Documents Detailing ObamaCare Rationing

Big Government ^ | 6/6/11 | Tom Fitton The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS), under enormous public pressure, proposed that Provenge, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved treatment for prostate cancer, be covered by insurance following a controversial review. A final decision on the issue is expected to be published 60 days after the public comment period for the proposed decision has ended. On the same day as the CMS decision, Judicial Watch released hundreds of pages of documents from the Obama Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) detailing how and why the review was instituted. And heres one of our major finds: While the...

Socialized Medicine Director dies waiting for Operation.

The New American ^ | 04/04/2011 | Selwyn Duke Its a bit like a supermarket manager dying of starvation or a bottled-water distributor dying of thirst: In the U.K., a former National Health Service (NHS) director died while waiting for medical care at her own hospital. The Daily Mail reports:

Cancer patients denied 'last hope' robot surgery

Telegraph ^ | 4/3/11 | Laura Donnelly Cancer patients are being denied a pioneering treatment that offers their only hope of survival - even though millions of pounds have been spent on the technology behind it. Doctors referred Lesley Whiting, 56, from Sussex, for a robotic radiosurgery procedure called Cyberknife, which is widely used across the world, but only became available on the NHS last year. (Snip) But NHS bureaucrats refused to fund the treatment, which costs the health service around 10,000 per treatment- despite the fact almost 9 million has been spent buying the robotic technology for three NHS hospitals.

Bitter irony of socialized medicine

American Thinker (citing UK Daily Mail) ^ | April 02, 2011 | Thomas Lifson A former director of Britain's National Health Service, which runs the country's socialized medicine system, has died while waiting 9 months for an operation. The UK Daily Mail reports: A former NHS director died after waiting for nine months for an operation - at her own hospital. Margaret Hutchon, a former mayor, had been waiting since last June for a follow-up stomach operation at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, Essex. But her appointments to go under the knife were cancelled four times and she barely regained consciousness after finally having surgery. Her devastated husband, Jim, is now demanding answers from Mid...

That Great Canadian Health System (not)

http://edrs.waittimes.net/En/ProvincialSummary.aspx?view=0 ^ | Current | Government of Ontario

Ontario Wait Times Provincial Summary In April 2008, the government announced that reducing wait times in emergency rooms and improving access to family health care are its two most important health care priorities over the next four years. Currently, 126 hospital sites across Ontario are submitting ER information to the National Ambulatory Care Reporting System (NACRS) for reporting on this website. This represents 90 percent of ER visits throughout the province. The amount of time a patient spends in the Emergency Room is referred to as Total Time Spent in the ER and is measured from the time patients register...

List of health reform waivers keeps growing (1,168 waivers)

The Hill ^ | April 2, 2011 | Jason Millman The number of waivers the Obama administration has awarded for a provision of the year-old healthcare reform law grew by 128 in March. With the new waivers, that means 1,168 businesses, insurers, unions and other organizations have received one-year exemptions from a healthcare reform provision requiring at least $750,000 in annual benefits.

Guess the Largest Contributor to November Congressional Races

Townhall.com ^ | March 31, 2011 | Ross Mackenzie Comments on issues currently in the news.... --At stake in November were 472 congressional seats (37 Senate seats and all 435 House seats). A record 42 doctors were candidates -- making doctors candidates in about one-twelfth of the 472 congressional races. This is the decisive datum: Of those 42 physician/candidates, 33 favored the repeal of ObamaCare. --Maybe they understand, among other things -- as Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf does -- that ObamaCare will cost the nation jobs. In February testimony before the House Budget Committee, Elmendorf put the number of jobs lost by 2021 as a consequence of...

Britain has fewer high-tech medical machines than Estonia and Turkey
Telegraph ^ | 30 Mar 2011 | Martin Beckford Even those units that do have MRI and CT scanners often leave them to lie idle for much of the time despite rising demand, the National Audit Office said. It claims the NHS is not getting value for money out of the technology, particularly as trusts do not collaborate to buy them or try to get the best prices. The NHS in England had 6 MRI machines per million population in 2010, with figures across Britain putting the country below the Slovak Republic, Turkey, Estonia and Ireland in a league table of provision. For CT scanners, there were 8.4 per...

