OBAMACARE

Im adding Kitty Werthmanns account of 1938 Austria to the bottom of this file. The parallels to today are uncanny.
My Sustainable Living File 120920 The War on Families My Sustainable Living File 120923 My List of Government Pork Waste and Fraud Outsourcing 120711 My Obamacare file 120701 My Alien vs American File My Mexican Violence File My Union Files 120613 Twisted Teachers My Voter Fraud List My List of Nanny State My Agenda 21 Page 2 Notes My One World Government File Villaraigosas Sustainable City Los Angeles Leon Penetta Defense Secretary My rogue Judges File 120601

Seventh Circuit Blocks HHS Mandate for Private Business (Disses 10th Circuit "Hobby Lobby" Decision) NROnline/ The Corner ^ | December 29, 2012 | David French Late yesterday afternoon, the Seventh Circuit granted an emergency injunction against the HHS mandate preventing its enforcement against an Illinois business and its owners. My colleagues at the ACLJ represent Korte & Luitjohan Contractors, Inc., a family-owned, full-service construction contractor. The company is located in Highland, Ill., and employs about 90 workers. The brief opinion is worth a read in its entirety, but two parts stand out. First, the court disagreed with the Tenth Circuits recent decision rejecting Hobby Lobbys request for a similar injunction. IRS Proposes Employer Mandate Rules for Health Coverage AccountingToday ^ | December 30, 201 | Michael Cohn The Internal Revenue Service has issued proposed regulations on the shared responsibility for large employers to provide health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act.The IRS noted that employers may rely on the proposed regulations for guidance until final regulations are issued. In addition, the IRS posted a questions and answers document on its Web site Friday to explain the Employer Shared Responsibility provisions under the Affordable Care Act and the new proposed regulations. Under the provisions, if employers do not offer affordable health coverage that provides a minimum level of health insurance coverage to their full-time employees, 60,000 patients put on death pathway without being told but minister still says controversial... mailonline ^ | 12.30.2012 | Jason Groves, Daniel Martin and Steve Doughty FULL TITLE: 60,000 patients put on death pathway without being told but minister still says controversial end-of-life plan is 'fantastic' Up to 60,000 patients die on the Liverpool Care Pathway each year without giving their consent, shocking figures revealed yesterday. A third of families are also kept in the dark when doctors withdraw lifesaving treatment from loved ones. Despite the revelations, Jeremy Hunt last night claimed the pathway was a fantastic step forward. Outcry: Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt provoked outrage by saying the death pathway was a 'fantastic step forward' In comments that appeared to prejudge an official inquiry into.

Switzerland: A Case Study in Consumer-Driven Health Care Forbes ^ | 12/29/2012 | Avik Roy In 2007, Harvard Business School professor Regina Herzlinger and McGraw-Hill published Who Killed Health Care? Americas $2 Trillion Medical ProblemAnd The Consumer-Driven Cure. In the book, Herzlinger describes the health care system of Switzerland as a case study in consumer-driven health care, one that has things for both liberals and conservatives to like (and dislike). Given the fact that both Obamacares insurance exchanges and Paul Ryans Medicare reform proposals borrow from Switzerlands model, its worth learning from Regis research on the topic. Her work has influenced my own thinking about how to use parts of Obamacare to reform Medicare, Medicaid,.. Hobby Lobby Continues Fight Against Obamacare Abortion Mandate Political Realities ^ | 12/28/12 | LD Jackson Hobby Lobby is a well-known store that many people rely on to supply the needed materials for their arts and crafts projects. I even purchased a wicker basket to carry my eggs in from the chicken house. The store was started in a garage in Oklahoma City and has grown to 525 stores across America. It is a very popular store and highly regarded, but it has a couple of major points against it. First and foremost, it is a Christian-owned business. Secondly, it is in the midst of the fight of its life, as it uses every avenue available.. ObamaCare Mandate May Force Little Sisters of the Poor to Leave U.S. Catholic Lane ^ | December 21, 2012 | Kirsten Anderson The Obama administrations HHS mandate may force the Catholic Little Sisters of the Poor to cease their U.S. operations, according to Sister Constance Carolyn Veit, the religious orders communications director.The Little Sisters currently provide group homes and daily care for the elderly poor in 30 U.S. cities.Sister Constance told The Daily Caller that the Little Sisters may not qualify for a religious exemption from ObamaCares requirement that employers provide coverage for contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion-causing drugs free of charge to female workers.We are not exempt from the [ObamaCare] mandate because we neither serve nor employ a predominantly Catholic population, Constance.. Germany accused of 'deporting' its elderly Daily Mail UK ^ | 12/27/12 | Mail Foreign Service German pensioners are being sent to care homes in Eastern Europe and Asia in what has been described as an inhumane deportation. Rising numbers of the elderly and sick are moved overseas for long-term care because of sky-high costs at home. Some private healthcare providers are even building homes overseas, while state insurers are also investigating whether they can care for their clients abroad. Experts describe a time bomb of increasing numbers unable to afford the growing costs of retirement homes.

Obamacare Could Double Health Care Premiums: Aetna CEO CNBC ^ | 12/26/12 | Justin Menza To provide all Americans with health insurance, premiums will have to rise to pay for it, Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini told CNBC's "Closing Bell" on Wednesday. "If we're going to insure all Americans, which is a worthy and appropriate cause, then somebody has to pay for it," Bertolini said of the expected premium increases under Obamacare. Bertolini said that insurance premiums could double in some places just on the basis of what types of policies people buy today. He also said that when Obamacare is fully implemented, it won't start the way people had hoped and it won't be cheaper. Top 5 worst Obamacare taxes to hit in 2013 Oregon Catalyst ^ | December 26. 2012 | Americans for Tax Reform Of the twenty new or higher taxes in Obamacare, below are the five worst that will be foisted upon Americans for the first time on January 1, 2013: The Obamacare Medical Device Tax a $20 billion tax increase: Medical device manufacturers employ 409,000 people in 12,000 plants across the country. Obamacare imposes a new 2.3 percent excise tax on gross sales even if the company does not earn a profit in a given year. In addition to killing small business jobs and impacting research and development budgets, this will increase the cost of your health care making. <VANITY> Applebee's E-menu [[Coming soon to a restaurant near you]] Bad care is inevitable in the NHS Telegraph ^ | 12/24/12 | Harry Mount Thats not to say its excusable, just that the appalling neglect of 38 patients at the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch is the logical result of the NHSs untenable management structure. Imagine if everything at Tescos was free but rationed, and subject to delivery delays of several months. Then throw in the fact that there are no other free alternatives. You would have a nightmare on your hands--huge queues, attracted by the free goods, then further stretched by the long delays. Imagine how the staff would then behave-harrassed by the limitless demand of customers, but also in a tyrannical position of Businesses Cut Employees Hours to Prepare for Health Care Reforms Free Times ^ | 20 November 2012 | Eva Moore With President Barack Obama reelected to a second term, the health care reforms passed during his first term are set to take effect. And some employers are now facing the fact that theyll be forced to offer health coverage to all employees who work more than 30 hours a week. Here in the Midlands, Lizards Thicket owner Bobby Williams is in that position. His company made the decision to cut new employees to 28 hours a week. Long-time employees will continue to work 40 hours a week, he says. Absolutely theyre upset about it, he says of the workers whose..

ANNALS OF GOVERNMENT MEDICINE Powerline ^ | December 21, 2012 | JOHN HINDERAKER A National Health Service hospital in Great Britain has paid claims by 38 patients or their families, and has apologized to all of them for the grossly negligent care it provided. The Telegraph headlines:Hospital apologises to 38 families for appalling care that saw a patient starve to death. An NHS hospital has apologised to 38 families after a patient starved to death and it left other dying people screaming in pain. In one of the worst cases, a man had starvation recorded as the cause of his death after being treated at the hospital for two months. Bereaved relatives... South Carolina Freedom of Health Care Protection Act Spartanburg Tea Party ^ | 11 December 2012 Here is the raw text copied in from Bill Chumleys South Carolina Freedom of Health Care Protection Act that was prefiled today. I know there will be a bill # attached, I just dont have it now. Im going to put up a few posts about this today. Well need your help as we move forward. Please read, study, and ask questions about this bill so you can give a quick explanation of it, and why our legislators need to now only vote for it but ADVOCATE for it and CO-SPONSOR it. There will be a companion bill in the.. A "Major Victory" in Federal Court for Those Opposing the HHS Mandate Catholic World Report ^ | 12/19/12 | Catherine Harmon Big news from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the law firm representing those challenging the Obama administrations contraception mandate:Today [Tuesday, December 18], a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. handed Wheaton College and Belmont Abbey College a major victory in their challenges to the HHS mandate. Last summer, two lower courts had dismissed the Colleges cases as premature. Today, the appellate court reinstated those cases, and ordered the Obama Administration to report back every 60 daysstarting in mid-Februaryuntil the Administration makes good on its promise to issue a new rule that protects the Colleges religious freedom. Health insurance contractor to lay off 150 in Morrisville (North Carolina) The Triangle Business Journal ^ | December 18, 2012 | Amanda Jones Hoyle Health insurance contractor Healthways Inc. is shutting down its call center operations in Morrisville where it employs about 150 people, with the first wave of layoffs happening Dec. 31. Franklin, Tenn.-based Healthways (NASDAQ:HWAY) submitted a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act letter to the North Carolina Department of Commerce on Dec. 7 notifying state authorities about the pending mass layoff. According to a copy of the WARN letter from Laura Brocklehurst, vice president of human resources for Healthways, the company decided to close the facility due to changing business circumstances.(continued)

Next round of Obamacare rules to be tough on employers The Dallas Business Journal ^ | December 18, 2012 | Bill Hethcock Employers should expect the next round of regulations for the implementation of the Affordable Care Act to be a doozy, says Janet Trautwein, executive vice president and CEO of the National Association of Health Underwriters. This round of regs, now expected in early January, deal with the employer mandate. Employers not only will have to say whether they offer health care coverage or not, but theyll also have to report specifically which employees theyre offering coverage for, Trautwein said. In addition, employers are going to have to track the coverage, probably monthly, she said. Thousands in Spain protest health privatization Yahoo ^ | 12/17/12 | Harold Heckle, Associated Press | Associated Press MADRID (AP) -- Several thousand Spanish public health workers and other people marched from four main hospitals in Madrid to converge on a main square in the capital Sunday, protesting the regional government's plans to restructure and part-privatize the sector. The marches, described as a "white tide" because of the color of the medical scrubs many were wearing, finally met mid-afternoon in Puerta del Sol. On Monday, the region's health councilor will meet with a committee responsible for coordinating professional services and union representatives to try and agree how to achieve 533 million ($697 million) in savings. Doctors, nurses and.. Shortage of critical care paediatric beds,doctors warn BBC ^ | December 17,2012 | BBC The NHS is facing a shortage of beds to treat critically-ill children,doctors warn.The Paediatric Intensive Care Society and three other medical organisations say all 29 units in the UK are running close to capacity due to a surge in seasonal respiratory illness. The Department of Health is expected to release additional money to help hospitals with winter pressures.On Monday there were 10-20 unoccupied beds available.During the previous week, there were days when virtually all of the beds were full - although doctors stress no child came to any harm as a result.Services stretchedMedics say paediatric services are working hard to Vladimir Lenin: "Socialized Medicine is the Keystone to the Arch of the Socialist State." The Gateway Pundit ^ | March 8, 2010 | Jim Hoft Would socialized medicine lead to socialization of other phases of life? Lenin thought so. He declared socialized medicine is the keystone to the arch of the socialist state.1945 AMA Pamphlet Warning From the Socialists Workers Party When the administration of John F. Kennedy discussed a plan for government health care that would cover people of Social Security age, the American Medical Association (AMA) fought back, along with the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, with a well-funded campaigncomplete with a commercial featuring actor Ronald Reagan, who was determined to talk to America about an imminent threat: Now, back in 1927, an American...

Tom Monaghan sues feds over new health care law (Domino's Founder) MyFoxNY ^ | December 14, 2012 | Associated Press "Tom Monaghan, a devout Roman Catholic, says contraception is not health care and instead is a "gravely immoral" practice. He's a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court, along with his Domino's Farms, which runs an office park near Ann Arbor. Monaghan offers health insurance that excludes contraception and abortion for employees. The new law requires employers to offer insurance that includes contraception coverage or risk fines. Monaghan says the law violates his constitutional rights, and he's asking a judge to strike down the mandate." Obamas Electronic-Medical-Records Scam (It is wasting money and inconveniencing doctors) National Review ^ | 12/14/2012 | Michelle Malkin Heres more evidence that government cures are inevitably worse than the diseases they seek to wipe out. Buried in the trillion-dollar stimulus law of 2009 was an electronic-medical-records incentive program. Like most of President Obamas healthcare rules, this top-down electronic record-sharing scheme is a big fat bust. Oversight is lax. Cronyism is rife. The job-killing and privacy-undermining consequences have only just begun. The program was originally sold as a cost-saving measure. In theory, modernizing record-collection is a good idea, and many private health-care providers have already made the change. But as with many government incentive programs, the EMR bribe is. Final state tally for health insurance exchanges: 15 out of 50 States American Thinker ^ | 12/14/2012 | Rick Moran Only 15 states have told HHS that they will develop their own online insurance exchanges. This means the government has to design 35 different sites, with 35 different criteria for coverage -- all by next year. From CNBC: Only 15 states have told the federal government they plan to operate health insurance exchanges under President Barack Obama's reform law, leaving Washington with the daunting task of creating online marketplaces for two-thirds of the country. On the eve of a federal deadline for states to say whether they will run their own exchanges, a top health care policy official told lawmakers.. US backs United Nations measure in favor of universal health coverage the hill ^ | december 12, 2012 | elise viebeck The United States has backed a United Nations draft resolution favoring universal healthcare coverage. The nonbinding measure calls on U.N. member states to ensure citizens' access to health insurance, and was approved by the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday. Supporters say the draft resolution paves the way for the post-2015 development agenda to include universal health coverage. Health insurance for all promotes "sustained, inclusive and equitable growth, social cohesion and well-being of the population," the U.N. said. In 2010, the U.N.'s World Health Organization (WHO) expressed support for President Obama's signature healthcare law, praising it as an "unprecedented achievement" in...

