Free Republic

Taxpayer funds are reportedly driving the recent job boom in New York City through a 2015 policy change that loosened eligibility Medicaid benefit rules. The revelation suggests that New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ acclaimed credit for creating 300,000 jobs since the pandemic actually results from taxpayers’ subsidy due to a policy change. Almost nearly all the job increases were created in publicly funded home health care, city documents show Manufacturing, construction, and retail sunk below levels in 2020 The rules permit people “eligible for home healthcare services to hire family members or close friends to care for them and...

Academic fraud is forcing Wiley, a major publisher of scientific journals, to close 19 journals after some were overwhelmed by industrial-scale research fraud. In the last two years, Wiley has retracted over 11,300 papers containing some fraudulent content.Academic publishing is a major industry for two reasons. The publishing industry generates about $30 billion in revenue, approximately 40% of which comes from within the United States. These publications don't make their money from advertisers. To have a research paper published in a top-tier journal will cost the research team several thousand dollars. That money typically is an authorized expense of the...

California owes the federal government tens of millions of dollars for incorrectly claiming medical care reimbursements for noncitizens, a federal audit found. The Golden State must repay nearly $53 million to the federal government after it “improperly” claimed reimbursements from the Medicaid program for illegal immigrants and other noncitizens, according to a recent report by the Office of the Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The findings emerge as California grapples with a massive budget deficit in the tens of billions of dollars. ... The issue surrounds how California officials calculated federal reimbursements for noncitizen...

We have already seen how diversity, equity, and inclusion policies get people killed when it comes to criminal justice policies. Now, we may be investing in a future where we see how it gets people killed in the operating room. Several faculty members at the University of California, Los Angeles, blew the whistle to journalist Aaron Sibarium that UCLA’s medical school has been admitting students who do not reach the expected academic requirements because the students instead reach DEI requirements. Dean of Admissions Jennifer Lucero blew up on one admissions official for questioning the subpar qualifications of a black student...

HHS proposal would push hospitals to prioritize low-income patients in bid to address 'racial inequities' The Biden administration unveiled a plan that would push American hospitals to prioritize low-income patients when performing kidney transplants, a move Health and Human Services secretary Xavier Becerra says is aimed at rooting out "racial inequities" in the "transplant process." The proposal, which Becerra's agency announced on May 8, would place 90 of the nation's 257 transplant hospitals into a pilot program that uses an annual point system to grade participants. Under the system, a successful kidney transplant counts as one point. A transplant furnished...

Gov. Gavin Newson (D-CA) is backing off a law he passed mandating a $25 minimum wage for healthcare workers. As a Wall Street Journal editorial points out, Newsom is only doing this because the state feels the burden of this stupid law. California has already pummeled private businesses with stupid $20 minimum wage laws, which remain in place. But… Since the fascist state of California picks up much of the state’s healthcare tab, Newsom is backpedaling: The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal wrote: The state’s budget deficit has ballooned to $45 billion. Mr. Newsom projects that the new...

Kaiser Permanente is America’s oldest HMO and largest healthcare provider. It’s a superb institution but is suffering the consequences of embracing the leftist COVID narrative. As a sign of its retreat from its COVID dead-end, it’s now trying to get its unvaccinated doctors back into the fold. For 33 years, I’ve been a completely satisfied Kaiser patient.* I’ve never received anything but good care from the people who work there, whether doctors, nurses, physical therapists, receptionists, pharmacists, or anyone else. I also think it’s a fantastic model of how medical care can be done well and affordably. Kaiser is named...

It has long been known that a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease, and most other neurodegenerative diseases, is the clumping together of insoluble protein aggregates in the brain. During normal disease-free aging, there is also an accumulation of insoluble proteins. Researchers have recently completed a systematic study in worms that paints an intricate picture of the connections between insoluble proteins in neurodegenerative diseases and aging. Furthermore, the work demonstrated an intervention that could reverse the toxic effects of the aggregates by boosting mitochondrial health. "Our study shows how maintaining healthy mitochondria can combat protein clumping linked to both aging and Alzheimer's,"...

When I woke one recent morning to severe pain from a bout of kidney stones, I knew I had an excruciating day ahead of me. I didn’t realize how excruciating until I arrived at George Washington University Hospital’s emergency room where one of the ER’s resident physicians greeted me wearing a pin: “Ask Me About My Pronouns.” The remainder of my morning became a real-life demonstration of how woke physicians prioritize ideology over patient care. The bloodwork taken upon my arrival showed a high white blood cell count, and during my stay, I complained of pain in both my kidneys....

A DEI-fixated dean at UCLA's world-famous medical school has allowed standards to plummet by discriminating against white and Asian applicants, it is claimed. The David Geffen School of Medicine in Los Angeles boasts Nobel Prize winners on its faculty and accepts just 173 students out of the 14,000 who apply to it each year. But it has plunged from sixth to 18th place in the rankings since the appointment of Jennifer Lucerno as dean of admissions in June 2020 amid claims that the admissions bar for underrepresented minorities is now 'as low as you could possibly imagine'. 'All the normal...

