Free Republic

My Medicare patients -- and those who'll soon qualify -- are worried. Will the doctors they're used to seeing still be able to take care of them when big cuts in Medicare payments are constantly hanging overhead? Even if I keep seeing a particular patient, I don't know that I'll still be able to find specialists to examine his skin, perform his stress test, operate on his hip or remove his cataract. Medicare reimbursement to me for an average primary-care visit has remained around $50 for the past decade, even as my office expenses have skyrocketed. Cataract and hip-replacement operations...

CANON CITY, Colorado (AP) -- No, they weren't coming to the rescue. Military officials said 25 heavily armed parachutists who landed in a cornfield on the grounds of a Colorado prison last week were on a training mission but landed about 3 miles off target. "Those were Special Operations Command forces conducting routine training," Army Col. Hans Bush, a spokesman for the command at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, said Monday. He declined to identify the units that landed at Fremont Correctional Facility but said the target was Fremont County Airport. The special operations troops, which could include Navy Seals...

U.S. Army Spc. Alejandro Perez, a Longbow Apache armament specialist assigned to Company D, 1st Battalion, 4th Aviation Regiment, Combat Aviation Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, and Sgt. Kris Woodburn, a Longbow Apache helicopter mechanic assigned to Company A, 1st Battalion, 4th Aviation Regiment, Combat Aviation Brigade, remove a Hellfire missile from a Longbow Apache helicopter as Spc. Eben Gonzales, an Apache mechanic assigned to Company A, 1st Battalion, 4th Aviation Regiment, Combat Aviation Brigade, observes. Ammunition that is maintained at the Combat Aviation Brigade’s Ammo Transfer Holding Point eventually finds it way onto the brigade’s attack helicopters. U.S. Army...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military flew in two forensic specialists Saturday to examine the remains of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi "to see how he actually died" and to reconstruct the last minutes of his life, a spokesman said. The examination comes after U.S. authorities altered their initial account of the al-Qaida leader's death, first saying he died outright in a U.S. airstrike, then saying he survived but died soon after. Also, an Iraqi man raised fresh questions, telling Associated Press Television News that he saw U.S. soldiers beating an injured man resembling al-Zarqawi until blood flowed from his nose. Maj....

5/17/2006 - Fort Sam Houston, Texas (AFPN) -- Brooke Army Medical Center hosted a military amputee advance skills training workshop for Veterans Affairs’ prosthetists and therapists. Nearly 100 VA rehabilitation team members from 15 medical centers attended the workshop May 10 through 12 to learn the patient care methods used at Department of Defense facilities to help injured servicemembers recover, adjust to using prosthetics, and return to duty or to a full civilian life. “We are learning what the military is doing so that when a Soldier comes to their local VA it is a seamless transition,” said Bob Gailey,...

"The problem is not whether you have money or not, the problem is we have a shortage of specialists," says Dr. Dominic Dizon at the University of California at San Francisco's medical education program in Fresno.

US forces secured the suspected chemical plant in Najah on Monday, as 12 civilians were caught attempting to transport a truckload of AK-47 rifles to the site. These dozen men were added to the 54 Iraqi officers and soldiers, including a general,who surrendered to the 2-7 mechanized infantry battalion during Sunday's raid of the huge camouflaged complex. Senior army sources told this reporter that the army is concerned with the sensitive status of the site. Specialists from an army "exploitation team" will arrive at the complex Tuesday to conduct comprehensive inspections, they said.