Free Republic

With all the controversy over specifics and politicians wrangling for more power, people have missed the big picture. The big picture is simple: Obamacare fails at every major goal is has set out to achieve. Let us take another step back in the health care debate. After all the yelling, screaming, and demagoguery, what exactly are our leaders trying to achieve? Ultimately, when you boil it down, they want to accomplish two major things: universal coverage, and minimizing increases in costs. Here is the scary thing: after spending a $1 trillion more in the next decade...the Democrats bill will do...

Here are five suggestions for how to bring the network back: 1. Part ways with Jeff Zucker -- or at least ban him from any oversight of the network. ... Take out the performance of the broadcast network, and Zucker's tenure at the Peacock has seen plenty of successes (and profits). ... But this story is about what can be done to save the NBC television network. Zucker has done far more harm than good to that part of the business. ... 2. Don't make any hard and fast rules. The last decade at NBC has been marked by a...

Thought experiment: Ten years from now, the United States has fully embraced universal healthcare and the government is responsible for administering every aspect of medicine. Two patients' files fall on the desk of a governemnt employee: Both have brain tumours in exactly the same places, and only with heroic attempts will either survive. One is a 25 year old man. One is an 91 year old woman. With heroic methods each have about a 20% chance of survival. Since the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution does not discriminate based on age, can the 91 year old woman expect the...

Negligent medical personnel of a hospital in Omsk, Russia, caused mass blindness to hospital patients. During surgeries, the doctors infected the patients’ eyes, making 13 people blind. According to Rosbalt news agency, lawyers of the affected patients are pessimistic. They do not think that it will be possible to hold the health professionals accountable...

Kidney patient must make three trips a week to Saint John for dialysis, while a unit sits idle 10 minutes from her home A1 By Jim Dumville Helping her mother travel more than 1,200 kilometres each week to secure life-saving medical procedure, while the necessary medical equipment sits only a few kilometres away, has become a major source of disbelief and frustration for a Woodstock businesswoman. In a detailed letter addressed to political and health-care officials and members of the media, Woodstock's Kelly Atherton outlined the lengths she and her family must go to ensure her mother receives dialysis treatment....

What bias? They did the same thing for George W. Bush didn't they?

Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey is organizing a march on Washington against the Obama administration’s healthcare plan that he hopes will finally finish off the Democratic push for socialized medicine. The march, organized by Armey’s political group FreedomWorks, is scheduled for Sept. 12 and is already generating hundreds of thousands of responses, the Texas Republican tells Newsmax.TV. The group is isn’t providing transportation, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem. See Video: Fomer House Majority Leader Dick Armey talks about the movement to defeat Obamacare

Opponents of Barack Obama’s healthcare proposals are using the tactics of Saul Alinksy, the legendary leftwing activist who helped inspire the US president when he was a young community organiser, says Dick Armey, head of Freedom Works, a group fighting against universal healthcare. Mr Armey, who was the Republican majority leader in the House of Representatives for most of the 1990s, said his group, which is behind many of the “tea party” protests that have disrupted town-hall meetings in the past two weeks, draws consciously on the forms of agitation pioneered by Mr Alinsky. Mr Obama, who worked as a...

Joshua has been taking the bus to his local Whole Foods in New York City every five days for the past two years. This week, he said he'll go elsewhere to fulfill his fresh vegetable and organic produce needs. "I will never shop there again," vowed Joshua, a 45-year-old blogger, who asked that his last name not be published. Like many of his fellow health food fanatics, Joshua said he will no longer patronize the store after learning about Whole Foods Market Inc.'s CEO John Mackey's views on health care reform, which were made public this week in an op-ed...