The Weiner Waiver Wormhole

Creators Syndicate ^ | 3/25/11 | Michelle Malkin New York Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner toasted the one-year anniversary of Obamacare this week -- and accidentally spilled his champagne glass all over the disastrous, one-size-fits-all mandate. Ostensibly one of the federal health care law's staunchest defenders, Weiner exposed its ultimate folly by pushing for a special cost-saving regulatory exemption for New York City. If it's good for the city Weiner wants to be mayor of, why not for each and every individual American and American business that wants to be free of Obamacare's shackles? Weiner joins a bevy of the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's" loudest cheerleaders --...

Let me get this straight . . . . We're going to be "gifted" with a health care plan we are forced to purchase and fined if we don't,

Which purportedly covers at least ten million more people, without adding a single new doctor, but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents, written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it, a "ditsey" leader of the house who said "you have to pass the bill before you know whats in it". passed by a Congress that didn't read it but exempted themselves from it, and signed by a President who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, for which we'll be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect, by a government which has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's broke!!! 'What the hell could possibly go wrong?'

UK: Private firms to run hospitals in Budget 'growth' plan

The Telegraph ^ | 3/19/2011 | Patrick Hennessy, Private companies are to be given sweeping new powers to run hospitals, more schools and local council services under Budget plans to be unveiled this week, according to leaked documents. George Osborne, the Chancellor The coalition's "growth strategy" to be published on Wednesday at the same time as George Osborne, the Chancellor, delivers the Budget will promise an "across the board change" in the way public services are run in future. The controversial move paves the way for private companies to run more schools as well as whole departments of NHS hospitals and council-run services such as parks...

Woman loses custody of child for five years for refusing C-section
LifeSiteNews ^ | 3/17/11 | Matthew Cullinan Hoffman March 17, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A New Jersey woman has lost custody of her child for the past five years for refusing to sign a consent form permitting a C-

section during her childs birth, according to an exclusive report published by Britains Daily Mail newspaper. The Daily Mail reports that the woman, whose initials are given as VM, was accused of child abuse by staff of St. Barnabas Hospital of New Jersey for refusing to sign the document, despite the fact that VM agreed to submit to the operation if it later became necessary. Although VMs judgment turned out to...

Medicare and Medicaid Made $70 Billion in Improper Payments Last YearMore Than...
cns ^ | March 15, 2011 | Terence P. Jeffrey The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Servicesthe federal health-care agency that is a key bureaucracy in implementing Obamacaremade at least $70.5 billion in improper payments last year. These improper federal health-care payments amounted to more than the combined total of $68.3 billion spent by the entire Homeland Security and the State departments last year, which spent $44.5 billion and $23.8 billion respectively according to the White House Office of Management and Budget. ... A key element of Obamacare provides government health-insurance to lower income people by increasing the income threshold for Medicaid eligibility and putting more people on the Medicaid...

Babies who are born at 23 weeks should be left to die, says NHS chief
dailymail.co.uk ^ | March 6, 2011 | Sophie Borland and Emma Cox Babies born after just 23 weeks of pregnancy or earlier should be left to die, a leading NHS official has said. Dr Daphne Austin said that despite millions being spent on specialised treatments, very few of these children survive as their tiny bodies are too underdeveloped. She claimed keeping them alive is only prolonging their agony, and it would be better to invest the money in care for cancer sufferers or the disabled. Dr Austin, who advises local health trusts how to spend their budgets, said doctors were doing more harm than good by resuscitating 23weekers and that treatments have...

First in the Nation: Idaho House Passes Health Care Nullification

Tenth Amendment Center ^ | 02-16-2011 | Michael Boldin In an historic vote in the Idaho House of Representatives, the Federal Health Care Nullification Act (originally authored by the Tenth Amendment Center) passed by a vote of 49-20. House Bill 117 states: "The state of Idaho hereby exercises its sovereign power to declare the public policy of the state of Idaho regarding the right of all persons residing in the state of Idaho in choosing the mode of securing health care services free from the imposition of penalties, or the threat thereof, by the federal government of the United States of America relating thereto" The principle behind such legislation...