Pennsylvania joins the ranks of states declining on setting up Obamacare exchanges Hotair ^ | 12/12/2012 | Erika Johnsen The Department of Health and Human Services extended the original deadline by which states need to decide whether they will be setting up their own versions of the virtual health insurance exchanges required via the auspices of ObamaCare, or allowing (making?) the federal government to do it for them, or forging some kind of partnership with the feds to get the things done --- meaning that states now have until this Friday, December 14th to report their decision to HHS. Many Republican governors have been leaning back on forth on which option to take, torn between trying to mitigate the Haslam Announces State Will Not Run Health-Care Exchange State of Tennessee newsroom ^ | 12/10/2012 | Unknown NASHVILLE Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam announced Monday the state will not operate a state-based healthcare exchange under the federal Affordable Care Act. Haslam made the following statement on the issue: Tennessee faces a decision this week about health insurance exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act. I'm not a fan of the law. The more I know, the more harmful I think it will be for small businesses and costly for state governments and the federal government. It does nothing to address the cost of health care in our country. It only expands a broken system. Weekly job hours slashed below 30 as Obamacare kicks in NaturalNews.com ^ | 12/12/2012 | Mike Adams (NaturalNews) It is the ultimate example of how you reap what you sow: Huge numbers of American workers who voted for Obama are now seeing their own jobs slashed below 30 hours a week as employers desperately try to avoid "Obamacare bankruptcy." Obamacare mandates for businesses only apply to those working 30 hours a week or more, and while many businesses do not want to cut workers' hours, they are being forced to in order to stay afloat. This necessary action is causing businesses to lose money and become less competitive while at the same time destroying American jobs. Senate Democrats: Um, Let's "Postpone" Obamacare's Medical Device Tax Townhall.com ^ | December 11, 2012 | Guy Benson What a pity. If only someone had demonstrated the foresight to warn against the destructive consequences of Obamacare's medical device tax, they might have helped turn public sentiment sharply against the law prior to passage. Oh, that's right, conservatives did -- and the American people rose up in opposition. Now, the very actors who are most responsible for ignoring public demands and jamming through Obamacare are trying to "delay" or repeal a major element of their law, warning that it could stifle medical innovation and kill jobs. Welcome to the party, guys. You're about two years too late: U.S...

Feds rule on health care laws Medicaid expansion Associated Press ^ | Dec. 10, 2012 5:34 PM EST | Ricardo Alonzo-Zaldivar States must commit to fully expanding their Medicaid programs to take advantage of generous funding in the federal health care law, the Obama administration said Monday. The ruling affects a federal-state program that covers nearly 60 million low-income and severely disabled people, caught in a tug-of-war between Republican governors and the Democratic administration. President Barack Obamas health care law expanded Medicaid to cover people up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line, or about $15,400 for an individual. The change mainly affects low-income adults without children at home, as well as low-income parents who cant get coverage under current. Governor Strongly Backs Assisted Suicide Semi-News/Semi-Satire ^ | 8 Dec 2012 | John Semmens Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin (D) says its imperative that the state enact an assisted suicide bill calling it a crucial element of a successful implementation of Obamacare. Study after study has shown that a disproportionate share of what this nation spends on health care goes for the treatment of persons who are desperately ill, Shumlin observed. One way of overcoming this disparity is to channel more of these persons onto a path toward death with dignity. For the amount it costs to treat one late stage cancer patient we could provide thousands of others with condoms or abortions, Shumlin pointed. Another UK Health Care Horror Story Which U.S. Press Will Ignore NewsBusters ^ | 09 December 2012 | Tom Blumer Ann Clwyd, a Labour MP since 1984, has said her biggest regret is that she didn't "stand in the hospital corridor and scream" in protest at the "almost callous lack of care" with which nurses treated her husband as he lay dying in the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. Walmart Bails On Obamacare-Sticks Taxpayers With Employee Healthcare Costs forbes ^ | december 9, 2012 | rick ungar After making a big deal of publicly supporting the Affordable Care Act, Walmartthe nations largest private sector employeris joining the ranks of companies seeking to avoid their obligation to provide employees with health insurance as required by Obamacare. It was not all that many years ago that Walmart announced, in response to harsh criticism over the low pay provided to Walmart associates, that the company would provide a healthcare benefit to its part-time, low earning employees. The uncharacteristically generous nod to worker needs was short lived as the company partially pulled back on the commitment in 2011, citing premium rate.

Obamacare May Hike Your Pets Health Care Bills http://blog.heritage.org/ ^ American health care consumers arent the only ones who will be hit by slated Obamacare tax hikes. Medical bills for their pets may go up as well. According to a rule published Friday by the Internal Revenue Service, some medical devices used in veterinary practices will be hit by Obamacares 2.3 percent device tax. Many of their manufacturers are expected to hike prices, meaning higher veterinary costs for the nations pet owners. The tax will not hit devices that are used exclusively for veterinary purposes. But a host of such devices are manufactured for use in both human health care Ageism in hospitals leaves elderly heart attack and breast cancer victims to die Daily Mail ^ | 12/4/12 | Sophie Borland The elderly are being denied life-saving treatment for heart attacks and surgery following breast cancer, a report warns. [Snip]This year the Government promised to end ageism in the Health Service and introduced laws that enable the elderly to sue if they are unfairly refused treatment. But a report today warns that patients in their 50s are three times more likely to be offered an emergency treatment for heart attacks than those in their 80s. And some hospitals are refusing to offer the treatment to anyone over 75 at all. The procedure-a percutaneous coronary intervention--widens blood vessels and has been credited How A Legal Technicality Could Unravel Obamacare Business Insider ^ | Dec 3 2012 | Lucas Kawa Obamacare supporters rejoiced in June when the Supreme Court ruled the U.S. could use its taxing authority to mandate that most people buy health insurance. But their celebrations may have been a bit premature. The Affordable Care Act faces other legal hurdlesincluding a challenge that only could have been made after the Supreme Courts ruling. The right-leaning Pacific Legal Foundation amended its challenge to the ACA after the Supreme Court upheld the insurance mandate under Congress taxing powers. The group's challenge turns on the Origination Clause in the U.S. Constitution, which requires that bills for raising revenue start in the.. The Sadistic Brutality of Englands Government-Run Healthcare Townhall.com ^ | December 2, 2012 | Daniel J. Mitchell Im not easily grossed out or nauseated. Heck, Im on email lists for a half-dozen softball teams and you can only imagine the strange/filthy/nasty things that guys send to each other. But I read a story about the death panels in the United Kingdom that left me discombobulated. I cant even begin to describe how I feel.Heres the intro of a disturbing report in the Daily Mail.Sick children are being discharged from NHS hospitals to die at home or in hospices on controversial death pathways. Until now, end of life regime the Liverpool Care Pathway was thought to have involved..

UK doctor testifies that under socialized medicine, sick babies are sent home to die The Daily Caller ^ | 11/30/2012 | Jessica Stanton A British physicians disturbing testimony is shedding light on the increasingly common practice of National Health Service (NHS) hospitals sending sick or severely disabled newborn babies home or to hospices to die of starvation or dehydration.Newborn babies are being being placed on the Liverpool Care Pathway for end-of-life care, a system originally allotted and designed for elderly or terminally ill adults. That end-of-life care involves the removal of food and fluid tubes, a method which can take an average of ten days to result in death.The Daily Mail reports an investigation is being launched to determine whether cash payments.. ObamaCare Fallout: Walmart Ends Insurance For New Hires Breitbart ^ | 1 Dec 2012 | John Nolte And so the government takeover of our health care system begins: Walmart, the nations largest private employer, plans to begin denying health insurance to newly hired employees who work fewer than 30 hours a week.. ... By making the fine for not providing health care cheaper than providing health care, this was always the plan: to encourage employers to send us to the government. Remember how Obama's big ObamaCare sell was, "You get to keep the health insurance you have"? It was all a lie, a hustle, a con, a ruse Could Obamacare Go the Way of McCain-Feingold? American Spectator ^ | 11.30.12 | DAVID CATRON The "Affordable Care Act" might die a death of a thousand legal cuts. Last June, upon learning that the Supreme Court had ruled Obamacare's individual mandate constitutional, many observers were forced to concur with the Dickens character who opined, "If the law supposes that the law is an ass." Yet, the increasing number of antiPPACA lawsuits that have been receiving serious attention from the courts suggests that the legal system may not be as irrational as it seemed when Chief Justice John Roberts began braying from the bench on June 28. If this seems Pollyannaish, consider the fate of McCain-Feingold.. Obama Slaps States That Don't Comply With Obamacare Newsmax ^ | Saturday, 01 Dec 2012 01:42 PM | Sandy Fitzgerald and Martin Gould Residents of states that refuse to set up health insurance exchanges under Obamacare are set to be hit with higher premiums under new rules announced by the Health and Human Services Department. Insurance companies will be charged 3.5 percent of any premiums they sell through the federal exchanges, the department announced Friday. And insurers are likely to pass that surcharge on to clients, leaading to higher premiums. The only states to be affected are those that refuse to set up their own exchanges because of opposition to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Half of those on Liverpool Care Pathway never told.. [ Death by NHS] Telegraph (UK) ^ | 01 Dec 2012 | Laura Donnelly Each year around 130,000 patients are placed on the Lierpool Care Pathway, which can involve the withdrawal of drugs, fluids and food, and the administration of powerful pain relief. A national audit by the Marie Curie Palliative Care Institute Liverpool and the Royal College of Physicians ... demonstrated that in total, around 57,000 patients a year are dying in NHS hospitals without being told that efforts to keep them alive have been stopped. It also reveals that thousands of dying patients have been left to suffer in pain, with no attempt to keep them comfortable while drugs were administered.. Good News for a Change: Two More States Move Against ObamaCare FreedomWorks ^ | 11/29/2012 | Joshua Withrow Some good news today, as Michigan and Arizona have both made decisions that they will not be setting up a health care exchange under ObamaCare. In Arizona, Governor Jan Brewer declared yesterday that she will not direct the state government to set up an exchange. In Michigan, Governor Rick Snyder has been trying to set up an exchange, but Speaker of the House Jase Bolger has declared that he will not bring the bill to establish exchanges to the floor. 3,500 people have already sent messages urging Michigan's top state officials to stand against ObamaCare, and the Speaker is listening... Obamacare: MUST keep children under 26 on parent's plan I work in HR. We are being told by Blue-cross Blue-shield Insurance that dependents CANNOT be removed from the insured's policy until they turn 26, even if they get married (and have coverage under a spouse), take a job on their own (and have their own coverage), leave home (no longer living in a parent-child relationship), etc. etc. This includes a non-adopted step-child. They are saying it is ILLEGAL under Obamacare to remove that child from the insured's coverage. The parent's coverage would be primary and if they got another policy it would be secondary. Dehydrating Disabled Babies in UK Hospitals NRO ^ | November 29, 2012 | Wesley J. Smith The Liverpool Care Pathway has become a checklist for killing. This is what happens when a country allows bureaucrats to control healthcare. (Yes, I am issuing an unsubtle warning about Obamacare.)The Pathway was designed by health bureaucrats to fix a real problem: Too many patients were being allowed to die in pain in UK hospitals. In centralized systems, the answer to a problem is always more technocracy. So, the Liverpool Care Pathway was put into place to ensure that dying patients receive adequate pain control, including in the rare instances that it is necessary, sedation. But rather than being patient-centered, it became a bureaucratic nightmare:

MICHIGAN JOINS WITH MANY OTHER STATES, WILL NOT SET UP A STATE-RUN HEALTH EXCHANGE Rep. James "Jase" Bolger ^ | 11/29/2012 <p>Last week I was told by very knowledgeable sources in the State Capitol that Obama Care was a lock to be implemented in Michigan because of the heavy handed pressure by Governerd Rick " Jennifer" Snyder, his bought and paid for minion Speaker of the House Jase Bolger and the Godzilla of health care insurance companies, Blue Cross/ Blue Shield of Michigan. I was told they were demanding the passage of Health Care Exchanges so Obama Care can be implemented ASAP. Now they tell us: Majority against government health insurance guarantee American Thinker ^ | 11/28/2012 | Rick Moran The low information voter will be the death of America. New Gallup poll shows a majority of Americans now disagree with liberals that it is the government's responsibility to see that all Americans have health insurance: ***** For the first time in Gallup trends since 2000, a majority of Americans say it is not the federal government's responsibility to make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage. Prior to 2009, a majority always felt the government should ensure healthcare coverage for all, though Americans' views have become more divided in recent years. The current results are based on Gallup's annual Health. UK: NHS [socialized medicine] patients experience 'contempt and cruelty', says Jeremy Hunt The Telegraph ^ | 11/28/2012 | Stephen Adams Patients experience coldness, resentment, indifference" and "even contempt in some hospitals, the Health Secretary has claimed in a hard-hitting speech about NHS care. In the worse cases staff have overseen a kind of normalisation of cruelty, Jeremy Hunt told an audience of health professionals at The Kings Fund, a London-based think-tank. Managers were so buried in spreadsheets that they had become blind to the fact that patients were not being treated with dignity or respect, he said. Poor care had become perhaps the biggest problem of all facing the NHS, Mr Hunt claimed in his strongest speech yet on the Anthem Blue Cross seeks to raise individual policyholders' rates L.A. Times ^ | 11/28/12 | Chad Terhune Californias largest for-profit health insurer, Anthem Blue Cross, is seeking to raise rates an average of 18% for more than 630,000 individual policyholders, drawing scrutiny from regulators and the ire of consumers already struggling with soaring premiums. Some Anthem customers may see rates rise as much as 25% in February under the companys proposal at a time when medical inflation is running at historic lows nationwide. The increases are among several others proposed by California insurers, including Aetna Inc. and Health Net Inc. California insurance regulators will take the next month to review whether these rate increases are warranted,

Now sick babies go on death pathway: Doctor's haunting testimony Dailymail ^ | Wednesday November 28, 2012 Full Title: Now sick babies go on death pathway: Doctor's haunting testimony reveals how children are put on end-of-life plan Sick children are being discharged from NHS hospitals to die at home or in hospices on controversial death pathways.Until now, end of life regime the Liverpool Care Pathway was thought to have involved only elderly and terminally-ill adults. But the Mail can reveal the practice of withdrawing food and fluid by tube is being used on young patients as well as severely disabled newborn babies. One doctor has admitted starving and dehydrating ten babies to death in the neonatal unit... http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_22077948/l-county-faces-major-shake-upunder-health L.A. County faces major shake-up under health care reform The county will no longer receive federal money through the Disproportionate Share Hospital Fund (DSH). Those newly insured are expected to make up for the lost federal funding Changes: Decrease number of days in hospitals Place chronically ill and homeless in supportive housing Hire 86 computer techs to implement electronic health records New hires will cost $367 million 70% of 2.2 million eligible for Medicaid or other state program 200,000 enrolled in Healthy Way L.A. (HWLA) can transition to L.A. Care, a public sector heath plan or HealthNet, a private sector plan 1.3 million will remain uninsured The county serves 10 million residents and runs four hospitals A Physicians New Reality: Patients Ask Me to Break the Law Pajamas Media ^ | 11/24/2012 | Dr. Peter Weiss Obama won, Obamacare is the law, and, as my wife says, I will just have to learn to dance to a new song. Now, dont get me wrong, Obamacare is awful. Forget all the free stuff it provides. Children covered on their parents plan until 26 years of age? A scam, making young adults excuse me, children pay for complete, comprehensive health insurance when all they need and should pay for is major catastrophe insurance. Then there is the annual or preventative exam, which according to Obamacare is free. You gotta love this stuff. I wish I..