The below blog posting is actually a story that broke last year but never got much media attention, or at least, nowhere near the attention that it should have received. Oregon has Universal Health Care and this case offers a preview of what we can expect nationally if Obamacare passes: A Preview Of Universal Health Care: Oregon Woman Denied Medicine, Offered Assisted Suicide Instead 84rules August 11, 2008

In any country other than the United States, it’s hard to feel the intensity of the national dispute over healthcare. It’s consuming Barack Obama’s presidency, and so it should. He’s right to have told Americans that they can’t afford their medical system (that is genteel understatement) and that it’s going to bankrupt their Government soon. But he’s wrong in the way he’s trying to solve it — including his curious detachment from the details of the plan that will make or break his presidency. Why has his grand notion gone so badly adrift? At last, yesterday afternoon, Obama was plunging...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2283011/posts Isle health care law questioned [Hawaii] 06/30/2009 8:47:40 PM PDT · by Lorianne · 2 replies · 178+ views source material cannot be posted | June 30, 2009 Synopsis: Hawaii's 1974 law requiring employers to provide health insurance for employees working at least 20 hours a week is being is cited by researchers as not an effective way to reach universal healthcare. Link in post below ___ http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2113978/posts Hawaii hospitals report losses of $150 million (Universal FREE Healthcare!) 10/24/2008 5:51:54 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 21 replies · 454+ views news.moneycentral.msn.com ^ | 10/24/2008 | Staff Hawaii...

Pg 22 of the HC Bill MANDATES the Govt will audit books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure!! Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC bill - THERE WILL BE A GOVT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benes u get Pg 29 lines 4-16 in the HC bill - YOUR HEALTHCARE IS RATIONED!!! Pg 42 of HC Bill - The Health Choices Commissioner will choose UR HC Benefits 4 you. U have no choice! PG 50 Section 152 in HC bill - HC will be provided 2 ALL non US citizens, illegal or otherwise Pg 58HC Bill - Govt will have real-time...

It would have many uses including military applications, radar tracking: A universal mirror, an object that reflects all light waves back at their source, has been created by scientists in Europe and Asia. Imagine a tennis player hitting a ball against a wall. The ball would bounce right back to the player no matter what angle he or she directed the shot. A universal mirror has the same effect, except with light waves. Unlike an ordinary mirror, which only reflects objects at 90 degrees, a universal mirror reflects objects back at any angle. In other words, a person positioned in...

BOSTON — A hospital that serves thousands of indigent Massachusetts residents sued the state on Wednesday, charging that its costly universal health care law is forcing the hospital to cover too much of the expense of caring for the poor. The hospital, Boston Medical Center, faces a $38 million deficit for the fiscal year ending in September, its first loss in five years. The suit says the hospital will lose more than $100 million next year because the state has lowered Medicaid reimbursement rates and stopped paying Boston Medical “reasonable costs” for treating other poor patients. “We filed this suit...

Massachusetts' budget forces retreat from universal coverage15. July 2009 18:40 "The new state budget in Massachusetts eliminates health care coverage for some 30,000 legal immigrants to help close a growing deficit, reversing progress toward universal coverage just as Congress looks to the state as a model for overhauling the nation’s health care system," the New York Times reports. The affected immigrants are permanent residents who have had green cards for less than five years and are insured through the Commonwealth Care program, an insurance program created by the 2006 law that brought near-universal coverage to Massachusetts. The cuts would save...

As the Senate committee puts on it's usual media dog and pony show for what will ultimately result in the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor, other Senate members from the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee (HELP) slithered behind the scenes to bring the nation one step closer to Obama's "remade" America with universal health care by passing a a $600 billion health-care reform bill called the the Affordable Health Choices Act. "What was passed today is the foundation for meaningful reform," said Sen. Patty Murray, Washington Democrat. "This bill says that health care is not a luxury, its a necessity....

Excessive Government involvement is what's wrong with our current healthcare system. One prominent example: FDA regulation and Medicare/Medicaid policies are suppressing new drug and device options and increasing healthcare costs. The FDA's approval process for new technologies costs companies between 250 and 800 million dollars. It takes an average of 8.5 years to move through the FDA's clinical and approval phases and there is no guarantee of approval. Out of 5000 compounds discovered in the pre-clinical stage, only about 5 will make it through. The cost of approved and non-approved drugs and devices are passed on to the physician practice,...