Obamacare declared unconstitutional in US District Court

Examiner ^ | 1-31-11 | Michael Francis In his decision in the case of Florida v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson stated that the "individual mandate" which would force consumers to purchase some form of health insurance was in violation of the Commerce Clause and cited numerous examples where such government expansion of powers was deemed to be out of order. He also stated that "(I)t would be a radical departure from existing case law to hold that Congress can regulate inactivtity under the Commerce Clause" which could then extend beyond any rational enumeration of powers set forth in the...

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/26/medicare-actuary-doubts-health-care-lawhold-costs/
WASHINGTON -- Two of the central promises of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law are unlikely to be fulfilled, Medicare's independent economic expert told Congress on Wednesday.

Federal center hopes to spur drug research http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_drug_research Obama has decided to enter the drug development market by throwing one billion dollars at creating a new federal research center called the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. He is concerned that drug developers have slowed down on research. We knew before Obamacare, that we subsidized the rest of the world and their low prices on drugs. But we also knew that life saving drugs were not available to other countries that had decided that life was, in some cases, not cost affordable. We knew that America provides 31 percent of all global scientific research and development funding. That 87 out of 143 Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine have gone to Americans. http://americaintheworld.typepad.com/briefings/2008/08/health-care-in.html

Bogus number of the day ("129 million Americans" could be denied coverage if Obamacare repealed)
Daily Mail.com ^ | 1/18/2011 | Don Surber

129 Million Lies About ObamaCare

IBD's Capital Hill ^ | 1/18/2011 | David Hogberg

Health Reform Hits Drug Maker Profits

Fox Business News via American Action Forum ^ | Elizabeth MacDonald, Fox Business News

Research & development programs are already being drastically scaled back. There are dwindling incentives to create drugs and vaccines. And the full impact to the drug and medical devices sectors from the new healthcare law is yet is yet to be scoped out. [The American pharmaceutics industry has for decades led the world in its discovery of "miracle" drugs which have cured, prevented, or mitigated the ravages of innumerable diseases. But because of new hidden taxes imposed on pharmaceutical corporations and R&D by Obamacare, this is about to end. We're moving to Third World socialism not only politically and economically,...

Obama enacts end-of-life plan that drew 'death panel' claims

NYT/msnbc ^ | 12/26/2010 | Robert Pear When a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning touched off a political storm over death panels, Democrats dropped it from legislation to overhaul the health care system. But the Obama administration will achieve the same goal by regulation, starting Jan. 1.

Catholic hospitals face ACLU inquisition

NY Times ^ | December 26, 2010 | Muchekke Malkin http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/catholic_hospitals_face_ac lu_inquisition_jEAFcnpbhTYdKUXh30XHtI Just before Christmas, the American Civil Liberties Union launched another salvo against people of faith. On Dec. 22, the ACLU sent a letter to federal health officials urging the government to force US Catholic hospitals to perform abortions in violation of their core moral commitment to protecting the unborn. They're counting on sympathetic Obama rationing czar Donald Berwick to dictate which religious principles hospital operators can and can't follow. The ACLU reiterated its call for a federal probe of Catholic hospitals nationwide that refuse to provide "emergency" contraception and abortions to women.

Health-care law dealt a blow, but its not fatal

MarketWatch ^ | Dec. 13, 2010, 1:45 p.m. EST | Rex Nutting Commentary: Only the Supreme Court can settle thisWASHINGTON (MarketWatch) A U.S. federal judge ruled Monday that the central provision of the new health-care-reform law is unconstitutional. According to Federal Judge Henry Hudson in Richmond, Va., Congress cannot require everyone to purchase health insurance. The Constitutions commerce clause gives Congress the power to regulate economic activity, he ruled, but not to regulate economic inactivity. Read MarketWatch news story on the judge's ruling. Importantly, the judge did not take the next step and rule that the entire law must be declared void immediately,

More Health Waivers

ajc ^ | 12/7/10 | Jaimie Dupree The Obama Administration has quietly granted even more waivers to the new federal health reform law, doubling the number in just the last three weeks to a new total of 222. One of the more recognizable business names included on the newlyexpanded list of waivers issued by the feds is that of Waffle House, which received a waiver on November 23 for health coverage that covers 3,947 enrollees. Another familiar name was that of Universal Orlando, which runs a variety of very popular resorts in the Orlando, Florida area. Universal was given a waiver for plans that cover 668 workers....