Experts: New Health Rules Show Obamacare Will Raise Costs Newsmax ^ | Wednesday, 21 Nov 2012 02:17 PM | Bill Hoffmann The federal government has issued a series of sweeping new rules and regulations surrounding Obamacarebenefits that health-industry experts fear could end up costing Americans more. Betsy McCaughey, a former New York lieutenant governor under George Pataki and author of Decoding the Obamacare Law, told Newsmax the new rules and regulations will cost consumers more. Meanwhile, companies with 50 or more employees will have a choice of sponsoring a health plan for 100 percent of their workers or paying an annual penalty of $2000. One study shows a third of those employers with 50 or more workers may opt.. Hobby Lobby Appeals Decision Forcing It to Obey HHS Mandate ($1.3 Million-PerDay fine) Life News ^ | November 21, 2012 | Steven Ertelt Hobby Lobby, a Christian-owned and run company, is fighting back against a judges decision siding with the Obama administration saying that it has the right to force it to pay for drugs for women that may cause abortions.The privately held retail chain with more than 500 arts and crafts stores in 41 states filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration over its HHS mandate. The company says it would face $1.3 million in fines on a daily basis starting in January if it fails to comply with the mandate, which requires religious employers to pay for or refer women for. Surprise: PA College Slashes Instructors' Hours to Avoid Obamacare Breitbart ^ | 21 Nov 2012 | Wynton Hall Pennsylvania's Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) is slashing the hours of 400 adjunct instructors, support staff, and part-time instructors to dodge paying for Obamacare. "It's kind of a double whammy for us because we are facing a legal requirement [under the new law] to get health care and if the college is reducing our hours, we don't have the money to pay for it," said adjunct biology professor Adam Davis. On Tuesday, CCAC employees were notified that Obamacare defines full-time employees as those working 30 hours or more per week and that on Dec. 31 temporary part-time employees will.. Oklahoma is latest to reject state-based health exchange (Obamacare) The Hill ^ | 11/19/12 | Sam Baker Oklahoma is latest to reject state-based health exchangeBy Sam Baker - 11/19/12 03:23 PM ET Add Oklahoma to the list of Republican-led states that won't implement the key feature of President Obama's healthcare law. Gov. Mary Fallin said Monday that she won't set up a state-based insurance exchange a new portal where people who don't get insurance through their employers can shop for coverage, often with help from a federal subsidy. "It does not benefit Oklahoma taxpayers to actively support and fund a new government program that will ultimately be under the control of the federal government, that is..

Swedish child's appendix bursts after 20 hour ER wait The Local (Sweden) ^ | 19 Nov 12 16:36 CET A nine-year-old boy with appendicitis was made to wait more than 20 hours for surgery at the emergency ward of a Stockholm-area children's hospital before his appendix finally burst. "The only treatment he received was morphine and paracetamol tablets so he didn't die from the pain," Jesper, the father of nine-year-old William Strmgren, told the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper. William arrived at Astrid Lindgren Children's Hospital in Stockholm last Thursday after suffering stomach pains for days. He was immediately diagnosed with appendicitis, but then nothing happened. After having his operation repeatedly pushed back by doctors, William's desperate parents were told. Update On Obamacare Exchanges: GOP Govs Kasich, Pence and Walker Get It Right HughHewitt.com ^ | Nov. 16, 2012 | Hugh Hewitt Very good news on the Obamacare front as three more states seem likely to refuse to open a state-run "health insurance exchange," thus leaving it to the feds to operate the "exchange" in their state --Ohio, Indiana and probably Wisconsin. They join Texas, Florida, Alaska, and probably Michigan, and among the big states, only Pennsylvania and New Jersey have yet to decide, and hopefully they will study the issue and follow the lead of these governors, as should Arizona's Jan Brewer, who is being urged by big insurance forces in her state to take the poison. It looks like the. Denny's to charge 5% 'Obamacare surcharge' and cut employee hours to deal with cost of legislation Daily Mail UK ^ | PUBLISHED: 00:59 EST, 15 November 2012 | UPDATED: 01:33 EST, 15 November 2012 Read more: http://ww | By James Nye President Obama's election victory ensured his Affordable Care Act would remain the centerpiece of his first term in power - but that has left some business owners baulking at the extra cost Obamcare will bring. Florida based restaurant boss John Metz, who runs approximately 40 Denny's and owns the Hurricane Grill & Wings franchise has decided to offset that by adding a five percent surcharge to customers' bills and will reduce his employees' hours. With Obamacare due to be fully implemented in January 2014, Metz has justified his move by claiming it is 'the only alternative. Scott Walker will not implement state 0-care exchange! Newstalk 1130, Milwaukee ^ | 11/15/12 | Mark Belling Good news! I just heard on Newstalk 1130 AM in Milwaukee that Scott Walker would announce on Friday that WI would not implement the state exchange. I also heard that a group of GOP governors would do likewise and make a group announcement tomorrow!

Its a crisis for Qubec women (socialized medicine fails) Montral Gazette ^ | November 13, 2012 | Charlie Fidelman Surgery wait times for deadly ovarian, cervical and breast cancers in Qubec are three times longer than government benchmarks, leading some desperate patients to shop around for an operating room. But thats a waste of time, doctors say, since the problem is spread across Qubec hospitals. And doctors are refusing to accept new patients quickly because they cant treat them, health advocates say. The worst cases are gynecological cancers, experts say, because usually such a cancer has already spread by the time it is detected. Instead of four weeks from diagnosis to surgery, patients are waiting as long as... Governor Bentley Announces Alabama Will Not Set Up State Insurance Exchange Office of the Govenor ^ | Nov. 13, 2012 | Gov. Robert Bentley MONTGOMERY Governor Robert Bentley on Tuesday announced that Alabama will not set up a state insurance exchange under the federal health care law. I am not going to set up a state-based exchange that will create a tax burden of up to $50 million on the people of Alabama. As governor, I cannot support adding such a tax burden onto our citizens, Governor Bentley said. The Affordable Care Act is neither affordable nor does it actually improve health care. Congress and the President have said they want to work together to solve the fiscal crisis facing this country, and... This is the Way Forward Gov. Scott Nixes ObamaCare Healthcare Exchanges [YES!] Shark-Tank.net ^ | 11/9/12 | Lone Shark Theres one path forward for Republicans if theyre serious about reclaiming power in the future- do not capitulate to the failed ideas and destructive economic policies that President Barack Obama will assuredly quadruple down on in the wake of his re-election. Its one thing to win an election by misleading and bribing the masses, but let me be clear, as Obama would say- in no way, shape or form did the president win a national debate on the merits of his policies- and his policies, when they are fully implemented will undoubtedly cost us jobs, raise our taxes and further.. Health-Care Law Spurs a Shift to Part-Time Workers Wall St. Journal ^ | November 4, 2012 | JULIE JARGON, LOUISE RADNOFSKY and ALEXANDRA BERZON Some low-wage employers are moving toward hiring part-time workers instead of fulltime ones to mitigate the health-care overhaul's requirement that large companies provide health insurance for full-time workers or pay a fee.Several restaurants, hotels and retailers have started or are preparing to limit schedules of hourly workers to below 30 hours a week. That is the threshold at which large employers in 2014 would have to offer workers a minimum level of insurance or pay a penalty starting at $2,000 for each worker. Pillar Hotels & Resorts this summer began to focus more on hiring part-time workers among its 5,500

Applebees targeted after franchisee mulls hiring freeze in response to Obamacare Twitchy ^ | 11/10/12 | staff From the Twitchy staff: John Schnatter Papa John's CEO: Obamacare likely to raise costs, employee's hours being cut WPTV-TV ^ | November 8, 2012 | Jessica Lipscomb A day after Barack Obama earned a second term in the White House, Papa John's founder and CEO John Schnatter said the president's signature health-care reform law would increase his business costs and possibly result in employees' hours being cut. Schnatter, a part-time Naples resident, made the comments Wednesday night inside a small auditorium at Edison State College's Collier County campus. In August, he made national headlines after telling shareholders the Affordable Care Act commonly known as Obamacare would result in a 10- to 14-cent increase for customers buying a pizza. Health Care Reform To Hit Low-Paid, Part-Time Workers Hardest - Study International Business Times ^ | August 9, 2012 | Moran Zhang Nearly two-thirds of employers expect to see a cost hike in their health plans when the Affordable Care Act goes into effect in 2014, according to new data from the consulting firm Mercer. Employers in the restaurant and retail industries -- those with a large number of hourly wage workers who traditionally had minimal or no health insurance -are more likely than other companies to drop their health plans or cut worker's hours in order to maintain their already slim profit margins. According to a Mercer survey of 1,203 employers, nearly half of retail and hospitality employers expect the.. Sick 23-Month-Old Dies {in England} After Waiting More Than an Hour to See Doctor... cafemom ^ | October 23, 2012 at 11:46 AM | Julie Ryan Evans on When 23-month-old Lucie Linforth became ill earlier this month with a fever and what her parents thought might be a chest infection, her father took her to their family doctor. While they say she looked "extremely poorly" and her lips were turning blue, the receptionist told them to wait. And wait they did -- for more than hour. According to the girl's father, Eric Linforth, 33, he went up to the reception desk four or five times during a 70-minute period of time, and was told to sit back down without anyone even giving his daughter a glance Brownback says he wont support state-federal health insurance exchange Wichita Business Journal ^ | 11/08/2012 | Emily Behlmann Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback says he wont support Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praegers grant application to create a state-federal partnership health insurance exchange. The exchange is an online marketplace where individuals can by health insurance policies. A partnership is one of three choices for states under the federal health reform law. States could also choose to establish their own exchanges or let the federal government do it for them.

In Ohio, Obamacare to Increase Individual Insurance Premiums by 55-85% forbes ^ | 10/29/2012 | Avik Roy With the Presidential election one week away, its worth reviewing how Obamacare will impact the residents of key swing states. In Ohio, as elsewhere, Obamacare will drive up the cost of private health coverage, especially for those who buy insurance on their own. A non-partisan study found that, by 2017, individual premiums in Ohio will increase by as much as 85 percent. In addition, Obamacare will deeply cut Medicare Advantage for more than 700,000 Ohio seniors enrolled in the program. And more than 30 percent of Ohio physicians say that they will place new or additional limits on accepting Medicare.. Obamacare's price: Full-time jobs become part-time The Washington Examiner ^ | 11/5/12 If you are looking for a full-time job, prepare to be disappointed if President Obama wins re-election Tuesday. Since Obama was sworn into office in 2009, the number of Americans with full-time jobs has actually fallen by 370,000. The number of Americans with part-time jobs, by contrast, is up 1.5 million. Jobs are being created in the Obama economy, but they're not the type of jobs Americans can live on. And Obama's policies are clearly contributing to the shift. Last month, we noted that Darden Restaurants, the parent company of popular chains like Olive Garden and Red Lobster, stopped replacing. Restaurants to mitigate health care costs by cutting hours Restaurant News ^ | 10/17/2012 | Erin Dostal In light of the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, restaurant companies and franchisees are looking into ways to lower costs to save money, including cutting employee hours. What were seeing is that this health care law puts unique challenges on chain restaurants, said Rob Green, executive director of the National Council of Chain Restaurants. The law will have cost implications on a lot of different business sectors, but restaurants and retail are in the bulls eye. Specifically, two parts of the PPACA may raise costs for restaurant chains: The definition of full-time employees as those who. New Obamacare Tax Form Mandates Americans Report Personal Health ID Info to IRS Americans For Tax Reform.org ^ | November 1, 2012 1:09 PM EDT | Posted by Ryan Ellis and John Kartch Here's why the IRS will require Americans to disclose their personal health ID information starting in 2014 When Obamacares individual mandate takes effect in 2014, all Americans who file income tax returns must complete an additional IRS tax form. The new form will require disclosure of a taxpayers personal identifying health information in order to determine compliance with the Affordable Care Acts individual mandate. As confirmed by IRS testimony to the tax-writing House Committee on Ways and Means, taxpayers will file their tax returns reporting their health insurance coverage, and/or making a payment. So why will the Obama IRS require.

http://www.atr.org/new-obamacare-tax-form-mandates-americans-a7285 New Obamacare Tax Form Mandates Americans Report Personal Health ID Info to IRS Here's why the IRS will require Americans to disclose their personal health ID information starting in 2014 When Obamacares individual mandate takes effect in 2014, all Americans who file income tax returns must complete an additional IRS tax form. The new form will require disclosure of a taxpayers personal identifying health information in order to determine compliance with the Affordable Care Acts individual mandate. As confirmed by IRS testimony to the tax-writing House Committee on Ways and Means, taxpayers will file their tax returns reporting their health insurance coverage, and/or making a payment. So why will the Obama IRS require your personal identifying health information? Simply put, there is no way for the IRS to enforce Obamacares individual mandate without such an invasive reporting scheme.

Read more: http://atr.org/new-obamacare-tax-form-mandates-americansa7285#ixzz2B2LkqiA3

NHS millions for controversial care pathway (Death Panels) The Daily Telegraph UK ^ | 31 Oct 2012 | John Bingham The majority of hospitals in England are being given financial rewards for placing terminally-ill patients on a controversial pathway to death, it can be disclosed. Almost two thirds of NHS trusts using the Liverpool Care Pathway have received payouts totalling millions of pounds for hitting targets related to its use, research for The Daily Telegraph shows. The figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal the full scale of financial inducements for the first time. They suggest that about 85 per cent of trusts have now adopted the regime, which can involve the removal of hydration and nutrition from. In Florida, Obamacare to Cause 27% of Doctors to Stop Accepting Medicare Patients Forbes ^ | 103012 | Avik Roy With the Presidential election one week away, its worth reviewing how Obamacare will impact the residents of key swing states. A new survey of physicians has found that 30 percent of doctors in Florida intend to place new or additional limits on accepting Medicare patients, with 27 percent altogether refusing to accept new Medicare patients, because of Obamacares impact on the fees that Medicare pays to providers of healthcare services. In addition, Obamacare will deeply cut Medicare Advantage for 1.2 million Florida seniors who are enrolled in the program, and drive up the cost of private health coverage, especially for..

FAMILIES PAY $3000 MORE FOR INSURANCE; OBAMA PROMISED $2500 DECREASE breitbart ^ | 9/25/2012 | by JOEL B. POLLAK President Barack Obama promised that Obamacare would cut family health insurance premiums by $2,500 by the end of the first term--but instead they have risen by $3,000, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation study cited by Investors Business Daily. The cost of health insurance today is more than 50% higher than Obama promised it would be--and the costs are expected to continue to rise as Obamacare is impemented. John Merline of Investor's Business Daily notes the rising costs specifically contradict a campaign promise Obama reiterated several times, including in debates with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and at events along... Report: Health law's costs continuing to grow the hill ^ | 10/29/2012 | By Sam Baker The most expensive part of President Obama's healthcare reform law keeps getting more expensive. The cost of providing subsidies to help people buy insurance could continue to rise, straining the federal budget more than expected, the conservative American Action Forum said in a paper published Monday. The think tank, led by former Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, compared CBO's initial estimates for the Affordable Care Act to CBO's most recent analysis, issued this summer after the Supreme Court upheld the law. The estimated cost of insurance subsidies has risen nearly 25 percent since the law was passed, according to.. Obama to cut medical benefits for active, retired military, not union workers Wash Examiner ^ | Joe Newby In an effort to cut defense spending, the Obama Administration plans to cut health benefits for active duty and retired military personnel and their families while not touching the benefits enjoyed by unionized civilian defense workers. The move, congressional aides suggested, is to force those individuals into Obamacare, Bill Gertz reported at the Washington Beacon. U.S. Set to Sponsor Health Insurance The New York Times ^ | 10/27/12 | ROBERT PEAR WASHINGTON The Obama administration will soon take on a new role as the sponsor of at least two nationwide health insurance plans to be operated under contract with the federal government and offered to consumers in every state. .....Under the Affordable Care Act, at least one of the nationwide plans must be offered by a nonprofit entity. Insurance experts see an obvious candidate for that role: the Government Employees Health Association, a nonprofit group that covers more than 900,000 federal employees, retirees and dependents, making it the second-largest plan for federal workers, after the Blue Cross and Blue Shield..

