Free Republic

"Health Law Bans New Doctor-Owned Hospitals, Blocks Expansion of Existing Ones" SNIPPET: "The rules fall under Title VI, Section 6001 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The provision is titled “Physician Ownership and Other Transparency – Limitations on Medicare Exceptions to the Prohibition on Certain Physician Referral for Hospitals.” More than 60 doctor-owned hospitals across the country that were in the development stage will be canceled, said Molly Sandvig, executive director of Physician Hospitals of America (PHA). “That’s a lot of access to communities that will be denied,” Sandvig told CNSNews.com. “The existing hospitals are greatly affected. They...

Tucson, Arizona. The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) became the first medical society to sue to overturn the newly enacted health care bill, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). AAPS sued Friday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (AAPS v. Sebelius et al.). “If the PPACA goes unchallenged, then it spells the end of freedom in medicine as we know it,” observed Jane Orient, M.D., the Executive Director of AAPS. “Courts should not allow this massive intrusion into the practice of medicine and the rights of patients.” “There will be a dire...

Muslim medical students get picky   Daniel Foggo and Abul Taher   Some Muslim medical students are refusing to attend lectures or answer exam questions on alcohol-related or sexually transmitted diseases because they claim it offends their religious beliefs. Some trainee doctors say learning to treat the diseases conflicts with their faith, which states that Muslims should not drink alcohol and rejects sexual promiscuity. A small number of Muslim medical students have even refused to treat patients of the opposite sex. One male student was prepared to fail his final exams rather than carry out a basic examination of...

Never has the onslaught against alternative therapies been so virulent. If we do not act now, together and consistently, we will lose access to the therapies we depend on to maintain and improve our health. The goal of the Freedom of Health Foundation is to fight repression of medical freedom with legal, legislative, and educational tactics. When special interests, both here and abroad, try to limit access to nutritional supplements, we will be on the frontline. When practitioners of alternative medicine are persecuted, we will defend them. When the FDA denies access to an innovative therapy to a patient seeking...