Fox: AARP admits supporting Obamacare was a mistake for its members
Fox News Channel | 11/5/10 Members' premiums up 8-13% for just next year. Spokesman on Fox twisting and squirming, admitting supporting ObamaCare might have been a mistake. AARP spokesman saying it might have been worse without Obamacare. Developing...

Two more states vote to nullify healthcare reform (amend State Constitutions)
http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2010/11/two-more-states-vote-to-nullifyhealthcare-reform.html ^ Voters in Arizona and Oklahoma amended their state constitutions Tuesday with "healthcare freedom" measures designed to block the new federal mandate on individuals and some employers to buy health insurance. Voters in Colorado went the other way, defeating a similar initiative. The measures purport to give state residents the right not to participate in any healthcare system without penalty and to have access to any legal medical services they can afford.

U.S. to Let Insurers Raise Fees for Sick Children

NYT ^ | 10/13/10 | ROBERT PEAR WASHINGTON The Obama administration, aiming to encourage health insurance companies to offer child-only policies, said Wednesday that they could charge higher premiums for coverage of children with serious medical problems, if state law allowed it. Earlier this year, major insurers, faced with an unprofitable business, stopped issuing new child-only policies. They said that the Obama administrations interpretation of the new health care law would allow families to buy such coverage at the last minute, when children became ill and were headed to the hospital. In September, the administration said that insurers could establish open-enrollment periods

Government by Favoritism
American Thinker ^ | October 7, 2010 | Thomas Lifson ObamaCare is an even bigger disaster for America than previously suspected, going beyond merely wrecking the health care sector. It is changing the rule of law, the sacred principle of our political economy, into rule by government favor. One of the many poorly-conceived provisions of ObamaCare was one mandating the

percentage of premium income which would have to be spent on medical expenses. This had the effect of making it impossible to offer low cost plans to lower wage workers. When it became known McDonald's would drop a health coverage option for tens of thousands of its workers, ObamaCare advocates,...

Obamacare firesale: Three Catholic Hospitals for sale in Pennsylvania

The Washington Examiner ^ | October 7, 2010 | Mark Hemingway It looks like its not just insurers that suddenly want to get out of the health care business. Three Catholic hospitals in Pennsylvania are now on the market, and the hospital management is telling the local media that Obamacare is a major reason why the facilities are being unloaded: Mercy Hospital in Scranton is up for sale. Those who run the place and all other Mercy facilities in our area said Wednesday they are already in talks with organizations interested in buying. Mercy Health Partners hopes to have a buyer by the end of the year. Officials said there are...

McDonald's, 29 other firms get health care coverage waivers

timesnewsnet ^ | 10/10/2010 | staff USA Today is reporting that nearly a million workers won't get a consumer protection in the U.S. health reform law meant to cap insurance costs because the government exempted their employers. Thirty companies and organizations, including McDonald's and Jack in the Box won't be required to raise the minimum annual benefit included in low-cost health plans, which are often used to cover parttime or low-wage employees. The Department of Health and Human Services, which provided a list of exemptions, said it granted waivers in late September so workers with such plans wouldn't lose coverage from employers who might choose instead...

3M to dump retirees from medical coverage

HotAir ^ | Ed Morrissey | ED MORRISSEY Remember when Barack Obama repeatedly promised that no ones current coverage would have to change if Congress approved the health-care overhaul he demanded? When the ObamaCare bill passed, the Associated Press suddenly discovered that the change of tax law that would supposedly generate billions of dollars to pay for the costs of the bill would also drive companies to dump retirees from their existing drug coverage and push them into Medicare. Minnesota-based 3M became one of the first large corporations to do just that and push retirees off of all their plans as well: 3M Co., citing new federal...