Health Premiums Up $3,065; Obama Vowed $2,500 Cut (Another Obama lie!) yahoo ^ | 9/24/2012 | ibd During his first run for president, Barack Obama made one very specific promise to voters: He would cut health insurance premiums for families by $2,500, and do so in his first term. But it turns out that family premiums have increased by more than $3,000 since Obama's vow, according to the latest annual Kaiser Family Foundation employee health benefits survey. Premiums for employer-provided family coverage rose $3,065 24% from 2008 to 2012, the Kaiser survey found. Even if you start counting in 2009, premiums have climbed $2,370. What's more, premiums climbed faster in Obama's four years than they.. Terrific: More Americans are getting government health care than are working C TV ^ | October 21st, 2012 | Herman Cain Simply unsustainable. When you really think about it, its a stunning fact. There are now more people in America receiving government health care benefits Medicare and Medicaid than there are full-time workers in the economy. Its an eye-opener, but its more than that. Its also evidence that we have a system that, by definition, cannot be sustained. Medicaid and Medicare had a gross combined enrollment of 119,249,000 in 2011. At the same time, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said that 112,556,000 people worked full-time in the United States in 2011, including 17,806,000 who worked for all levels.. UCSF Medical Center to Trim 300 Jobs [Obamacare] Becker's Hospital Review ^ | Oct 19, 2012 | Molly Gamble University of California San Francisco Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital are planning to cut 300 full-time jobs to lower healthcare costs, according to a San Francisco Business Times report. Officials said the layoffs are necessary to prepare for the onset of healthcare reform and other challenges. UCSF is still in the midst of building a new $1.5 billion hospital campus at Mission Bay. UCSF Medical Center CEO Mark Laret and COO Ken Jones sent a memo to employees this week regarding the workforce reduction. "As national healthcare leaders, [the medical centers] must strategically invest our dollars to improve. Another British Healthcare Horror Story: UK Death Panels Townhall ^ | 10/16/2012 | Daniel Mitchell Paul Krugman assured us back in 2009 that, In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. Weve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false.If thats the case, then the British press is filled with liars who deliberately make up horror stories about their nations healthcare system, as you can see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.We now have another nightmare to add to this list. Here are some of the horrific details from the UK-based Daily Mail.An elderly woman died alone after doctors failed to tell relatives they were ending...

Dutch euthanasia: psychiatric and dementia patients killed The Christian Institute ^ | 10/3/12 | The Christian Institute Dozens of psychiatric and dementia patients had their lives ended under the Netherlands controversial euthanasia laws last year. According to Dutch media reports 13 psychiatric patients were euthanised last year, an increase of more than 500 per cent since 2010. And the number of euthanasia deaths among those in the early stages of dementia rose to 49 last year, double that of 2010.Warned Overall, the total number of deaths by euthanasia rose to 3,695 in 2011, an 18 per cent increase. However, previous research has indicated that 23 per cent of all euthanasia deaths in the Netherlands were not recorded... What Do Actual Doctors Think About Obamacare Now? Forbes ^ | Oct 11, 2012 | Scott W. Atlas, MD http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottatlas/2012/10/11/what-do-actual-doctors-think-aboutobamacare-now/ The AMA represents about one quarter of doctors Doctors are dropping AMA for its support on ObamaCare In 2011, 70 percent of doctors disagreed with the AMA support 13 percent agreed with the AMA support February 2012, 60 percent of the 5,000 doctors surveyed said ObamaCare will have a negative impact on patient care 22 percent thought it would be positive Over 50 percent said it would have a negative doctor-patient impact 11 percent thought it would help 43 percent said the ObamaCare would likely lead them to retire over the next 5 years 37 percent said that mass retirement was unlikely September 2012, 55 percent of 3,000 doctors said to repeal and replace ObamaCare 40 percent said implement and improve it 55 percent of doctors say they will vote for Romney 36 percent say they will vote for Obama 51 percent of doctors registered as independent will vote for Romney 35 percent will vote for Obama 15 percent of doctors who voted for Obama will now vote for Romney 2 percent of doctors that voted for McCain plan on voting for Obama

Italys Prime Minister Berlusconi chose to have his heart pacemaker surgery at the Cleveland Clinic in 2006 Canadian Prime Minister of Newfoundland and Labrador, Danny Williams, came to the US in 2010 to have his heart valve procedure. He said This was my heart, my choice and my health and I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics. The Game Changes - Obamas debate performance was not out of character and his supporters are... National Review Online ^ | October 11, 2012 | Victor Davis Hanson Obamas debate performance was not out of character and his supporters are worried. Usually after a presidential debate, both sides spin the results. But after the first face-off between President Obama and challenger Mitt Romney, Obamas exasperated handlers made no such effort. How could they when most opinion polls revealed that two-thirds of viewers thought Obama lost?Within minutes of the parting handshake, the liberal base went ballistic. Bill Maher, Chris Matthews, and Michael Moore all but accused Obama of embarrassing the progressive cause. The post-debate spin focused not on whether the president had been creamed by challenger Mitt Romney,... Quebec government reveals plan to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide LifeSiteNews ^ | 10/9/12 | Thaddeus Baklinski QUEBEC, October 9, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Quebecs newly elected government announced that it plans to table legislation legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide as early as next spring, even though Canadian federal law prohibits the practice. A spokeswoman for the minority Parti Quebecois government of Premier Pauline Marois said the proposed legislation was part of the partys election platform and was based on recommendations from the report of the provinces Special Commission on Dying with Dignity. While some media outlets reported that the commission recommended the legalization of assisted suicide in exceptional cases, Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition pointed...

Sign of the times: Restaurant Chain cuts hours of full time workers because of Obamacare American Thinker ^ | 10/10/2012 | Rick Moran The restaurants affected - Red Lobster and Olive Garden - are owned by Darden Restaurants and the company says they will "test" the new employment strategy in 4 markets.But you can bet they aren't the only company that will be looking at this option.CNBC: Darden Restaurants declined to give details but said the test is only in restaurants in four markets across the country. The test entails increasing the number of workers on part-time status, meaning they work less than 30 hours a week. Under the new health care act, companies will be required to provide health care to full-time..

The Silent Exodus(Obamacare docs quitting) http://healthenews.cchfreedom.org/newsletter.php/36#C5 ^ Patients should expect increasing difficulty accessing medical care, according to a survey of 13,575 physicians. The survey commissioned by The Physicians Foundation estimates that "44,250...physicians will be lost from the workforce in the next four years. The survey also found that over the next one to three years, more than 50 percent of physicians will cut back on patients seen, work part-time, switch to concierge medicine, retire, or take other steps likely to reduce patient access. In addition, should 100,000 physicians transition from practice-owner to employed status over the next four years (such as working in a hospital setting),

Darden tests limiting worker hours as health-care changes loom (destruction of middle class) Orlando Sentinel ^ | October 7, 2012 | Sandra Pedicini Analysts say many other companies, including the White Castle hamburger chain, are considering employing fewer full-timers because of key features of the Affordable Care Act scheduled to go into effect in 2014. Under that law, large companies must provide affordable health insurance to employees working an average of at least 30 hours per week. If they do not, the companies can face fines of up to $3,000 for each employee who then turns to an exchange an online marketplace for insurance. Study: Obamacare regs have cost $27.6 billion, killed 30,000 jobs (Big Bird and Elmo silent...) Washington Examiner ^ | October 9, 2012 | Conn Carroll Fully implementing Obamacare regulations have already cost the U.S. economy $27.6 billion and more than 18,000 jobs according to a new study released today. Just the top ten most expensive regulations have cost $24.4 billion, according to the new non-partisan and independent American Action Forum (AAF) report. Just complying with the state health exchanges alone has to cost employers $3.4 billion according to the AAF totals which were compiled from Federal Register data. In addition to the regulatory costs, AAF estimates that Obamacare regulatory compliance has eaten up more than 60 million hours in paperwork Interminable Sentence Nails Obamacare The American Thinker ^ | October 9, 2012 | Deane Waldman and Elise Cooper In August 2012, a candidate for Illinois State Senate, District 18, Dr. Barbara Bellar, thought she would start a fundraising event with a lighthearted tone. She claimed that she could describe ObamaCare (the ACA) in one sentence -- one very long sentence. Because Dr. Bellar so accurately portrayed the current national sentiment about the ACA, a video of her speaking her very long sentence went viral. As of 10/7/12, it had received 2,434,958 hits on YouTube. This is what she said, verbatim. (Bullets were inserted by this author.) We are going to be gifted with a healthcare plan [the ACA]:..

Backlog of Veterans' Disability Claims Increases 179% Under Obama CNS news ^ | Oct 4, 2012 | By Matt Cover The backlog of veterans disability claims has jumped by 179 percent during President Barack Obamas first term in office, reaching 883,949 outstanding claims, according to Veterans Administration (VA) statistics. (Click Oct. 1, 2012 link.) The backlog of claims is at near-record highs, with 65.8 percent of claims being backlogged for 125 days or more. The total claims include disability claims by veterans as well as from surviving spouses, children, or parents. As the VA explains, these claims are "based upon the effects of disabilities, diseases, or injuries incurred or aggravated during military service. Obamacare Fines Start For Hospitals That Readmit Sick Patients breitbart.com ^ | 10/7/12 | Tony Lee Hospitals who re-admit patients within 30 days after they were discharged will now have to, under an Obamacare provision, pay fines as of October 1, 2012, which could force hospitals to slash programs that help the elderly, the poor, and the chronically ill. According to a study, "about two-thirds of the hospitals serving Medicare patients, or some 2,200 facilities, will be hit with penalties averaging around $125,000 per facility this coming year." This provision was inserted into Obamacare as a cost-cutting measure, but it will force hospitals to give the poor, elderly, and chronically ill substandard care

Patients starve and die of thirst on hospital wards The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 06 Oct 2012 | Laura Donnelly Forty-three hospital patients starved to death last year and 111 died of thirst while being treated on wards, new figures disclose today. The death toll was disclosed by the Government amid mounting concern over the dignity of patients on NHS wards. * as well as 43 people who starved to death, 287 people were recorded by doctors as being malnourished when they died in hospitals; * there were 558 cases where doctors recorded that a patient had died in a state of severe dehydration in hospitals; * 78 hospital and 39 care home patients were killed by bedsores, while a. NEW YORK STATE SEEKS TO LIMIT DOCTOR VISITS FOR 'BENCHMARK' OBAMACARE PLAN Big Government ^ | 6 Oct 2012 | DR. SUSAN BERRY As part of its benchmark health care plan to satisfy ObamaCares requirement of the establishment of Essential Health Benefits (EHBs) in each state, the state of New York has requested that annual doctor visit limits be substituted for lifetime and annual dollar limits in health care plans. ObamaCare is gradually setting up a two-class system of health care access in this country. Only the very wealthy will be able to obtain the types of treatments and access to health care that many Americans have enjoyed in the past. Everyone elsewell, just take a check and wait in line

New healthcare challenges coming in 2013 (Get ready for more premium increases due to Obamacare) the hill ^ | 10/25/2012 | Phil Roe As 2012 comes to a close, we face many challenges: averting the fiscal cliff that could send us spiraling back into a recession, tackling our crippling deficit and the dire need to balance our budget. But equally worrisome are the sweeping changes coming to our health care system in the new year. These changes include: more premium increases, the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) starting to look for ways to cut Medicare, payment cuts to physicians, and the cuts to Medicare required by the presidents so-called Affordable Care Act (ACA). According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, premiums for the average.. Crouse Hospital announces layoffs CNYCentral.com ^ | 10/24/2012 | Ken Chapman SYRACUSE -- Crouse Hospital is reporting that it has laid off 25 people on Wednesday. The layoffs consisted of 20 management positions and 5 non-management. The hospital called it a pro-active measure as it prepares for cuts in federal reimbursements for care, and rising healthcare costs. The hospital says the layoffs will keep Crouse in a strong position in the future. Bob Allen, spokesperson for the hospital, said; This was a sad day because these people will not be here any longer, but the reductions do put Crouse in a positive financial path for the future. Six out of ten doctors would retire today if given the opportunity (casualties of obamacare) Illinois Policy ^ | October 15, 2011 | Jonathan Ingram The Physicians Foundation has completed one of the largest and most comprehensive physician surveys ever conducted in the United States. The new survey covers a number of topics, ranging from what they think about ObamaCare to how satisfied they are in their careers, from whether they will continue to accept Medicare and Medicaid patients to what they think about the current state of the medical profession. The whole thing is worth reading, but here are a few highlights: A whopping 61 percent of doctors said they would retire today if they had the ability to do so. Taxes go up in 2013 for 163 million workers (Typical - about a $1K increase) 10/21/12 Link only - Taxes go up in 2013 for 163 million workers Socialized medicine: Patients starve and die of thirst on hospital wards The Telegraph ^ | 10/6/2012 | Laura Donnelly Forty-three hospital patients starved to death last year and 111 died of thirst while being treated on wards, new figures disclose today. There were 558 cases last year where doctors recorded that a patient had died in a state of severe dehydration in UK hospitals The death toll was disclosed by the UK Government amid mounting concern over the dignity of patients on NHS wards. They will also fuel concerns about care homes, as it was disclosed that eight people starved to death and 21 people died of thirst while in care. Last night there were warnings that they must

One in five brain dead patients still alive, claims lawsuit Life Site News ^ | October 1, 2012 | Hilary White NEW YORK, October 1, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) At least one in five patients declared brain dead and approved as organ donors by one organ donation organisation, are in fact still alive and are being killed by the removal of vital organs, a lawsuit filed last week in Manhattan alleges. The suit outlines the ghoulish worst-case scenario, one that was widely dismissed as scaremongering in the early days of the development of organ transplant technology, but which is getting a second hearing amidst growing concerns that coercion and abuse are becoming increasingly common in the highly lucrative transplant business.

Death panels begin as reform takes shape http://www.teaparty.org/article.php?id=186 Avastin, the marketing name for the drug bevacizumab, is the world's best-selling cancer drug. Used mainly to treat colon cancer, it was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2006 after it was found that by cutting the blood flow to tumors, it helped in treating breast cancer. An estimated 17,500 American women are treated with the drug each year. It is effective, having been shown to extend life by at least 20 months, but it is not cheap. Under the new "cost-effectiveness" philosophy of this administration, an FDA advisory panel has voted 12-to-1 to drop the endorsement of Avastin for breast cancer treatment. The FDA usually follows advisory panel recommendations, and a final decision will be announced Sept. 17. If approval of the drug, approved for colon, lung, kidney and brain cancer, is revoked for breast cancer, it is likely that insurers would drop that coverage.

Obama Advisor Admits "We Need Death Panels" world net daily ^ | 10/2/2012 | Aaron Klein A top Democrat strategist and donor who served as President Obamas lead auto-industry adviser recently conceded that the rationing of heath services under Obamacare is inevitable. Steven Rattner advocated that such rationing should target elderly patients, while stating, We need death panels. Rattner serves on the board the New America Foundation, or NAF, a George Soros-funded think tank that was instrumental in supporting Obamacare in 2010. Soros son, financier Jonathan Soros, is also a member of the foundations board. Rattner was the so-called car czar, the lead auto adviser to the Treasury Department under Obama. Last month, Rattner penned an...