This is an article filled with good links, that demonstrates Obama's effort to pretend to offer us a choice, but really the supporters of socialized medicine are out of the closet on the destruction of private health care as a whole. It is not about the efficacy of socialized health care, it is about showing how we are not really being offered a choice, and it demonstrates the slipping support for the plan. http://www.examiner.com/x-14881-Political-Buzz-Examiner~y2009m6d25-Obamas-Health-Care-Reform-debacle

Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky addressing over 500 Chicago area residents and local political leaders at the Health Care For America Now rally in Chicago. The rally called for quality, affordable health care for all in 2009.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (9th, IL) speaks to a group of sheep regarding the government plans for universal health care.

This video is an entry for the Galen’s Institute’s “Do No Harm” contest.

Is your medical insurance bad for your health? If you have a high-deductible plan, the answer may be yes. The investment firm Fidelity recently surveyed employees at various companies who had opted for a high-deductible health plan linked to a health savings account. About half of those workers said they or a family member had chosen not to seek medical care for minor ailments as many as four times in the last year to avoid paying the out-of-pocket expenses. As any doctor will tell you, small health problems left untreated can become big problems, warns Kathleen Stoll, director of health...

Everyone on both sides of the issue should read this. Frankly, I’m tired of pro universal health care advocates pretending there is a mythological utopia involving government run medical care. The truth is there are more negatives to it than positives. On the other hand, I’m getting tired of opponents of universal health care proclaiming that there are people dead in the street where ever you have government run health care. The truth is there is decent medical treatment in most western universal health care systems. You have the facts with your side, but you can’t blow them out of...

“Systems” appeal to politicians and paper-pushers. Patients need care from human beings. But if you want to know what a government-controlled, monopolistic “system” is like, just visit the DMV − and imagine that not your driving privilege but your life depended on the wisdom and empathy of bureaucrats.

Did the fact that Canada has a socialist, government-run healthcare system --similar to the kind that President Obama wants to ram down the throats of Americans-- kill acclaimed actress Natasha Richardson?

To no one’s surprise, President Obama plans to ask Congress to spend billions of dollars on public education. As he stated in his presidential agenda on education, the country cannot afford four more years of neglect and indifference. This neglect and indifference, according to the president, occurred despite the fact that in the last four years, the federal government and the states have spent more money on public education than at any other time in the history of our nation. What is surprising about Mr. Obama’s education initiative is his priority on early childhood education. His “Zero to Five Plan”...

H.R.676 Title: To provide for comprehensive health insurance coverage for all United States residents, improved health care delivery, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Rep Conyers, John, Jr. [MI-14] (introduced 1/26/2009) Cosponsors (42) Latest Major Action: 1/26/2009 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committees on Ways and Means, and Natural Resources, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY AS OF: 1/26/2009--Introduced. United States National Health Care Act...

Covertly slipped into GL Obama’s faux “stimulus bill” last weekend—by leftist Democrats—was the Socialist Universal Healthcare program. Contained within the bill is the provision that doctors will now be forced to report any and all of their patient treatments to the federal government for approval to treat. Also contained within this portion of Obama’s non-stimulus bill is the rationing of healthcare services to senior US citizens and the withholding of potentially life-saving measures. As Democrat Tom Daschle wrote in his book “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis” senior citizens “should be more accepting of the conditions that...

Obama Signs SCHIP Legislation, Says Bill Is 'First Step' Toward Universal Health CoverageMain Category: Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP Article Date: 06 Feb 2009 - 5:00 PST President Obama on Wednesday signed into law a bill (HR 2) that will reauthorize and expand SCHIP to an additional four million children, the AP/San Francisco Chronicle reports. Obama said that expanding the program is "the first step" to achieving universal health coverage in the U.S. (Freking/Elliot, AP/San Francisco Chronicle, 2/5). The House cleared the final version of the measure by a vote of 290-135 earlier in the day. Forty Republicans voted in...

Teresa Ghilarducci: The 401(k) Retirement System Has FailedJanuary 30, 2009 03:51 PM ET | Emily Brandon **SNIP** Under Ghilarducci's plan, outlined in her book When I'm Sixty-Four: The Plot Against Pensions and the Plan to Save Them, all workers who don't have a traditional pension would be required to contribute 2.5 percent of their income to a government account with a 2.5 percent employer match. A 3 percent return above inflation would be guaranteed by the government. U.S. News asked Ghilarducci about her controversial retirement plans. Excerpts: **SNIP** How will GRAs fix the retirement system? After 30 years of experience...