United Healthcare Drops Medicare Drug Coverage with AARP

AARP Notification | 9/30/2010 | EagleUSA Well, folks, here it comes. AARP's huge Medicare Part D insurance provider, and provider to others, has sent notice to policy holders that they are dropping their policies as of year end. The horrific atrocity that is dubbed Obamacare, is now taking its toll and this is just the start. We knew that the elderly would be hit hard in this egregious debacle to pay for the redistribution of healthcare to worthy people such as illegal aliens. Could not find any news on this yet but just received notice from AARP and United Healthcare about it.

McDonald's says it may drop healthcare benefits

LA Times ^ | 30 Sep 2010 McDonald's Corp. may cut health insurance for nearly 30,000 hourly workers in the U.S. unless federal regulators waive a requirement of the new healthcare law. The restaurant chain is at odds over the law's stipulation that "mini-med" insurance plans, which provide limited benefits, spend at least 80% of premium revenue on medical care, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a company memo. McDonald's told federal regulators it would be "economically prohibitive" for its insurance carrier to continue to cover hourly workers unless it receives a waiver excluding it from the 80% requirement, the memo said.

Obamacare taxes http://capoliticalnews.com/blog_post/show/6419 To further complicate this part of ObamaScare, the new tax works in tandem with the capital gains tax which is set to increase this year from 15-20% for most taxpayers. That aside, here is the basic outline: Income Period: * Applies to all tax years after December 31, 2012. Included Transactions: (subject to the limits below) * Gains from the sale of homes and other non business property * Interest Income * Dividend Income * Annuities * Royalties * Rental Income * Income from Trading financial instruments and commodities (stocks, bonds etc)

UK: RAF hero, 86, with three forms of cancer 'refused NHS care because he's not ill enough'
The Daily Mail (U.K.) ^ | September 22, 2010 A terminally ill RAF hero who spent a year in a World War II prisoner-of-war camp has been denied NHS nursing care because he is 'not ill enough' - despite having just weeks to live with three cancers and dementia. Former RAF sergeant Bernard Warren, 86, was diagnosed with cancer of the stomach, liver and lungs two weeks ago and given two months to live. His wife Tricia, 69, has dutifully nursed him at home for six years as he fell victim to dementia but is now unable to cope with his failing health. (edit) Bernard's son...

White House tries to give healthcare a human face (After Providers Begin Dropping Children)
reuters ^ | 9/22/2010 | Patricia Zengerle President Barack Obama launches a new attempt to convince Americans of the advantages of his healthcare overhaul on Wednesday, just six weeks before an

election in which the plan has proved more of a liability than a benefit for his fellow Democrats. Obama will travel to the suburban backyard of a family home in Falls Church, Virginia, to talk about provisions of the new law that will come into effect on Thursday, six months after it became law. The event will include Americans from across the country who are already benefiting from healthcare reform, the White House said, seeking to...

Regulations rise as VCs exit health care

EETimes ^ PALO ALTO, Calif. Medical electronics companies face increasing hurdles getting funding and regulatory approval to bring new technologies to market, according to executives at a medical device event here. "We're in a bit of a perfect storm right now with some of the worst things I've seen in 30 years," said Eamonn Hobbs, chief executive of DelCath Systems and chairman of the Medical Device Manufacturers Association (MDMA), host of the event. As many as three-quarters of venture capitalists are exiting the health care field as the total pool of venture capital decreases and regulatory hurdles increase, said Kevin Wasserstein,...

100914

Health Insurers Seeking Rate Hikes Of More Than 20 Percent In Connecticut

Hartford Courant ^ Health insurers are asking for immediate rate hikes of more than 20 percent in Connecticut for some plans, citing rising medical costs and federal health reform laws as reasons. Both issues the new federal health care reform and rising medical costs are significant drivers of the increases, according to filings by insurers with state regulators that were reviewed by The Courant.

100903 Employers shifting health-care costs to workers, survey shows washington post ^ | 9/2/2010 | David S. Hilzenrath Amid high unemployment and a weak economy, employers have been shifting health care costs to workers, according to a study released Thursday. The premiums that employees

pay for employer-sponsored family coverage rose an average of 13.7 percent this year, while the amount that employers contribute fell by 0.9 percent, the survey found. For family coverage, workers are paying an average of $3,997, up $482 from last year, while employers are paying an average of $9,773, down $87, according to the survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust. With so many people out of work,...