Property Owners Face a New Surtax [ObamaCare tax] The Wall Street Journal ^ | September 29, 2012 | Investing Basics The housing market may indeed be recovering, as many experts suggest, but investors are still struggling to understand what, if any, taxes they'll owe upon selling their homes. At issue is how the new "Medicare tax" will apply to real-estate transactions. Passed in 2010 to help fund the health-care overhaul, this 3.8% surtax kicks in next year on many forms of investment incomeincluding some interest, dividends, rents and capital gains. While its effect on home sales won't be as far-reaching as many fear, the Medicare tax could pack a punch for certain investors. It is not a sales tax The Corruption At The Heart Of Colombia's Health Care System (coming to a country near you?) AMERICA ECONOMIA/Worldcrunch ^ | 10/2/2012 | Jenny Gonzlez BOGOTA - In the middle of July, as the Colombian government was presenting a bundle of measures to reform the health-care industry, 5,000 people congregated in the Plaza de Bolivar in Bogota to hold a White March. One block away from the presidents office, the protest was led by a group of women in black, to symbolize the death of the health care system in Colombia. The public demonstration came after months of press reports of a nation's medical care in crisis: an elderly man in chains in an assisted living facility, asking for his medicine; 36 doctors resigning in.. Change: ObamaCare To Cause DC Hospitals To Lose Millions In Medicare http://www.libertynews.com ^ | october 1, 2012 | Duane Lester The readmission penalty, authorized by the 2010 health-care law, is one of the first examples of the incentives Medicare, the single largest payer of hospital services, is using to try to lower costs and improve care. Some of the hardest-hit facilities are inner-city hospitals that tend to treat sicker, poorer patients. These patients sometimes end up being readmitted because they have a harder time getting medication and follow-up doctors appointments, often because they lack transportation, hospital officials said. Not only do we have the very sick patients, they also have very significant social needs, said Kamaljit Sethi, who heads quality. Beyond Obamacare (Obama advisor: "We need death panels") New York Times ^ | Published: September 16, 2012 | By STEVEN RATTNER We need death panels...unless we start allocating health care resources more prudently rationing, by its proper name the exploding cost of Medicare will swamp the federal budget. But in the pantheon of toxic issues the famous third rails of American politics none stands taller than overtly acknowledging that elderly Americans are not entitled to every conceivable medical procedure or pharmaceutical.... Take Britain, which provides universal coverage with spending at proportionately almost half of American levels. Its National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence uses a complex qualityadjusted life year system to put an explicit value

The Untold Story Behind The "Fast and Furious" Scandal By Univision News Sept. 28, 2012 ^ | News Sept. 28, 2012 Who are the human faces of the U.S. government's botched "Fast and Furious" gunwalking operation? Often lost amid the rancor in Washington are the stories of dozens of people killed by guns that flowed south as part of the undercover operation, and later slipped out of view from U.S. officials. Univision's Investigative Unit (Univision Investiga) has identified massacres committed using guns from the ATF operation, including the killing of 16 young people attending a party in a residential area of Ciudad Jurez in January of 2010. Top Five Worst Obamacare Taxes Coming in 2013 Americans for Tax Reform ^ | September 28, 2012 | John Kartch http://www.atr.org/five-worst-obamacare-taxes-coming-a7217 The Medical Device Tax A $20 billion tax increase on manufacturers Special Needs Kids Tax A $13 billion tax increase on 30-35 million Americans who use Flexible Spending Account at work to pay for their familys basic medical needs will face a new government cap of $2,500 Investment surtax will cost $123 billion Capital Gains taxes will go from 15% to 23.8% Dividends taxes will go from 15% to 43.4% Medical payroll tax hike $86.8 billion tax increase The 2.9% tax on wages will increase to 3.8% on people making over $200,000, couples making over $250,000

British health care: Up to 500,000 people have to share one doctor after office hours. Telegraph - UK ^ | September 29, 2012 | Rosa Silverman A third of primary care trusts(PCTs) have reduced their spending on night and weekend services in the past year, leaving family doctors responsible for areas spanning hundreds of square miles. In Cornwall there have been occasions when one GP has been providing cover for 535,000 people, while in Mid Essex one doctor is available for 370,000 people between 7pm and 8am. After getting rid of one of its two doctors, North East Essex has the same cover for its 325,000-strong population. A survey of 90 PCTs found that 35 had cut their budget for out-of-hours GP care,.... The results, released..

Big Firms Overhaul Health Coverage [Giving money to employees to buy own coverage] Wall Street Journal ^ | 26 September 2012 | Anna Wilde Mathews Two big employers are planning a radical change in the way they provide health benefits to their workers, giving employees a fixed sum of money and allowing them to choose their medical coverage and insurer from an online marketplace. Sears Holdings Corp. and Darden Restaurants Inc. say the change isn't designed to make workers pay a higher share of health-coverage costs. Instead they say it is supposed to put more control over health benefits in the hands of employees. The approach will be closely watched by firms around the U.S. If it eventually takes hold widely, it might parallel the. 60% of firms to kill health insurance or charge more under Obamacare Washington Examiner ^ | September 25, 2012 | Paul Bedard A majority of small business owners and manufacturers are mulling drastic changes to comply with Obamacare, with 21 percent set to drop health insurance to workers altogether and 38 percent planning to make employees pay much more. In a poll done for the National Association of Manufacturers and National Federation of Independent Businesses, 59 percent said that they will have to consider changes once the full law kicks in because increased costs will jeopardize their operations. According to the poll, 67 percent expect Obamacare to raise healthcare costs. The fears about spending more on health care are adding to growing. Health Premiums Up $3,000; Obama Vowed $2,500 Cut Arizona Newszap ^ | 9/25/2012 | staff During his first run for president, Barack Obama made one very specific promise to voters: He would cut health insurance premiums for families by $2,500, and do so in his first term. But it turns out that family premiums have increased by more than $3,000 since Obama's vow, according to the latest annual Kaiser Family Foundation employee health benefits survey. Premiums for employer-provided family coverage rose $3,065 24% from 2008 to 2012, the Kaiser survey found. Even if you start counting in 2009, premiums have climbed $2,370. What's more, premiums climbed faster in Obama's four years than they... Calif. enacts law allowing unlicensed individuals to perform abortions http://redalertpolitics.com ^ | 09/25/2012 | John Rossomando A new California law could expose young women who have abortions to additional safety risks because it allows unlicensed individuals to perform abortions under certain circumstances, according to pro-life advocates. California Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill into law over the weekend permitting nurse practitioners, physicians assistants and midwives to perform abortions due to what Democrats see as a shortage of available doctors.

Employer healthcare premiums outpace inflation, wages (This is what Obama calls "better off".) CNBC ^ | 9/11/2012 | reuters U.S. health insurance premiums have climbed faster than wages and inflation this year, and look poised to accelerate in 2013, adding to voter concerns about soaring healthcare costs ahead of national elections in November. A study released on Tuesday showed that premiums for employer-sponsored health plans, which cover about 149 million Americans, grew a modest 4 percent to $15,745 in 2012. It was a substantially slower rate of growth than in past years, including 2011, when premiums jumped 9 percent. But the study's authors, at the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust, said higher costs How the AARP Made $2.8 Billion By Supporting Obamacare's Cuts to Medicare forbes ^ | 9/22/12 | avik roy As you know if youve been reading this blog, Obamacare cuts $716 billion from Medicare in order to pay for its $1.9 trillion expansion of coverage to low-income Americans. Its one of the reasons why seniors are more opposed to the new health law than any other age group. So why is it that the group that purports to speak for seniors, the American Association of Retired Persons, so strongly supports a law that most seniors oppose? According to an explosive new report from Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.), its because those very same Medicare cuts will give the AARP. The Most Dangerous Branch National Affairs ^ | Fall 2012 | JOSHUA D. HAWLEY Many conservatives have taken the outcome of the Obamacare case, known to the courts as National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, none too well. Their response is understandable: In an unusual judgment featuring two distinct 5-4 voting blocs bridged only by the chief justice, the Supreme Court concluded that Obamacare's individual mandate was not constitutional as an exercise of Congress's power over commerce, but was perfectly valid as a tax. That conclusion is troubling, to say the least. While the decision penned by Chief Justice Roberts purported to place some bounds on Congress's ability to regulate using the commerce.. The Achilles Heel of Obamacare The American Thinker ^ | 9/24/2012 | Joe Herring "...The exchange is the "front door" of ObamaCare. It is designed to look like a marketplace, where folks can shop for health insurance from a group of approved insurers. In reality, it is a carefully orchestrated faux market, where people will all buy the same federally approved product, albeit with different-colored wrapping paper..." "...With the requirement of a federal imprimatur for any state-established model, the "threat" of instituting a federally run exchange means simply that should we choose not to set up an exchange, the feds will do for us precisely what they would have required of us -- except..

GOP lawmakers reject Beshear's executive order creating health exchange as Democrats walk out CN 2 Pure Politics ^ | 09/19/2012 | Nick Storm UPDATED Republican House and Senate lawmakers on Wednesday voted to call Gov. Steve Beshear out of bounds for his executive order creating a health exchange an outgrowth of the U.S. Affordable Care Act. Sen. David Givens, R-Greensburg, offered a motion at the interim legislative health and welfare committee declaring that Beshear does not have the authority to create a new agency in this case, the Kentucky Health Exchange by executive order. Instead, the governor by law can only rearrange existing agencies and still must get the legislatures ultimate approval, Givens said, citing state statute . Obama HHS Mandate Could Sterilize Teen Girls Without Parental Consent Life News.com ^ | 9/21/12 11:39 AM | by John Stonestreet CNS News broke the story late last month: At a recent press conference held to discuss the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a., Obamacare), a reporter asked former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a critical question: One of the services that health care plans have to offer free of charge [under the HHS mandate] are sterilizations do you agree with the federal government mandating At this point, Congresswoman Pelosi cut the reporter off and responded, You know what, I told you before, lets go to church and talk about our religion. Right here were talking about public policy as it... An ugly way to get insurance NY Post ^ | september 19, 2012 | ROBERT GOLDBERG The good news: More Americans have health insurance. The bad news: Its because they dont have jobs. ObamaCare supporters hail the drop in the number of uninsured, announced by the Census Bureau last week, as a sign of the new laws success. In fact, its a sign of continued job-market decline and of how many of us have to depend on government programs for far too long. Nearly 1.4 million more people had health insurance in 2011 than in 2010 but that includes nearly 800,000 who gained coverage despite not working at all. In short, the rise comes mainly.. Tax penalty to hit nearly 6M uninsured people AP via Yahoo News ^ | Sept 20, 2012 | RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR WASHINGTON (AP) Nearly 6 million Americans significantly more than first estimated will face a tax penalty under President Barack Obama's health overhaul for not getting insurance, congressional analysts said Wednesday. Most would be in the middle class. The new estimate amounts to an inconvenient fact for the administration, a reminder of what critics see as broken promises. The numbers from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office are 50 percent higher than a previous projection by the same office in 2010, shortly after the law passed. The earlier estimate found 4 million people would be affected in 2016,

$1.8 trillion shock: Obama regs cost 20-times [as much as Obama's] estimate Washington Examiner ^ | September 20, 2012 Current federal regulations plus those coming under Obamacare will cost American taxpayers and businesses $1.8 trillion annually, more than twenty times the $88 billion the administration estimates, according to a new roundup provided to Secrets from the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute. And it could grow, warned the author of the report, Clyde Wayne Crews, a CEI vice president. Complying with Health and Human Services Department requirements alone, he revealed, costs $184 billion a year, yet regulators are still drafting the rules for the 2,400-page Obamacare law that kicks into gear in 2014. Two million more expected to pay penalty under Obamacare (Another Obama TAX on the middle-class) cnn ^ | 9/19/2012 | By James O'Toole Congress' official scorekeeper said Wednesday that roughly two million more Americans will pay penalties under President Obama's health care law for lacking insurance than had previously been estimated. Under the law, Americans must be insured starting in 2014 or pay a penalty assessed on their tax returns. Shortly after the legislation passed in 2010, the Congressional Budget Office, working alongside the Joint Committee on Taxation, estimated that in 2016 roughly four million people a year would opt to pay the penalty instead of getting coverage. On Wednesday, the CBO and JCT revised that figure up to six million, citing legislation. House Republicans pass bill funding Planned Parenthood, Obamacare Catholic Online ^ | 9-18-2012 | Catholic Online Bill requires all health plans to cover contraceptives, sterilizations A $1.047 trillion bill funding the federal government through March 2013 has been passed by House Republicans. The bill includes the regulation that took effect on August 1 that will require virtually all health plans in the U.S. to cover, without fees or co-pay, sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives -- including those that induce abortions. LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The vote passed by a wide margin of 329-91. The bill now goes to the Senate for expected approval next week. The bill also funds the government for six months. FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 579 (Republicans in roman; Democrats in italic; Independents underlined) H J RES 117 RECORDED VOTE 13-Sep-2012 6:20 PM QUESTION: On Passage BILL TITLE: Making continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2013, and for other purposes Ayes Noes PRES NV Republican 165 70 4 Democratic 164 21 5 Independent TOTALS 329 91 9

 AYES 329 -
Ackerman Aderholt Alexander Amodei Andrews Austria Baca Bachus Baldwin Barber Barletta Barrow Bartlett Bass (CA) Bass (NH) Becerra Benishek Berkley Berman Biggert Bilbray Bilirakis Bishop (GA) Bishop (NY) Bishop (UT) Black Blackburn Bonamici Bonner Boren Boswell Brady (PA) Brady (TX) Braley (IA) Brown (FL) Buchanan Bucshon Buerkle Burgess Butterfield Calvert Camp Campbell Cantor Capito

Capps Carnahan Carney Carson (IN) Carter Cassidy Castor (FL) Chaffetz Chandler Chu Cicilline Clarke (MI) Clarke (NY) Clay Cleaver Clyburn Coble Coffman (CO) Cohen Cole Conaway Connolly (VA) Costa Courtney Cravaack Crawford Critz Crowley Cuellar Culberson Cummings Davis (CA) DeFazio DeGette DeLauro Denham Dent Deutch Diaz-Balart Dicks Dingell Doggett Dold Donnelly (IN) Doyle Dreier

Duffy Edwards Ellison Ellmers Engel Eshoo Farenthold Farr Fattah Filner Fitzpatrick Fleischmann Fortenberry Frelinghuysen Fudge Gallegly Garamendi Garrett Gerlach Gibbs Gibson Gonzalez Goodlatte Granger Graves (GA) Green, Al Green, Gene Griffin (AR) Grijalva Grimm Guinta Guthrie Gutierrez Hahn Hanabusa Hanna Harper Harris Hastings (FL) Hastings (WA) Hayworth Heck Heinrich Hensarling Herrera Beutler Higgins

Himes Hinchey Hinojosa Hirono Hochul Holden Holt Honda Hoyer Huizenga (MI) Hultgren Hunter Hurt Israel Issa Jackson Lee (TX) Jenkins Johnson (GA) Johnson (OH) Johnson, E. B. Johnson, Sam Kaptur Keating Kelly Kildee Kind King (IA) Kingston Kinzinger (IL) Kline Lance Langevin Lankford Larsen (WA) Larson (CT) Latham LaTourette Latta Levin Lewis (CA) Lewis (GA) Lipinski LoBiondo Loebsack Lofgren, Zoe Long

