Free Republic

I am back from travels in Old Europe and have survived in the pink. Readers of this column will recall that over the last three weeks I have been traveling through France and England. Add Scotland to the pilgrimage. In Edinburgh last weekend I participated in the unveiling of an Adam Smith statue, prominently placed near the top of this famous city's Royal Mile. Smith now overlooks much of this city in which he with other members of the Scottish Enlightenment thrived. He is often referred to as the founder of Economics. He certainly is the first advocate of free...

As this presidential campaign continues, the candidates' comments about health care will continue to include stories of their own experiences and anecdotes of people across the country: the uninsured woman in Ohio, the diabetic in Detroit, the overworked doctor in Orlando, to name a few.But no one will mention Claude Castonguay — perhaps not surprising because this statesman isn't an American and hasn't held office in over three decades. Castonguay's evolving view of Canadian health care, however, should weigh heavily on how the candidates think about the issue in this country. Back in the 1960s, Castonguay chaired a Canadian government...

Eye specialist Sarah Anderson works at York Hospital. Her father Ian has been refused Sutent, a new cancer drug, which could provide the only real chance of prolonging his life. Sarah, 40, lives in York with husband, Bill, a computer programmer and their twins, Douglas and Ryan, five. As an ophthalmologist, I have spent my working life in the NHS. And for all its perceived failings, I have been proud of its fundamental role in our society - to provide equality of care for all. Of course, I've heard the term postcode lottery but as a doctor I've only ever...

Sixty Per Cent of Physicians Surveyed Oppose Switching to a National Health Care Plan Written by Cisco Monday, 07 April 2008 With apologies to the leftist anti-war crowd, I will steal and bastardize one of their favorite mantras: “Ackerman lied, health care freedom died.” Now that I have said it, I have to admit that it does not have all of the fluidity of the anti-war slogans. Maybe that is because “Ackerman” has three syllables and “Bush” has just one. Or maybe that is because you need to be a brainless leftist in order to construct a really enjoyable brainless...

Inside Sylvia de Vries lurked an enormous tumour and fluid totalling 18 kilograms. But not even that massive weight gain and a diagnosis of ovarian cancer could assure her timely treatment in Canada. Fighting for her life, the Windsor woman headed to the United States. In Pontiac, Mich., a surgeon excised the tumour - 35 centimetres at its longest - along with her ovaries, appendix, fallopian tubes, uterus and cervix. In addition, 13 litres of fluid were drained during that October, 2006, operation. And there was little time to spare: Had she waited two weeks, she would have faced potential...

A Winnipeg case currently winding its way to its grim conclusion pits the children of Samuel Golubchuk against doctors at the Salvation Army Grace General Hospital. According to the pleadings, Golubchuk's doctors informed his children that their 84-year-old father is "in the process of dying" and that they intended to hasten the process by removing his ventilation, and if that proved insufficient to kill him quickly, to also remove his feeding tube. In the event that the patient showed discomfort during these procedures, the chief of the hospital's ICU unit stated in his affidavit that he would administer morphine. Golubchuk...

WASHINGTON - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday she might be willing to garnish the wages of workers who refuse to buy health insurance to achieve coverage for all Americans. The New York senator has criticized presidential rival Barack Obama for pushing a health plan that would not require universal coverage. Clinton has not always specified the enforcement measures she would embrace, but when pressed on ABC's "This Week," she said: "I think there are a number of mechanisms" that are possible, including "going after people's wages, automatic enrollment." Clinton said such measures would apply only to workers who can...

An 11-year-old boy from Britain, who was deaf for nearly 10 years, was suddenly cured when a thick piece of cotton popped out of his ear, according to a report in the Daily Mail. Jerome Bartens was diagnosed as deaf in his right ear when he was just two-years-old. Click here to read the full story and see pictures Over the next nine years, he struggled to live a normal life as a young boy — but everything changed when he felt a sudden pop in his right ear while playing a game of pool with friends. He put his...

Patients could be required to stop smoking, take exercise or lose weight before they can be treated on the National Health Service, Gordon Brown has suggested. Health premiums slashed for gym users In a New Year message to NHS staff, the Prime Minister indicates people may have to fulfil new "responsibilities" in order to establish their entitlement to care. The new conditions could be set out in a formal NHS "constitution", Mr Brown says. In his open letter to doctors, nurses and other health workers, the Prime Minister promises to press on with Tony Blair's reforms of the NHS, pledging...

Nine NHS trusts in England have admitted losing patients records in a fresh case of wholesale data loss by government services, it has emerged. Hundreds of thousands of adults and children are thought to be affected by the breaches, which emerged as part of a government-wide data security review. The Department of Health says patients have been told and there is no evidence data has fallen into wrong hands. It follows losses of millions of child benefit claimant and driver details...... Joyce Robins from the patient support group, Patient Care, says ministers cannot gloss over what she describes as yet...