100822 Mother told to clean own room after caesarean (Coming to the USA with 0bamacare) The Local Swedens News In English ^ | August 22, 2010 Mother-of-two Elin Andersson has highlighted staffing shortage problems at a maternity ward in Sundsvall in northern Sweden after she was asked to clean out her own hospital room just two days after giving birth by caesarean section.Every time Andersson required medicine she had to call staff to remind them, she told local newspaper Sundsvalls Tidning. The new baby's father meanwhile was requested to aid in the care of his partner. Two days after the operation, the recovering mum decided she was ready to go home. That was when the midwife said I had one final task to perform. Then she...

100821 'We'll do cancer scan on Monday...if she's still alive': Agony of family of dying grandmother UK Daily Mail ^ | 8/21/10 | Emily Andrews As a hospital cleaner, Margaret Cummins dedicated years of her life to the Health Service. She would keep the buildings spick and span - and go out of her way to help the sick and reassure those in distress. But if she expected a little respect in return when she became a cancer patient, she was very wrong. Instead, the 74-year-old's family were told that she could not have a vital scan because that particular unit was closed at weekends. The locum doctor said: 'We'll do it on Monday - if she's still here.' That crass remark was among 36...

100820
UK: Top doctors could be forced to take 10,000 pay cut by Government The Telegraph ^ | 8/20/2010 | Andy Bloxham Bonuses for clinical excellence can be worth around 80,000 a year for the best consultantgrade doctors but Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, is expected to ask them to be trimmed. The Times reported that Mr Lansley will ask the independent Doctors and Dentists Review Body, which sets pay and bonuses, to bring the scheme in line with other public sector pay schemes. Bonuses cost the NHS around 350million every year, with around two thirds of that being paid out directly through the awards for clinical

excellence. Mr Lansley's ideas will not be uniformly opposed. Several high-profile figures have asked for...

100819 Dont Tell Palin, Here Come The Death Panels Investor's Business Daily ^ | August 19, 2010 | David Hogberg An earlier Capital Hill post examined the Independent Payment Advisory Board created under ObamaCare that will recommend changes to Medicare payments in years that Medicare exceeds set spending targets and noted that historical evidence suggests that agencies like the IPAB will be ineffective or harmful. The Food and Drug Administration may be giving us a preview of things to come with IPAB. Currently, the FDA is considering whether to withdraw approval of Avastin, a drug that helps extend the life of breast cancer patients. The evidence suggests that Avastin extends the life of women with breast cancer by 31% to...

100819
Assurant Health to eliminate 130 jobs (more ObamaCare victims) js online ^ | 8/19/2010 | Guy Boulton Assurant Health said Thursday that it will eliminate 130 jobs at its offices in Milwaukee and Plymouth, Minn., by Oct. 1 as the health insurer prepares for the pending changes under federal health care reform. The company, based in Milwaukee and part of Assurant Inc., sells health insurance for individuals and small employers as well as short-term policies. Companies that sell health insurance for individuals and small employers face an onslaught of new regulations under health care reform, including the requirement that they spend 80% of premiums on medical care. "While it always is a tough decision to eliminate jobs,...

100819 Death Panels Begin As Reform Takes Shape IBD Editorials ^ | August 18, 2010 | Investors Business Daily staff Medicine: After the recess appointment of a Medicare and Medicaid head, an FDA panel drops its endorsement of a widely used cancer drug. Another FDA-approved cancer therapy may not be paid for. It begins. It didn't take long for the health care philosophy of Dr. Donald Berwick, President Obama's choice to head the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, and an appointee we have labeled a "one-man death panel," to have an effect. Berwick is an admirer of Britain's National Health Service and its National Institute for Clinical Excellence, with the Orwellian-acronym NICE. "NICE," Berwick has said, "is extremely effective...