Lowey Lucas Luetkemeyer Lujn Lungren, Daniel E. Lynch Maloney Manzullo Marino Markey Matsui McCarthy (CA) McCarthy (NY) McCaul McCollum McGovern McHenry McKinley McMorris Rodgers McNerney Meehan Meeks Mica Michaud Miller (MI) Miller (NC) Moore Moran Mulvaney Murphy (CT) Murphy (PA) Myrick Nadler Napolitano Neal Nugent Nunes Nunnelee Olson Owens Palazzo Pallone Pascrell Pastor (AZ) Paulsen Pearce

Pelosi Pence Perlmutter Peters Pingree (ME) Pitts Platts Polis Pompeo Price (GA) Price (NC) Quigley Rahall Rangel Reed Reichert Renacci Reyes Ribble Richardson Richmond Rivera Roby Roe (TN) Rogers (AL) Rogers (KY) Rogers (MI) Rohrabacher Rokita Rooney Ros-Lehtinen Roskam Rothman (NJ) Roybal-Allard Royce Runyan Ruppersberger Ryan (OH) Ryan (WI) Snchez, Linda T. Sanchez, Loretta Sarbanes Scalise Schakowsky Schiff Schock

Schwartz Scott (VA) Scott, Austin Scott, David Serrano Sessions Sewell Sherman Shimkus Shuster Sires Slaughter Smith (NE) Smith (NJ) Smith (TX) Smith (WA) Southerland Speier Stivers Sullivan Sutton Terry Thompson (CA) Thompson (MS) Thompson (PA) Thornberry Tiberi Tierney Tipton Tonko Turner (NY) Upton Van Hollen Velzquez Visclosky Walberg Walden Walz (MN) Wasserman Schultz Waters Watt Waxman Webster Welch West Westmoreland

Whitfield Wilson (FL) Womack Woodall Yarmuth Young (AK) Young (FL) Young (IN)

 NOES 91 -
Adams Altmire Amash Bachmann Barton (TX) Berg Bono Mack Boustany Brooks Burton (IN) Canseco Capuano Chabot Conyers Cooper Costello Crenshaw Davis (IL) DesJarlais Duncan (SC) Duncan (TN) Emerson Fincher Flake Fleming Flores Forbes Foxx Frank (MA) Franks (AZ) Gardner Gingrey (GA) Gohmert Gosar Gowdy Graves (MO) Griffith (VA) Hall Hartzler Huelskamp Johnson (IL) Jones Jordan Kissell

Kucinich Labrador Lamborn Landry Lee (CA) Lummis Mack Marchant Matheson McClintock McDermott McIntyre McKeon Miller (FL) Miller, Gary Neugebauer Noem Olver Paul Peterson Petri Poe (TX) Posey Quayle Rehberg Rigell Ross (FL) Rush Schilling Schmidt Schrader Schweikert Scott (SC) Sensenbrenner Shuler Simpson Stark Stearns Stutzman Tsongas Turner (OH) Walsh (IL) Wilson (SC) Wittman Wolf

Woolsey Yoder NOT VOTING 9 - Akin Blumenauer Broun (GA) Herger Jackson (IL) King (NY) Miller, George Ross (AR) Towns

Limits Placed on Immigrants in Health Care Law The New York Times ^ | September 17, 2012 | ROBERT PEAR WASHINGTON The White House has ruled that young immigrants who will be allowed to stay in the United States as part of a new federal policy will not be eligible for health insurance coverage under President Obamas health care overhaul. The decision disclosed last month, to little notice has infuriated many advocates for Hispanic Americans and immigrants. They say the restrictions are at odds with Mr. Obamas recent praise of the young immigrants. In June, the president announced that hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children, attended school here and IRS: Agents will not be involved in tax audits, pursuing Americans without health insurance http://www.foxnews.com ^ | september 16, 2012 The mandate in ObamaCare requiring Americans to buy health insurance is poised to go into full effect as a result of the recent Supreme Court ruling. But the IRS has no plans to get agents involved in enforcing the mandate or at least not to the agencys fullest extent. A top IRS official says the agency does not plan to perform audits or penalize those who fail to buy the insurance. President Obamas law overhauling U.S. health care -- passed in 2010 and upheld by the high court this year -- charges most Americans a penalty if they fail..

McDonald's new menu item: Calorie counts [follows Supreme Ct. ruling upholding ObamaCare] Houston Chronicle ^ | September 12, 2012 McDonald's restaurants across the country will soon get a new menu addition: The number of calories in the chain's burgers and fries. The world's biggest hamburger chain said Wednesday that it will post calorie information on restaurant and drive-thru menus nationwide starting Monday. The move comes ahead of a regulation that could require major chains to post the information as early as next year. "We want to voluntarily do this," said Jan Fields, president of McDonald's USA. "We believe it will help educate customers." In cities such as New York and Philadelphia where posting calorie information is already required, however Obamacare Redefines 'Full Time' Employment As 30 Hours A Week Breitbart's Big Government ^ | 12 Sep 2012, 4:16 PDT A year and a half after the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, bureaucrats at the IRS and Health and Human Services issued an 18-page report outlining new regulations that will dramatically increase health care costs for small and large businesses alike. The regulations, written by an IRS attorney, arbitrarily redefine "full time employee" as someone who works 30 hours a week for a business. Traditionally, most private businesses have defined "full time employee" as someone who works 40 hours a week. With this new regulation, the federal government is now removing the right of businesses to.. Compliance with ObamaCare Estimated at 80 Million Man-hours Tax Foundation ^ The costs associated with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) continue to stack up. According to the Committee on Ways and Means and the IRS, compliance with the new healthcare law will take 80 million man-hours per year. Perhaps that sounds like a successful jobs program, as it will keep 40,000 people fully employed, filling out paperwork and sorting through a confounding pile of government regulations. Only problem is, that work is entirely wasteful and creates zero wealth for America as a whole. It would be better for America and for the 40,000 workers to do something useful, like build the.. Obamacare shock: College insurance prices soar The Examiner ^ | 8/29/2012 | Paul Bedard The future frightening payoffs of college loans are taking a backseat to the immediate and soaring costs of health insurance students are getting slapped with as they return to school this fall, all thanks to Obamacare. Because of a rule in the Affordable Care Act that lifts caps on policy payoffs, the cheap insurance policies typically healthy students previously got are skyrocketing, some over 1,000 percent. The reason: Without payoff caps, insurance firms are boosting prices to cover their potential losses. One example: a late July email to incoming students from Guilford College of Greensboro, N.C. revealed a jump from

Obama At DNC: I Will Never Turn Medicare Into Voucher Next Day: HHS To Begin Voucher Program Weasel Zippers ^ | September 9, 2012 And I will I will never turn Medicare into a voucher. That promise didnt last long because the next day his administration approved a program that did just that.Via National Journal: In his convention speech in Charlotte, President Obama vowed to block the Republican Medicare reform plan because no American should ever have to spend their golden years at the mercy of insurance companies.But back in Washington, his Health and Human Services Department is launching a pilot program that would shift up to 2 million of the poorest and most-vulnerable seniors out of the federal Medicare program and HHS pilot program to send 2 million poor seniors from Medicare into voucher programs hotair.com ^ | 9/8/12 | Ed Morrissey I know that every campaign promise Barack Obama makes has an expiration date but this is ridiculous. The confetti is barely off the floor at the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina after Obamas acceptance speech, and already we find out that hes flip-flopped. Remember this part of the speech, in which he attacks the Paul Ryan plan to apply free-market reform and cost controls to Medicare? Man dies after doctor takes lunch during kidney operation thelocal.se- Sweden's News in English ^ | 9-6-12 The incident, which took place at the Lidkping hospital, has prompted stinging criticism from Sweden's National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen). The 72-year-old went under anesthetic at 10.45am on the day of the operation, which took place in January 2011. At noon sharp, the head anesthetist left the operating room to go for lunch. Fifteen minutes later, the head nurse anesthetist also left the patient and went for lunch. No other anesthetist was called in to take over responsibility for the doctor who was on his lunch break. And while another nurse was brought in to cover for the.. Health insurance premiums for NC college students rise 51% under ObamaCare Hotair ^ | 09/05/2012 | Ed Morrissey Barack Obama and his campaign hoped to make ObamaCare their pitch to get younger voters more enthused about the election this year --- a perverse but not forlorn hope, as I'll explain in a minute. That may be even more true in North Carolina, where Democrats are holding their convention this week, and where Obama needs to generate the visible and noticeable excitement among college-age voters that was so apparent in 2008 and has been lacking in 2012. Peter Hamby at CNN reports why that may be a bigger problem for North Carolina college students in particular, as the costs

Cuba's Health Care Utopia Crumbles American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property ^ | August 30, 2012 | Gary J. Isbell Liberal socialistic politicians consistently promise utopia and deliver misery. One way they do this is by pointing to successful programs in socialist nations as models for American problems. Cubas wonderful universal health care program has been one of these models for decades. But now it seems this program sometimes touted as better than our own medical system is now in shambles and facing more financial cuts. Raul Castro is even attempting to educate the population of the need to economize the countrys failing health care system. He has run a series of ads that have a common theme Physician-assisted suicide poisons the mission of medicine Globe and Mail ^ | 8/28/12 | J. Donald Boudreau Recent events suggest that the assisted-suicide movement has gained momentum; reports from the Royal Society of Canada, the Quebec National Assembly and the British Columbia Supreme Court all support legalization of physician- assisted suicide. But the case is not closed.Confusion reigns. Doctors opposed to physician-assisted suicide are sometimes labelled as paternalistic, disrespectful of patients autonomy and blind to certain aspects of human dignity. These are inaccurate and offensive descriptions of who we are and what we do in the sick room.The public must be reassured that the needs of dying patients can be met within current legislation and practices. Anger at 'Nazi slur' on right to die lobby Scotland Herald ^ | 9/2/12 | Judith Duffy The claims will be discussed in Edinburgh this week at what is billed as the first gathering in Europe of campaigners against assisted suicide.Care Not Killing an alliance largely of religious groups has been accused of "cheapening" the issue by opening its conference, the European Symposium on euthanasia and assisted suicide, with a talk entitled Lessons from Nazism. Dr Andrew Fergusson, a former GP who is chairman of the advisory group for Care Not Killing, admitted the opening theme of the event would be "controversial". He said the comparison stemmed from a judgment in the Nuremberg Trials which. Doctor refuses to treat overweight Shrewsbury patient http://www.wcvb.com/health/Doctor-refuses-to-treat-overweight-Shrewsbury-patient//9848730/16255838/-/79l2ctz/-/index.html WCVB-TV (ABC - Boston) ^ | August 24, 2012 | Pam Cross SHREWSBURY, Mass. Ida Davidson is the first to admit her weight goes up and down, but the Shrewsbury resident said she was stunned when a new primary care physician said she could not become a patient because she weighed more than 200 pounds

UK doctors told to try and talk women giving birth out of having epidurals to save NHS money Daily Mail (UK) | 04:38 EST, 31 August 2012 | By Sophie Borland Family doctors are being told to try to talk women out of having Caesareans and very strong painkillers during birth to save the NHS money. New guidelines drawn up for GPs urge them to encourage women to have natural labours with as little medical help as possible. But for many women the prospect of giving birth without the painkillers is unthinkable. And critics have said the move has been made without any thought for the women themselves. The guidelines also remind doctors to tell women to consider having their babies outside hospital in midwife-run units or in their own homes..

St. Jude Medical [300] layoffs a move to offset pressure of medical device tax [Obamacare tax] MeCity News ^ | August 31, 2012 | A. Parmar Excerpt: "On Thursday, St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ) announced that it was laying off 300 people and organizing its four businesses under two operating units. The move, the Minnesota medical device maker stated, was expected to save $50 million to $60 million in pre-tax operational expenses annually. Two analysts saw the layoffs as a measure to offset the imminent pressure of the 2.3 percent medical device tax. While public companies should always be looking at ways to save money, it is notable that the $50-60 million in expected 2013 savings is in the same ballpark as our 2013 estimate of $62.

Medicaid Expansion Will Become More Costly to States heritage foundation ^ | 8/30/2012 | Drew Gonshorowski Under the Supreme Courts ruling on the Affordable Care Act (ACA), states may choose to expand their Medicaid populations to include individuals below 138 percent of the federal poverty level, with the federal government picking up 100 percent of payments for the first three years and then rolling back federal payments. This structure is designed to be attractive to the states, since it appears to increase health coverage at little or no state-level cost. However, the expansion would be very expensive to states as early as 2019. In his fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget, President Obama has already proposed reducing. Oregon Offers to Pay to Kill, but Not to Treat Cancer Patient LifeSiteNews ^ | 06.04.08 | Tim Waggoner Lung cancer patient, Barbara Wagner, was recently notified that her oncologistprescribed medication that would slow the growth of cancer would not be covered by the Oregon Health Plan; the plan, however, she was informed, would cover doctor-assisted suicide should she wish to kill herself. "Treatment of advanced cancer that is meant to prolong life, or change the course of this disease, is not a covered benefit of the Oregon Health Plan," read the letter notifying Wagner of the health plans decision. Wagner says she was shocked by the decision. "To say to someone, well pay for you to die, but..

What America Would Look Like under Obamacare CBN ^ | 08.28.12 To view the video of the interview click this link Although President Obama signed his health care initiative into law two years ago, it's just now making its way into Americans' lives. Most still don't really know how the law will affect them. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, best known as Obamacare, has been controversial since it was drafted in 2009 and signed into law a year later. It gives the government control over onesixth of the U.S. economy and is more than 2,700 pages long. Most lawmakers who voted for the bill admitted they hadn't even read the legislation -..

L.A. hospitals could lose more of their federal reimbursement if Congress has its way Pasadena Star News ^ | 8/21/12 | David Westphal Already reeling from big cutbacks in Medicare funding, hospitals in the Los Angeles metropolitan area would lose another 2.4 percent of their federal reimbursement under a new analysis ordered by Congress Issa probes talks between White House, IRS on healthcare law (Illegal?) The Hill ^ | 8/22/12 | Sam Baker Issa probes talks between White House, IRS on healthcare lawBy Sam Baker - 08/22/12 04:30 PM ET Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) questioned Wednesday whether the White House pushed the IRS to implement President Obama's healthcare law in a way Issa believes is illegal. Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, believes the IRS is illegally implementing one of the law's crucial features subsidies to help low-income people buy insurance. In a letter to the IRS on Wednesday, Issa and Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), who chairs the Oversight Committee's health panel, asked for copies of all communication.

More than 2,200 hospitals face penalties under ObamaCare rules Fox News ^ | 8/23/2012 | Staff A provision of ObamaCare is set to punish roughly two-thirds of U.S. hospitals starting this fall over high readmission rates, according to an analysis by Kaiser Health News. Starting in October, Medicare will reduce reimbursements to hospitals with high 30-day readmission rates -- which refers to patients who return within a month -- by as much as 1 percent. The maximum penalty increases to 2 percent the following year and 3 percent in 2014. Doctors are concerned the penalty is unfair, since sometimes they have to accept patients more than once in a brief period of time but could be

How Obamacare hurts seniors New York Daily News ^ | Wednesday, August 22, 2012 | Dr. Marc Siegel My patient George is now 80 years old and has been coming to see me since he was 65. He brings his pill bottles to each visit; over the years, the number of bottles and pills has increased. Medicare has served him well over these 15 years, from the time an ultrasound ordered in the emergency room by a physicians assistant missed a bursting appendix but a CT scan found it before it was too late (Medicare paid for both tests), to the time when his lymphoma was cured with the help of an expensive, new targeted therapy.