The end of employment-based health insurance isn’t in sight yet, but a study released this morning raises the possibility of a “tipping point” that will cause employers to consider alternatives. The Employee Benefit Research Institute said that “if one larger employer actually did drop its health benefits, others might follow for competitive reasons.” The report, published this morning on www.ebri.org, said work-based health insurance benefits, which are held by the majority of Americans who have health insurance, are still a competitive reason to attract employees.

OLLEGE PARK, Md., Nov 29 (Reuters) - Public health advocates on Thursday called for tighter restrictions on salt content in food, arguing that cutting the nutrient's overuse by most Americans could save thousands of lives annually. Excessive salt in Americans' diets is a major factor in high blood pressure and increases risk for heart disease, while most Americans exceed recommended limits, according to health experts. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) cited these factors in urging stricter regulation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration at a public hearing, held on Thursday at the FDA. Trimming the...

Think of the money that Medicare pays doctors for seeing patients as though it's a pie called the "Sustainable Growth Rate." This pie is not going to get bigger unless Congress cooks some more pies by New Years. Otherwise, when more patients join Medicare and more pieces are needed next year, we will have to cut the pieces that doctors are paid each time we see a patient into smaller and smaller pieces. I wimped out: I closed my office in 2003 because I saw the costs of the requirements for medical reporting and "privacy" coming and I figured that...

Hundreds of hospice providers across the country are facing the catastrophic financial consequence of what would otherwise seem a positive development: their patients are living longer than expected. Over the last eight years, the refusal of patients to die according to actuarial schedules has led the federal government to demand that hospices exceeding reimbursement limits repay hundreds of millions of dollars to Medicare. The charges are assessed retrospectively, so in most cases the money has long since been spent on salaries, medicine and supplies. After absorbing huge assessments for several years, often by borrowing at high rates, a number of...

A British woman planning to start a new life with her husband in New Zealand has been banned from entering the country - because she is too fat. Rowan Trezise, 33, has been left behind in England while her husband Richie, 35, has already made the move down under leaving her desperately trying to lose weight. When the couple first tried to gain entry to the country they were told that they were both overweight and were a potential burden on the health care system. Robyn Toomath, a spokesman for New Zealand's Fight the Obesity Epidemic and an endocrinologist said...

Do people on the dole have a reasonable expectation of privacy vis-à-vis their financial affairs? No. That question, though not always my answer, is coming up frequently as defenders of the Democratic Party's $35 billion SCHIP expansion proposal condemn bloggers and talk show hosts, including Rush Limbaugh, who have examined the statement penned by aides to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and delivered as the official Democratic Party rebuttal to President Bush's weekly radio address by 12-year-old Graeme Frost, that the State Childrens Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is for "families like mine." The questioners' question: If Graeme Frost's family isn't...

Once among the most frightening epithets in American political culture, "socialized medicine" seems to have lost its juju. Today that phrase sounds awfully dated, like a song on a gramophone or a mother-in-law joke or a John Birch Society rant against fluoridated water. Yet despite that antique quality, the old buzzwords appear regularly in columns, press releases and speeches. Rudolph Giuliani, Mitt Romney and the rest of the Republican presidential pack run around squawking about socialism whenever anyone proposes health care reform. Syndicated columnist Robert Novak warns that the federally financed, state-run Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is essentially a...

Make sure to watch TONIGHT, Friday, Sept 14 ABC at 10 pm EDT And Stossel previews here: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=446

Suing the government for the right to see and live Jcarpay@CanadianConstitutionFoundation.Ca John Carpay National Post Friday, September 07, 2007Get immediate surgery to treat a brain tumour -- or risk permanent blindness and possibly death. That was the choice presented to 43-year-old Shona Holmes of Waterdown, Ont. But Ontario's government-run health care system offered her only a waiting list. Ms. Holmes, a self-employed family mediator and the mother of two children, began losing her vision in March, 2005. She also experienced severe headaches, anxiety attacks, high blood pressure, extreme fatigue and weight gain. In spite of these symptoms -- and an...

EXCLUSIVE    NHS sends organs on coaches     By EMMA MORTONAugust 27, 2007   SKINT NHS bosses are using National Express coaches to transport organs for transplants.  And The Sun can reveal it meant an EYE went missing on its way to hospital.It was sent in a box on a coach and disappeared on the way to Northampton General.Hospitals should use private ambulances to carry the organs. But many have axed the contracts to save money.Delivery firm TNT was due to collect the eye — for a cornea transplant — from Northampton bus station where it had been taken...