100819
Employee health care costs going up Washington Business Journal ^ | 8/18/2010 | Jeff Clabaugh More than two-thirds of large employers surveyed by the National Business Group on Health plan to increase employee contributions to health care plans next year, and most are making changes to health plans in advance of federally mandated health care reform. The Washington-based group's survey found 53 percent of employers will make changes to their benefit plans despite uncertainty about compliance with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Among biggest changes, removing lifetime dollar limits on benefits, removing annual dollar limits on benefits and removing pre-existing condition exclusions for children. "They have to foot the bill, not the government,"...

100816
Health Care Premiums Are Already Soaring In Advance of Obamacare FNC ^ | 8/16/10 | Bradley Blakeman This past month millions of Americans got notice from Blue Cross/Blue Shield providers across the country that their insurance premiums were going way up effective immediately. Here is the terse reason CareFirst/ Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Washington gave its subscribers for raising a monthly premium from $333 to $512 on a middle aged man who is healthy, is not a smoker and is not obese: "Your new rate reflects the overall rise in health care costs and we regret having to pass these additional costs on to you." Recently, Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly also received a similar notice from...

100816
US breast cancer drug decision 'marks start of death panels' The Telegraph ^ | 8/16/2010 | Nick Allen in Los Angeles and Andrew Hough America's health watchdog is considering revoking its approval of the drug Avastin for use on women with advanced breast cancer, leading to accusations that it will mark the start of 'death panel' drug rationing. A decision to rescind endorsement of the drug would reignite the highly charged debate over US health care reform and how much the state should spend on new and expensive treatments. Avastin, the worlds best selling cancer drug, is primarily used to treat colon cancer and was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2008 for use on women with breast cancer that has...

100810 http://ihealthbulletin.com/blog/2010/08/09/massachusetts-health-care-plan-restricts-accessprimary-care/ Massachusetts health care plan dangerously restricts access to primary care Published August 9th, 2010 in General Interest, Health News, Life, Medical News, Popular

The first health care plan from a for-profit insurance company approved to offer government-subsidized coverage under Massachusetts health care reform has dangerously restricted access to primary care, according to data reported on August 5, 2010 in the New England Journal of Medicine . Researchers say the findings raise troubling concerns about the Obama administrations new health law, which is modeled after the Massachusetts plan.

100717 The cheating ways of AMA http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2554263/posts 100714 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2552595/posts An Obamacare mandate requires a 1099 form on all purchases over $600 from another business. 100616 Big Pharmas stalled R&D machine, 200,000 jobs could go across the industry http://www.reuters.com/article/idAFLDE65D1ES20100616?rpc=44 100529 Dr. Donald Berwick picked to be director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, an outspoken proponent of the British National Health Service.

America provides 31 percent of all global scientific research and development funding. 87 out of 143 Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine have gone to Americans. http://americaintheworld.typepad.com/briefings/2008/08/health-care-in.html Carter attempt to limit doctor supply faces tough going in congress. Feb 1979 http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp? _nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ198603&ERICExtSearch_SearchType _0=no&accno=EJ198603 http://www.usatoday.com/educate/college/healthscience/articles/20050306.htm USA Today, March 3, 2005 Medical miscalculation creates doctor shortage Snip

The marketplace doesn't determine how many doctors the nation has, as it does for engineers, pilots and other professions. The number of doctors is a political decision, heavily influenced by doctors themselves.
Congress controls the supply of physicians by how much federal funding it provides for medical residencies -- the graduate training required of all doctors. To become a physician, students spend four years in medical school. Graduates then spend three to seven years training as residents, usually treating patients under supervision at a hospital. Residents work long hours for $35,000 to $50,000 a year. Even doctors trained in other countries must serve medical residencies in the USA to practice here. Medicare, which provides health care to the nation's seniors, also is the primary federal agency that controls the supply of doctors. It reimburses hospitals for the cost of training medical residents. The government spends about $11 billion annually on 100,000 medical residents, or roughly $110,000 per resident. The number of residents has hovered at this level for the past decade, according to the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. In 1997, to save money and prevent a doctor glut, Congress capped the number of residents that Medicare will pay for at about 80,000 a year. Another 20,000 residents are financed by Veterans Affairs and Medicaid, the state-federal health care program for the poor. Teaching hospitals pay for a small number of residents without government assistance. snip