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President Barack Obama’s address to the annual meeting of the American Medical Association today didn’t break new ground, but attempted to assure doctors and their patients that his prescription for overhauling the health care system would be good for them. For patients, he made a sweeping pledge that “no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter...

President Obama pushed hard Monday for a health care overhaul, saying the system is "a ticking bomb" for the budget that could propel America down "the route of GM" without a legislative fix. Obama went before the American Medical Association in Chicago to declare anew that the existing system leaves too many uninsured and forces "excessive defensive medicine" by doctors worried about malpractice suits. He also declared once again that he does not favor socialized medicine and cautioned people to beware of "scare tactics and fear-mongering" by critics who make this claim. Obama did tell his audience of physicians and...

With the clock ticking on health care reform legislation, President Obama has guaranteed American taxpayers that his administration will pay for any overhaul without adding to the deficit. Lawmakers, however, don't have quite as firm a handle on how they'll actually accomplish it. Though Obama has outlined nearly $950 billion in savings and revenue to offset the cost of a program tagged at about $1 trillion over the next decade, some fear the actual price tag could be much higher and question whether Obama's estimates about a coming windfall in government savings are accurate.

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The fact is, the Democrats' proposals are a liberal wish list of expansions of the role of government in health care, combining an array of taxes, regulations, incentives, and mandates aimed over time to create a massive and unfunded new entitlement that would limit patient choices, ration care, and bankrupt the Treasury. The Democrats' plan would force everyone into the system through an individual mandate and lead employers to drop their health coverage; their new public insurance plan would then price private insurers out of the game and attract the refugees from private coverage into the public system. All of...

Senior Adults in America have every reason to be frightened of Barack Obama's new healthcare proposal. The plan will ration the care provided to seniors and the poor. Obama has called for over 300 million in cuts both to Medicare and Medicaid, upon which millions of seniors and the poverty-stricken disabled depend for their medical care.

NEW YORK (AP) — ABC News will present a prime-time interview with President Barack Obama on health care issues next week. The network's special will air June 24 at 10 p.m. Eastern, on two-hour tape delay. Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer will moderate the White House discussion with a live audience, also taking questions submitted by viewers. That morning, Sawyer will interview Obama for "Good Morning America." Gibson will anchor that evening's edition of "World News" from the White House Blue Room.

SNIPPET: "Because costs of dealing with chronic diseases of the aging make up the largest wedge of America’s health-care pie, physicians’ widespread disgust with Medicare reimbursements and increasing frustration with Medicare red tape present a crucial obstacle to the Obama administration’s drive for universal health care in America. About 40 million people have Medicare insurance, not only those 65 and older but also younger disabled people. Dr. Marc Siegel, an internist and associate professor of Medicine at the NYU Langone Medical Center, in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, wrote that with more doctors dropping out of one...

WASHINGTON, June 14 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's health secretary on Sunday pushed for a new government-run healthcare program, an idea facing skepticism even in his own party, and a senior Senate Democrat flatly said votes are lacking in Congress for the proposal. In addition, Vice President Joe Biden opposed proposals being discussed by some lawmakers to tax health insurance benefits provided to people by employers as a way to pay for an overhaul of the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare industry. Obama, aiming to get healthcare costs under control and ensure that the 46 million Americans who are uninsured can...

Influential senators working to overhaul the nation's health care system have investments and family ties with some of the biggest names in the industry. The wife of Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, the lawmaker in charge of writing the Senate's bill, sits on the boards of four health care companies. Members of both parties have industry connections, including Democrats John D. Rockefeller IV and Tom Harkin, in addition to Mr. Dodd, and Republicans Tom Coburn, Judd Gregg, Jon Kyl and Orrin G. Hatch, financial reports showed Friday. Jackie Clegg Dodd, wife of the Connecticut Democrat, is on the boards of Javelin...

I just saw an Obama spokesman on Fox make the absurd claim that Publicly financed health care would cut costs by bringing "competition" to health care. I found this claim to be absurd to the point of laughability. Government financed health care does not need to be worried about cost because the money comes from the taxpayers. There can be no "competition" between government and private providers, because private providers do not have the force of the government to collect taxes, promote regulations, and use the power of the state to force competitors from business. This is an incredible use...

Top aides to Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) called a last-minute, pre-emptive strike on Wednesday with a group of prominent Democratic lobbyists, warning them to advise their clients not to attend a meeting with Senate Republicans set for Thursday. Russell Sullivan, the top staffer on Finance, and Jon Selib, Baucus’ chief of staff, met with a bloc of more than 20 contract lobbyists, including several former Baucus aides. “They said, ‘Republicans are having this meeting and you need to let all of your clients know if they have someone there, that will be viewed as a hostile act,’” said...

June 09, 2009, 0:00 a.m. Health-Care Bill Is the Ball GameMore competition, not less. More market discipline, not less. By Mona Charen You might suppose that President Obama has his hands full running two wars, administering General Motors, “rescuing” the banking system, attempting to empower unions over management, hushing up whispers about hypocrisy regarding Guantanamo detainees, managing the mortgage crisis, imposing “clean energy” on the nation, handling nuclear North Korea and nearly nuclear Iran, “stimulating” the economy, reviving the “peace process” between Palestinians and Israelis, inaugurating a new relationship with Russia and with the Muslim world, and reversing the...

In becoming the first government health care program in the world to draw up a formal procedure for rationing care to consumers, the Oregon Health Plan has significantly shifted priorities away from lifesaving measures, instead favoring politically popular ones, says Linda Gorman, a senior fellow with the Independence Institute. After comment from interested parties, the state health program for low-income people ranked treatments for various diseases and conditions in order of priority. The health care dollars available determine which priorities are met, and as program costs have grown, the list of covered procedures has become shorter, says Gorman: In 2009...

“If you got health insurance, then you can keep it . . . and we won’t do anything about that,” at least that was what President Obama promised during the campaign last year. Well, add that to a very long list of broken campaign promises, including: cutting government spending, reducing the deficit, and “no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase.” Just as bad, on Friday it was revealed that Obama and the Democrats have no problem pushing through Senate votes on these radical health care changes that strip away normal procedural protections...

Anti-life "HillaryCare" Socialized Med Scheme Back as House Passes CHAMP Bill; Senate Follows Suit Today Cuts funding for abstinence, covers abortifacient drugs, leaves Seniors with less options By Peter J. Smith WASHINGTON, D.C., August 2, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The advent of socialized health care and massive taxpayer abortion subsidies may take the United States by stealth, unless the new health care bill proposed by Democrats Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Rep. John Dingle (D-MI) is vetoed by President Bush. Today the US House of Representatives voted 225-204 for a massive expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), a...