[H/T Grey_Whiskers] Breaking: Kaiser Permanente is begging doctors they fired over the COVID shot to crawl back to the HMO & reapply: KAISER PERMANENTE• May 17, 2024 Dr. Owen Johnston, We are writing to let you know that there has been a change in the Kaiser Permanente COVID-19 Vaccination for KP Workforce Members Policy ("Vaccine Policy") that may impact you. As you may recall, the federal government and various state and local entities required COVID-19 vaccinations for, among others, healthcare workers during the pandemic. Consistent with the government-mandated COVID-19 vaccine laws, and as part of its ongoing efforts to protect...

Up to half of UCLA medical students now fail basic tests of medical competence. Whistleblowers say affirmative action, illegal in California since 1996, is to blame.Long considered one of the best medical schools in the world, the University of California, Los Angeles's David Geffen School of Medicine receives as many as 14,000 applications a year. Of those, it accepted just 173 students in the 2023 admissions cycle, a record-low acceptance rate of 1.3 percent. The median matriculant took difficult science courses in college, earned a 3.8 GPA, and scored in the 88th percentile on the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT).Without...

In an April 16th interview with Polly Tommey, Dr. Paul Thomas, explained how the American medical establishment incentivizes pediatricians to fully vaccinate their young patients, and fines them if they don’t. Vaccinations that have been proven to cause more death and harm than the diseases they are said to be preventing. “Well, as other practices started kicking people out of their practices if they weren't following the CDC schedule, I was getting more and more families who didn't want to do any vaccines. Which was fine with me. So we took an entire month of every single billing sheet. And...

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer adults are twice as likely as their non-LGBTQ counterparts to report having had negative health care experiences over the last three years, according to a new report. One-third (33%) of LGBTQ adults say they were treated unfairly or with disrespect or had at least one negative experience with a health care provider, compared to 15% of non-LGBTQ adults, according to a new report by KFF, a health care and polling nonprofit formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation. Of the LGBTQ adults who reported negative experiences, 61% said a provider assumed something about them...

EXCLUSIVE — The Athens Neighborhood Health Center, Indiana Health Centers, and Mariposa Community Health Center collectively sit on over $58 million in assets and receive regular checks from the federal government. As federally qualified health centers registered as tax-exempt nonprofit organizations in Georgia, Indiana, and Arizona, respectively, they cater to low-income patients benefiting from Medicaid and Medicare. The FQHCs, along with their counterparts, are set for a windfall thanks to President Joe Biden earlier this year freeing up $4.4 billion for them, the most substantial annual funding increase in a decade. The taxpayer-backed health centers, however, also have something else...

On Thursday, a gay couple filed a class action lawsuit against New York City because the city’s health insurance plan does not cover in vitro fertilization (IVF) for male couples. According to NBC News, the lawsuit comes as part of a “yearslong effort” by the gay couple to get the Big Apple to amend its health benefits. In the lawsuit, the couple alleges that the current policies in place are discriminatory. The gay couple spearheading the lawsuit reportedly plans to utilize IVF and surrogacy to have kids (via NBC News):Corey Briskin and Nicholas Maggipinto said they have been talking about...

Securing an appointment to see a doctor in the United States is exacerbated by soaring health care demand and fewer doctors. Many specializations are increasingly affected by this trend, but primary care and emergency medicine are among the hardest hit.The average wait time to see a doctor has increased since 2017 and continued to rise after the demand spike brought on by COVID-19. A survey conducted by AMN Healthcare in 2022 of 15 large metro markets revealed the average time to see a physician was 26 days—an 8 percent increase from 2017 and a 24 percent spike since 2004.Staff constraints...

(The Defender)—Can pediatricians afford to run their medical practices without the generous kickbacks they receive for vaccinating every child? Dr. Paul Thomas, a Dartmouth-trained pediatrician, discussed this dilemma during an April 16 interview with Polly Tommey on Children’s Health Defense’s “Vax-Unvax: The People’s Study” bus tour. “You cannot stay in business if you’re not giving pretty close to the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] [childhood vaccine] schedule,” said Thomas, who ran a general pediatrics practice with 15,000 patients and 33 staff members. Thomas also addressed the risks and harms of vaccines — including COVID-19 mRNA vaccines — and...

Albeit delayed, another right-wing “conspiracy theory” is about to come true. Back in 2010, as Congress debated then-President Barack Obama’s expansion of socialized health care through the Affordable...

Gov. Healey emphasizes that hospitals remain open during process BROOKLINE, Mass. — Steward Health Care, the troubled operator of eight hospitals in Massachusetts, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection early Monday. In a statement, the company said it was seeking the process voluntarily to facilitate a restructuring process. The for-profit, private equity-backed hospital group's troubles exploded into view this year with the revelation that it owed about $50 million in unpaid rent. Steward officials subsequently closed one facility and have expressed interest in selling their other holdings. "I don't want to lose sight of the fact that this situation stems...