••• Q: If there are things that are wasteful in the stimulus package, what would you see go? A: I actually brought a list of a few that I uncovered here. ... There’s $1.1 billion on research to compare the effectiveness of medical treatments. It might be a nice program, but I’m not sure if I would consider that stimulus. There’s a $726 million for an after school snack program. Again, it’s wonderful, something I think maybe we should put in our regular budget, but I think this falls outside the stimulus. $400 million for habitat restoration, $200 million...

Hawaii is dropping the only state universal child health care program in the country just seven months after it launched. Gov. Linda Lingle's administration cited budget shortfalls and other available health care options for eliminating funding for the program. A state official said families were dropping private coverage so their children would be eligible for the subsidized plan.

By Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor The shake-up of NHS dentistry has been condemned as a failure after official figures showed fewer people are receiving health service treatment. More than 300,000 people lost their NHS dentist in three months alone Eight hundred thousand fewer people saw an NHS dentist in the two years up to December than in the last two years under the old dental contract. The shake-up was aimed at simplifying the payments system, encouraging more preventive work and reducing the 'drill and fill' culture in NHS dentistry. But the contract was so unpopular many dentists left the NHS...

British doctors will take the historic step of admitting for the first time that many health treatments will be rationed in the future because the NHS cannot cope with spiralling demand from patients. In a major report that will embarrass the government, the British Medical Association will say fertility treatment, plastic surgery and operations for varicose veins and minor childhood ailments, such as glue ear, are among a long list of procedures in jeopardy. James Johnson, the BMA chairman, will warn that patients face a bleak future because they will increasingly be denied treatments. He will urge the NHS to...

Low water pressure hampered efforts today to fight a fire that raged through the Universal Studios backlot in Universal City, destroying a soundstage, the theme park's King Kong attraction, a video vault and sets such as the Courthouse Square seen in "Back to the Future" and the New York street scape from "Bruce Almighty." As the equivalent of two city blocks burned -- firefighters were still dousing hot spots 10 hours after the blaze began in predawn darkness -- a mushroom-like cloud of smoke drifted over surrounding neighborhoods, raising some health concerns. A large explosion near the video storage building...

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. (AP) — A massive fire raged on a back lot at Universal Studios early Sunday, devouring several movie sets, including mock New York and New England streets. There were no immediate reports of injuries. Los Angeles County Fire Inspector Daryl Jacobs said at least one building had burned and as many as three blocks of movie facades were destroyed. Though the fire was contained, it was still raging, Jacobs said. "The facades are constructed of heavy timber and they tend to burn quite freely," he said. The blaze broke out just before dawn on a sound stage,...

According to the sages of the Talmud, there are 70 families with 70 paths within the great Family of Man. And each individual has his or her path within a path. Yet, there is one universal basis for us all. At the dawn of human history, G-d gave man seven rules to follow in order that His world be sustained. So it is recounted in the Book of Genesis as interpreted by our tradition in the Talmud. There will come a time, our sages told us, that the children of Noah will be prepared to return to this path. That...

Once they discover that she is Dr. Kate, the supplicants line up to approach at dinner parties and ballet recitals. Surely, they suggest to Dr. Katherine J. Atkinson, a family physician here, she might find a way to move them up her lengthy waiting list for new patients. Those fortunate enough to make it soon learn they face another long wait: Dr. Atkinson’s next opening for a physical is not until early May — of 2009. Now in Massachusetts, in an unintended consequence of universal coverage, the imbalance is being exacerbated by the state’s new law requiring residents to have...

Medicare is poised to wreak havoc on the economy. And our presidential candidates are avoiding the issue. Twice I have asked Alan Greenspan what he considers the greatest threat to the U.S. economy, and both times he has answered immediately with a single word: Medicare. He isn't so worried about the trade deficit and the housing crash; he figures market forces will sort them out. But Medicare is something else - a multitrillion-dollar problem that's about to get dramatically worse, and one that nobody wants to talk about. You'd think that the greatest threat to America's economy would be Topic...