Do No Harm? Should Patients Still Trust Their Doctors? Zenit ^ | 8/22/12 | Denise J. Hunnell, MD WASHINGTON, D.C., AUG. 22, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Primum non nocere. First do no harm. This edict has been part of medical ethics since the time of the ancient Greek physician, Hippocrates, in the fifth century B.C. It is found in the Hippocratic Corpus, a collection of medical writing attributed to Hippocrates. The original Hippocratic oath includes: I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice. For millennia the physician has been charged with being an advocate for the patient. Part of the impetus for the. Cuba campaign takes on 'free' health care Associated Press ^ | August. 25, 2012 | PETER ORSI HAVANA (AP) -- Cuba's system of free medical care, long considered a birthright by its citizens and trumpeted as one of the communist government's great successes, is not immune to cutbacks under Raul Castro's drive for efficiency. The health sector has already endured millions of dollars in budget cuts and tens of thousands of layoffs, and it became clear this month that Castro is looking for more ways to save when the newspaper voice of the Communist Party, Granma, published daily details for two weeks on how much the government spends on everything from anesthetics and acupuncture to orthodontics and.. China's Chaotic Health Care Drives Patient Attacks The Associated Press ^ | August 25, 2012 | By Gillian Wong (HENGYANG, China) - Dr. Chen Yuna had just eaten her lunch and was seated at her desk updating patients' medical records when a masked man entered her office. He pulled out a dagger and stabbed her 28 times in her neck, chest, stomach and elsewhere. Then he left her to die in a pool of blood. He knew the hospital well enough to slip out easily: Before he became Chen's killer, the man had been her patient...

Cuba's free health care faces cuts San Francisco Chronicle ^ | August 25, 2012 Havana -- Cuba's system of free medical care, long considered a birthright by its citizens and trumpeted as one of the communist government's great successes, is not immune to cutbacks under Raul Castro's drive for efficiency. The health sector has already endured millions of dollars in budget cuts and tens of thousands of layoffs, and it became clear this month that Castro is looking for more ways to save when the newspaper voice of the Communist Party, Granma, published daily details for two weeks on how much the government spends on everything from anesthetics and acupuncture to orthodontics and organ

ObamaCare's 'Great Rebate' Was Supposed To Get Votes, Gets Confusion Instead Forbes ^ | 8/15/12 | Merrill Matthews ObamaCare's 'Great Rebate' Was Supposed To Get Votes, Gets Confusion InsteadMerrill Matthews, Contributor 8/15/2012 @ 11:28AM It appears Democrats have utterly mangled ObamaCares much-hyped health insurance rebate that was supposed to be hitting your mailbox. Now, rather than taking credit for putting money in your pocket just a few months before the presidential election, the Obama administration is scrambling to explain, and defend, the plan to millions of confused families and employers. **SNIP** The roughly 12 million people who buy their own health insurance will be mailed a rebate check directly if theyre entitled to it. However, for employer-sponsored coverage. Obama's condom-nation to cost billions WND ^ | Aug. 26, 2012 | Steve Peacock If the Obama administration has its way, not only will taxpayers be forced to purchase health care, they also will be required to indirectly subsidize various health-care services globally. The plan ultimately could extract another $56 billion from the U.S. Treasury over the next eight years... USAID separately will spend up to $800 million over five years on a program designed to ensure that recipient nations more efficiently manage U.S. foreign assistance funds and initiatives

Flashback: Obama Admits He Cut Medicare Rush Limbaugh.com ^ | August 14, 2012 | Rush Limbaugh BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Listen to this sound bite, folks. November 9th, 2009. This is Obama's first year. And he's being interviewed by our old buddy Jacob Tapper at ABC News. And they're talking about Medicare cuts in Obamacare. Listen to this... TAPPER: One of the concerns about health care and how you pay for it: One third of the funding comes from cuts to Medicare. OBAMA: Right. TAPPER: A lot of times, as you know, what happens in Congress is somebody will do something bold; and then Congress, close to election season, will undo it. OBAMA: Right. Obama In November.

DNC Chair Gets Blitzed By Wolf On False Medicare Attacks youtube ^ | 8/13/12 | Wolf Blitzer/Debbie Blabbermouth On "Situation Room" DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz has no answers to Wolf Blitzer's questions on Medicare attacks (August 13, 2012). Flashback: Obama Says Stop Scaring Seniors Over Ryan's Medicare Reform Breitbart TV ^ | August. 14, 2012 January 29, 2010, President Obama at GOP House Issues Conference: "There is a political vulnerability to doing anything that tinkers with Medicare. And that's probably the biggest savings that are obtained through Paul's plan. And I raise that not because we shouldn't have a series discussion about it. I raise that because we're not going to be able to do anything about any of these entitlements if what we do is characterize, whatever proposals are put out there, as, well, you know, that's -- the other party is being irresponsible; the other party is trying to hurt our senior citizens;.. Obamacares Medicare cuts start January 1st washington Examiner ^ | 8/14/2012 | Conn Carroll It was brutal. On CNN yesterday, Wolf Blitzer kept browbeating Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz until she would admitted that Paul Ryans plan preserves Medicare for those currently aged 55 years and older with no changes. Chuck Todd did the same thing to Roberts Gibbs on MSNBC after Gibbs falsely claimed the Ryan plan would kill his father. Your father is not going to get that because theyre not going to do anything to him, Todd correctly pointed out. Todd and Blitzer are 100 percent correct. The Ryan budget only preserves and strengthens Medicare for those Americans that are..

Canadian Medical Association: babies not human until after birth Life Site News ^ | August 16, 2012 | PETER BAKLINSKI OTTAWA, 16 August, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) The largest association of doctors in Canada, in an attempt to stonewall a looming abortion debate from being unleashed, voted yesterday to support the wording of the countrys Criminal Code which states that a baby becomes a human being only after being born. Pro-life doctors and leaders have condemned the move as shameful, unethical, and defying parody. Delegates to the Canadian Medical Associations annual general council voted on the motion so as to prevent what they called a backdoor attempt to reopen the abortion debate. They voted to pass, says a CMA report on

Obamas Medicare cuts, explained (The Ryan Medicare Plan vs Obamacare) Washington Examiner ^ | 08/16/2012 | Philip Klein President Obama and his campaign have offered a series of defenses of the roughly $700 billion in Medicare cuts that he enacted as part of his national health care law. Briefly, they are: the cuts only deal with overpayments to private insurers and providers; the cuts do not affect benefits; the cuts extend the solvency of Medicare; and Mitt Romneys new running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., included the cuts in his own budget. Lets take a moment to unpack each of these. At the outset, let me say that I dont oppose cutting Medicare, because I believe were going..

The New Face of Health Care -- the IRS American Spectator ^ | August 17, 2012 | PETER FERRARA When President Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, aka "Obamacare") goes fully into effect in 2014, the American people will only then begin to see the implications of its thorough government takeover of health care, in all its glory. But what they are not expecting is the massively expanded role of the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") in our lives, as the IRS is the chief agency responsible for enforcing the Act. That is explained in a new paper by Dan Pilla, just published by the Heartland Institute, "Implementing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act." Pilla is a tax Obamacare Is Becoming a Racket for Overpaid Government Bureaucrats Townhall.com ^ | August 20, 2012 | Daniel J. Mitchell Ive certainly complained about Obamacare from a fiscal perspective, warning that it means higher taxes and more spending. And Ive also warned that it will make our health care system less efficient and could lead to some of the horrifying examples of rationing and poor care that you find in the United Kingdom (scroll to the bottom of this post for some shocking examples).But if you need another reason to be upset, it turns out that Obamacare is going to be a very lucrative gig for a new crop of government bureaucrats.Here are some very disturbing details from the Pueblo.

How Obamacare's $716 Billion in Cuts Will Drive Doctors Out of Medicare Forbes ^ | August 20, 2012 http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2012/08/20/how-obamacares-716-billion-in-cuts-willdrive-doctors-out-of-medicare/ There are 600,000 physicians in America who care for the 48 million seniors on Medicare. Of the $716 billion that the Affordable Care Act cuts from the program over the next ten years, the largest chunk$415 billioncomes from slashing Medicares reimbursement rates to doctors, hospitals, and nursing homes. This significant reduction in fees is driving many doctors to stop accepting new Medicare patients, making it harder for seniors to gain access to needed care. Here are a few of their stories. Paul Wertsch is a primary physician in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1977, he and his two partners invested $500,000 of.

How the GOP Wins Medicare (Nevada shows the issue can work for Republicans) National Review ^ | 08/20/2012 | Katrina Trinko In early 2011, Republican pollster John McLaughlin was at a meeting of Hill leaders, including Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan. Ryan was briefing those present on his soon-to-bereleased budget plan. There was a lot of talk about what they were doing with Medicare, McLaughlin recounts, and I remember Paul saying all he was doing was taking the savings from the cuts that Obama had made and was restoring basically the cuts to the seniors for those 55 and older, and then he was changing it where you were going to have premium support for those under 55. For McLaughlin, that

Book: Obamacare law designed to unionize 21 million health care workers The Daily Caller ^ | 8/19/12 | David Martosko In a book set for publication Tuesday, a politics and government professor at The Citadel claims President Obamas 2009 health care reform law was, in part, a union-driven effort to organize 21 million health care workers. In Shadowbosses: Government Unions Control America and Rob Taxpayers Blind, Mallory Factor describes a December 9, 2008 memo from Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Healthcare president Dennis Rivera to the Obama-Biden transition team. That memo outlined a legislative proposal calling for increasing the capacity of the health care workforce as part of a larger health care reform initiative

Robert Gibbs and IPAB Members Senator Jim Demint's blog ^ | 08-20-2012 | Jim Demint Robert Gibbs and IPAB Members Speaking on Fox News Sunday yesterday, Robert Gibbs was challenged about the composition of Obamacares Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB. He said that the IPAB would be composed of medical professionals. They are people that we trust to make medical decisions. Actually, that statement is FALSE. Obamacare specifically states that practicing medical professionals may NOT comprise the majority of the IPABs membership --meaning economists and other potential bean-counters will by definition maintain a majority voting share on the board. Heres the specific language from page 423 of the statute (emphasis mine): (iii) MAJORITY NONPROVIDERS.Individuals.

Doctor secretly denied 12-year-old trauma victim food and water Spero News ^ | 8/20/12 | Martin Barillas A doctor at Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas denied a 12-year-old gun-shot victim food and water and slipped a "do not resuscitate" order in the patient's chart, without the parents' knowledge. In Texas, the doctors' actions are protected by law. Now the patient is facing a so-called death panel where the doctor and hospital will give the patient and patient's family ten days to find another healthcare facility or they will stop treating the patient. Read more at Spero News. y u v r r str y t r t z http://frontpagemag.com/2012/joseph-klein/ryan-plan-would-save-medicare-obamacarewill-destroy-it/

Papa John's Founder To Raise Price Of Pizza Due To Obamacare CBSDC ^ | 8/8/12 | CBSDC WASHINGTON (CBSDC) Papa Johns warns it will have to raise the price of its pizzas due to President Obamas health care law. John Schnatter, CEO and founder of Papa Johns, said pizza will cost up to 14 cents more when the Affordable Care Act goes into effect in 2014. Were not supportive of Obamacare, like most businesses in our industry. But our business model and unit economics are about as ideal as you can get for a food company to absorb Obamacare, Schnatter said in a conference call during last weeks shareholders meeting, according to Politico.

CBO: 30 Million Will Remain Uninsured Under Obamacare Cybercast News Service ^ | August 8, 2012 | Patrick Burke A new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report says that under the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, 30 million non-elderly Americans will remain without health insurance in 2022. One of the main arguments the Obama administration made for passing the Affordable Care Act was that it would provide coverage for the uninsured.

RomneyCare 2.0 With costs rising fast, Massachusetts moves to dictate medical care Wall St. Journal ^ | August 5, 2012 Under the plan, all Massachusetts doctors, hospitals and other providers must register with a new state bureaucracy as a condition of licensurethat is, permission to practice. They'll be required to track and report their financial performance, price and cost trends, state-sanctioned quality measures, market share and other metrics. Massachusetts takes 360-degree surveillance and converts it into a panopticon prison. An 11-member board known as the Health Policy Commission will use the data to set and enforce rules to ensure that total Massachusetts health spending, public and private, grows no more than projected gross state product through 2017, and 0.5 percentage.

More Possible Obamacare Fallout--Child Support Extended to Age 26 www.the-spearhead.com ^ | June 28 2012 | W. F. Price Health Care Bill Closer to Reality, Child Support to be Extended to 26 by W.F. Price on June 28, 2012 The Supremes have set the stage for the full implementation of Obamacare, and yet people are not fully aware of the consequences of this enormous, bloated bill. A provision of Obamacare that divorced fathers ought to pay close attention to is the extension of dependent children to age 26

State heeds county woes [cautionary tale of unmanageable managed health care] Sacramento Bee ^ | August 5, 2012 | Emily Bazar ............In fiscal year 2010-2011, about 31 percent of Sacramento County children with Medi-Cal saw a dentist, compared with nearly half of children on Medi-Cal statewide. Los Angeles County's Medi-Cal dental managed care program scored even worse. That year, about 23 percent of the 154,000 children on managed care saw a dentist. Under managed care, the state contracts directly with private dental plans, paying them a monthly fee about $11.50 for each child, whether or not the child actually sees a dentist. .........concerns about state oversight are not limited to Sacramento County's dental managed care program.The state has been.

Businesses predict 7 percent jump in healthcare costs The Hill ^ | 8/6/2012 | By Sam Baker Businesses expect their healthcare costs to grow by about 7 percent next year a bigger jump than they've seen in the past three years according to a new survey. The National Business Group on Health, which conducted the survey, did not directly attribute the expected jump to President Obama's healthcare law, though it noted that employers are changing their health plans to comply with the new law. Sixty percent of employers surveyed said they plan to shift more healthcare costs to employees, but most said their workers' costs would rise by less than 5 percent next year. Companies..

Presidential Advisor Jarrett Touts Contraception Mandate at Anti-Bullying Summit Cybercast News Service ^ | August 8, 2012 | Penny Starr Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to President Barack Obama, took a moment to praise Obamacare and its preventive services for women, including the controversial contraception mandate, at an anti-bullying summit in Washington on Tuesday. Ironically, some conservativesincluding Gary Bauerhave accused the Obama administration of bullying the Catholic Church by forcing Catholic schools and hospitals to offer health insurance that covers services that violate the churchs moral code. Jarrett said in a country as rich as the United States, everyone should have health insurance. But critics say the government shouldnt be making decisions about health care, period.