TOKYO - An 89-year-old woman died after an ambulance crew spent two hours trying 30 hospitals before finding one that would accept her for treatment, Japanese officials said Friday. The woman's family called an ambulance early Tuesday morning after she became ill with vomiting and diarrhea, said Hideto Matsumoto, a fire official in Tondabayashi City, Osaka prefecture (state). The ambulance crew and local fire department contacted 30 hospitals before one finally said it could admit her, Matsumoto said — about two hours after her family had called for an ambulance. The woman's heart stopped when she was taken to Osaka...

I am a small-government conservative/libertarian and have hated the concept of socialized medicine almost all my life. But now, I could live with universal health coverage in the U.S.. Here's why. We now have the worst of both worlds: we are paying for universal health coverage, but not getting it. In fact, we pay more for health care in taxes than countries that provide universal coverage. Then we pay more than that amount again in private coverage. Additionally, what we have now in the U.S. is nowhere near a free market in health care. Defending the status quo is not...

Democrats’ assault on Americans’ rights and personal freedom continues unabated, even in the wake of fairly stunning rebukes suffered as a result of their having to call off the presidential authority usurpation dogs. General David Petraeus’s well-managed presentation in his testimony before Congress as well as the ongoing success of the Iraq troop surge has put paid to that. Indeed, despite the fact that American troops are more active in the field and are thus more exposed to enemy attack, the combat death toll of Americans continues to lessen. That doesn’t mean, though, that Democrats have abandoned their power grab...

Like getting cold cocked in a barroom fight .. it hit me today ...

...As she spoke, memories of the Clinton years wafted through my head — government by seminar running into the late hours. But as she will tell you (before you even have a chance to ask), she has learned a lot since the early 1990s, and while the conversations may still be endless, they are also more restrained. And it’s true. The plan she unveiled yesterday is much simpler than the one she came up with 14 years ago. Back then, she and her staff were like technocratic engineers, one of her advisers told me, trying to patch every last gap...

RUSH: If John Edwards is going to require every one of us under his universal health care plan, socialized medicine, to go to the doctor all the time -- it's going to be mandatory; the government is going to make us go to the doctor -- then I have an idea. I think the government should make every American have access to a lawyer. I think the federal government should take over the whole legal field, just like they're taking over the whole health care industry. Take over the legal business. Set prices for all services. Set salaries for all...

Universal Housing It’s time that America stop being so greedy and take care of it’s people better. Right now there is a crisis which affects tens of millions of Americans who are trying to improve their lives. They are not getting the most basic of needs. Often they have to decide between food and this other need. Often they cannot afford both. It’s disgusting that in a country so full of wealth that there are still people who don’t own their own home!! All across America, real estate costs have increased so much that some Americans will never have the...

A strange-bedfellows alliance of liberal advocacy groups, labor unions and Big Business is trying to resurrect “HillaryCare.” Major corporations, which will benefit if government picks up the tab for their employees’ health care, are joining with the liberal group Families USA to press for more government health care spending. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is in on the deal too. Its partner? Wal-Mart!...... For conservatives, it must seem like HillaryCare Redux. This time, however, the reform effort is different in one important respect. In 1993-1994 many industry groups opposed Hillary Clinton's attempt to nationalize America’s health care system. Now...

A grandfather died after a blister caused by tight new shoes led to blood poisoning and massive organ failure. Peter Catterall, 60, was given dressings by a district nurse and told the sore on his toe should heal by itself. But just over a week later, the retired electrician suffered two heart attacks. [snip] But according to his youngest daughter, Sara, 21, the sore continued to weep, and when she went to see him a week later on July 1 he confessed: "This toe is killing me." Miss Catterall said yesterday: "I am no nurse, but I immediately knew he...

BOSTON - The goal was as audacious as it was simple: Plug the holes in Massachusetts' health care network without resorting to the politically nuclear option of a single government-funded program. The result is a landmark insurance law praised as innovative, derided as a house of cards and touted by former Gov. Mitt Romney as he runs for president. As of Sunday, nearly everyone in Massachusetts must be insured or face a series of increasing tax penalties. The law won't result in universal coverage immediately, but the deadline is a critical mile marker. "July 1 is really a call to...