Papa John's Founder To Raise Price Of Pizza Due To Obamacare CBSDC ^ | 8/8/12 | CBSDC WASHINGTON (CBSDC) Papa Johns warns it will have to raise the price of its pizzas due to President Obamas health care law. John Schnatter, CEO and founder of Papa Johns, said pizza will cost up to 14 cents more when the Affordable Care Act goes into effect in 2014. Were not supportive of Obamacare, like most businesses in our industry. But our business model and unit economics are about as ideal as you can get for a food company to absorb Obamacare, Schnatter said in a conference call during last weeks shareholders meeting, according to Politico. Schnatter later added:

'Why Not ObamaCare?' American Thinker ^ | August 4, 2012 | Joe Herring http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/article s/../2012/08/why_not_obamacare.html

Dr. Donald Berwick http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2471 was recess appointed by President Obama to head the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid. He quit rather than face Senate confirmation hearings. He is a senior policy advisor to The Commonwealth Fund, a far left American think tank. Berwick was one of the original architects of the rationing board for the British National Health Service. The British have the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), a board that decides what treatment to provide for patients, taking the options out of the hands of doctors. Berwick said The more I have studied it, the more I believe that less discretion for doctors would improve patient safety. Berwick hates the American free market health care system saying that our system protected the wealthy and the well, instead of recognizing that sick people tend to be poorer and that poor people tend to be sicker, and that any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized, and humane must must redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and less fortunate. Another ObamaCare architect is Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Ezekiel Emanuel is the designer of Complete Lives System, a formula for making decisions as to who will receive life saving treatment and who will not.

http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/PIIS0140673609601379.pdf Allocation of very scarce medical interventions such as organs and vaccines is a persistent ethical challenge. We evaluate eight simple allocation principles that can be ss t f ur t r s: tr t p p qu y, f v ur th w rst-o , x s t t ts, pr t r w r s us fu ss. N s principle is sucient to incorporate all morally relevant considerations and therefore individual principles must be combined into multiprinciple allocation systems. We evaluate three systems: the United Network for Organ Sharing points systems, qualityadjusted life-years, and disability-adjusted life-years. We recommend an alternative systemthe complete lives systemwhich prioritises younger people who have not yet lived a complete life, and also incorporates prognosis, save the most lives, lottery, and instrumental value principles. In Great Britain, tens of thousands of elderly and disabled each year legally have food, water and medical treatment withheld to hasten death. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15991403 In the Netherlands, as many as 40% of all deaths annually occur as a result of either assisted suicide or some form of euthanasia. Dutch doctors place patients in continuous deep sedation until the patients organs fail or they die. 42% of the time it is done without permission or notification of families or even the patient.
Cowardly House Republicans Refuse To Defund ObamaCare ExposeObama.com ^ | July 30, 2012 Thirty times over the past two years the House has voted to repeal the Presidents Affordable Care Act. Of course,on each occasion Republican leaders were secure in the knowledge that the measure had NO chance of passing the Democrat controlled Senate or collecting the signature of Barack Obama. And this was of supreme importance to these stout-hearted,GOP Representatives as it meant none of the scheduled votes would raise the ire of the Partys most feared and potent foethe dreaded national media...

Colorado judge's order on ObamaCare restores faith to the system (blocks Commiecare mandate) Fox News ^ | 7/30/12 | Quin Hillyer Colorado judge's order on ObamaCare restores faith to the systemBy Quin Hillyer Published July 30, 2012 FoxNews.com Faith just won a round in court. As President Obamas mandated insurance coverage of sterilization, contraception, and abortioninducing drugs takes effect on August 1 for ordinary businesses, the Health and Human Services mandates ultimate survival suddenly appears blessedly jeopardized. Federal district Judge John J. Kane of Colorado on Friday issued a temporary injunction blocking the mandate from being applied to Hercules Industries, a family-owned manufacturer of air-conditioning products. **SNIP** Comparatively little attention, though, had been paid to the private businesses that also object...

Brain dead patients could be kept alive to harvest their organs for NHS The Telegraph ^ | July 27, 2012 | Stephen Adams Hospitals could be allowed to keep patients with massive brain injuries alive solely to harvest their organs, under controversial plans being floated by the NHS. The 19 million people on the Organ Donation Register could also be given preference in the event of needing an organ, over those who are not. These are two of the proposals mooted in a consultation being carried out by NHS Blood and Transplant this summer. NHSBT is canvassing views from health professionals and the public on these and other ideas in the online survey, which closes on September 21. If put into practice they...

Indiana company scraps plans for expansion over ObamaCare device tax Fox News ^ | 7/27/2012 | By Judson Berger An Indiana-based medical equipment manufacturer says it's scrapping plans to open five new plants in the coming years because of a looming tax tied to President Obama's health care overhaul law. Cook Medical claims the tax on medical devices, set to take effect next year, will cost the company roughly $20 million a year, cutting into money that would otherwise go toward expanding into new facilities over the next five years. "This is the equivalent of about a plant a year that we're not going to be able to build," a company spokesman told FoxNews.com.

Meet Your New M.D. (What good is health insurance if you cannot get the health care you need?) American Thinker ^ | 07/27/2012 | Deane Waldman Forget the devious gamesmanship used to ram ACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act of 2010) down our throats. Wipe its unpopularity from your mind. Pay no attention to the egregious Supreme Court decision on ACA and its political ramifications. Temporarily ignore the unconscionable spending, and especially who gets the money and who does not. Focus all your attention on two questions. (1) What health care will I get? (2) Who will give it? In response to a 2008 article titled "WHO is practicing medicine," "John" posted the following. His remarks demand a public response. My father practiced medicine...
Illegal immigrants hurt by new law Los Angeles Times ^ | July 26. 2012 | Nina Bernstein President Barack Obama's health care law is putting new strains on some of the nation's most hard-pressed hospitals, by cutting aid that they use to pay for emergency care for illegal immigrants, which they have long been required to provide. The federal government has been spending $20 billion annually to reimburse these hospitals most in poor urban and rural areas for treating more than their share of the uninsured, including illegal immigrants. The health care law will eventually cut that money in half, based on the premise that fewer people will lack insurance after the law takes effect.

Terminally ill patients who fear being placed on 'routine' death pathway issued with opt-out cards Daily Mail ^ | 7/24/12 | Claire Bates Terminally ill patients have been issued with special cards telling doctors not to place them on a 'care pathway' that would hasten the end of their lives. It comes after doctors warned that hospitals may be routinely withholding food and drink from very ill patients so they die quicker to cut costs and save on bed spaces. In response the anti-euthanasia charity Alert is distributing cards to patients to prevent this happening. The cards simply read: 'Please do not give me the Liverpool Care Pathway treatment without my informed consent or that of a relative.' And so it begins: One in ten employers already saying theyll drop health coverage Hotair ^ | 07/24/2012 | Erika Johnsen The Congressional Budget Office released their post-Supreme Court ruling reassessment of ObamaCare earlier today, and " unexpectedly " the latest numbers are even less attractive than we originally estimated. Who could've seen this coming? The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday said President Obamas healthcare reform reduces the deficit by $109 billion over ten years.This is a new re-estimate in light of Junes Supreme Court ruling upholding the law and it is a smaller deficit savings than CBO had previously projected.CBO said the ruling added uncertainty to its estimates but it has put forward a number that comes down in...

Obamacare and the number 49 [Obamacare punishes businesses for hiring more than 49 people] Orange County Breeze ^ | Robin Itzler Entrepreneurs, those hardworking men and women who take an innovative idea and make it reality with their own money and labor, might now find 49 is their favorite number.President Obamas $1 trillion entitlement Affordable Care Act, known popularly as Obamacare, is directed at businesses that have at least 50 full-time employees. If your small company is close to that number of employees and youve given thought to hiring more staff, you might find it financially smarter to remain below 50, hire part-timers instead or start another company. Thats what the French do. Since conservatives say America is becoming more like...

CBO: Obamacare to Cover Millions Fewer Than Before Supreme Court Decision (30 Mill. still uninsured) Heritage ^ | July 24, 2012 | Kathryn Nix Earlier today, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released an updated cost estimate for Obamacare that showed that the law will cost less over 10 years than last predicted because fewer people will be covered. Now, although Obamacare spends more than $1 trillion, CBO predicts it will leave 30 million Americans uninsured, falling far short of what was promised. The reason for the changes to the laws cost projection is the recent Supreme Court ruling. Though the Court allowed Obamacares individual mandate to stand as a tax, it deemed a separate provisionthe Medicaid expansionto be unconstitutional.

(UK:) 'Advance refusal' cards for patients fearing 'death pathway' ('Liverpool Care Pathway') The Telegraph ^ | 7/24/2012 | John Bingham Terminally ill patients are being issued with special cards warning doctors not to place them on a controversial death pathway amid fears the practice is becoming routine. The advance refusal notices operate like an organ donor card, enabling people approaching the end of their life to make their wishes clear to while they still have capacity. It comes amid a growing backlash against overuse of the Liverpool Care Pathway which allows medical staff to withhold fluid and drugs from a patient while they are heavily sedated, actively speeding their end. Supporters of the technique say that it is the kindest...

UK: Thousands could lose their sight as NHS cuts cataract surgery by a quarter Daily Mail UK ^ | 7/15/12 | James Chapman The eyesight of thousands of elderly people has been put in jeopardy as NHS trusts place harsh restrictions on cataract surgery. Last year the number of operations being carried out on the Health Service fell by more than a quarter in some areas. And more than half of the NHS trusts in England have imposed their own criteria for the surgery which are tougher than national guidelines, according to research by the Royal National Institute of Blind People. MPs will hear today that, for many trusts, the number being treated for cataracts fell dramatically despite an ageing population.

Dehydrate dementia patients to death to save money: British Medical Journal editorial LifeSiteNews ^ | 07/16/12 | Hilary White Dehydrate dementia patients to death to save money: British Medical Journal editorial by Hilary White, Rome CorrespondentMon Jul 16, 2012 15:38 EST July 16, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) The courts should not interfere with doctors who want to dehydrate to death incapacitated patients who are a drain on scarce financial resources, according to an editorial in this weeks edition of the prestigious British Medical Journal. Raanan Gillon, emeritus professor of medical ethics and former chairman of the Institute of Medical Ethics governing body, wrote that a ruling last year by the High Court against dehydrating an incapacitated patient to death was...

Staggering Health Insurance Premiums Right Around the Corner (increase of 50 - 70 percent, WA state) Washington State Wire ^ | July 12, 2012 | Erik Smith OLYMPIA, July 12.If you think the cost of health insurance is going to go down under health care reform, think again, says the CEO of Washington states largest individualinsurance health plan. Many purchasers of individual insurance plans may see premiums rise 50 to 70 percent.

Doctors 'Should Accept Pay Cut Or Be Sacked' [UK] Sky News ^ | 15 July 2012 Thousands of doctors and nurses may be sacked unless they agree to drastic changes to their pay and conditions as hospitals strive to make billions of pounds worth of savings, it has been claimed. NHS bosses have suggested terminating all staff contracts and reoffering them on different terms, according to a leaked document obtained by The Sunday Times. New terms could include pay cuts of up to 5%, an end to overtime for nights, weekends and bank holidays, and reduced holiday leave, the newspaper said.
Doctors 'Should Accept Pay Cut Or Be Sacked' [UK] Sky News ^ | 15 July 2012 Thousands of doctors and nurses may be sacked unless they agree to drastic changes to their pay and conditions as hospitals strive to make billions of pounds worth of savings, it has been claimed. NHS bosses have suggested terminating all staff contracts and reoffering them on different terms, according to a leaked document obtained by The Sunday Times. New terms could include pay cuts of up to 5%, an end to overtime for nights, weekends and bank holidays, and reduced holiday leave, the newspaper said.

Obamacare Now Estimated to Cost $2.6 Trillion in First Decade The Weekly Standard ^ | July11, 2012 | DANIEL HALPER The Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee will later today release the following chart, detailing the rising projected cost of President Obama's signature legislation, Obamacare: The latest estimate, as the chart details, is that Obamacare will cost $2.6 trillion dollars in its first real decade. The bill does not fully go into effect until 2014, therefore the estimate begins with that year. "President Obama promised a joint session of Congress in 2009 to spend $900 billion over ten years on his health care law: 'Now, add it all up, and the plan that Im proposing will cost around $900

Patient dying of thirst rang 999: Inquest hears of mother's fury at nurses who neglected son mail online ^ | 6.13.2012 | Claire Ellicott A young patient who died of dehydration at a leading teaching hospital phoned police from his bed because he was so thirsty, an inquest heard yesterday. Officers arrived at Kane Gorny's bedside, but were told by nurses that he was in a confused state and were sent away. The keen footballer and runner, 22, died of dehydration a few hours later. Kane Gorny Hospital: Kane Gorny, 22, pictured with his mother Rita, needed drugs to regulate his hormone levels after successfully beating brain cancer. However, during a hospital stay nurses forgot to give him his medication A coroner had such...
The Media's "Republicans Have No Obamacare Replacement" Myth Ricochet.com ^ | 07/12/2012 | Ben Domenech Republican healthcare: 1. They want to end the tax bias in favor of employer-sponsored health insurance to create full portability (either through a tax credit, deductibility, or another method); 2. They want to reform medical malpractice laws (likely through carrot incentives to the states); 3. They want to allow for insurance purchases across state lines; 4. They want to support state-level pre-existing condition pools; 5. They want to fully block grant Medicaid; 6. They want to shift Medicare to premium support; 7. They want to speed up the FDA device and drug approval process; and 8. They want to maximize the health savings account model, one of the few avenues proven to lower health care spending, making these high deductible + HSA plans more attractive where Obamacare hamstrung them.

Judge Napolitano: House ObamaCare Repeal Has Real Teeth - Health Exchanges Unconstitutional Maggie's Notebook ^ | 7-12-12 | Maggie@MaggiesNotebook Judge Andrew Napolitano makes it clear that the House repeal of ObamaCare for the 31st time has "real teeth to it," and affirms that States which do not want to set up health care exchanges, legally do not have to set up health care exchanges. See the video below an listen to what Napolitano says about how Romney can handle ObamaCare with both the House and Senate controlled by Democrats. The following is most of the transcript. I've added a link to background information on Governor Rick Perry's decision rejecting health care exchanges and Medicaid expansion
US House votes to repeal Obama healthcare law, again Reuters ^ | Thu Jul 12, 2012 2:41am IST | Thomas Ferraro and Donna Smith The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives, on a near party-line vote of 244-185, on Wednesday once again passed a bill to repeal President Barack Obama's overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system. Just like previous House efforts to end the two-year-old healthcare law, the bill is certain to be stopped by Obama's fellow Democrats who control the Senate. Regardless, the fight over the landmark law, which has divided Americans and rallied the Democratic and Republican political bases, will likely rage on into the Nov. 6 elections. Five Democrats joined all Republicans in voting to repeal the law, which requires nearly all...

Report: Thousands fled Canada for health care in 2011 Daily Caller ^ | 7/11/12 | Michael Bastasch A Canadian study released Wednesday found that many provinces in our neighbor to the North have seen patients fleeing the country and opting for medical treatment in the United States. The nonpartisan Fraser Institute reported that 46,159 Canadians sought medical treatment outside of Canada in 2011, as wait times increased 104 percent more than double compared with statistics from 1993. Specialist physicians surveyed across 12 specialties and 10 provinces reported an average total wait time of 19 weeks between the time a general practitioner refers a patient and the time a specialist provides elective treatment the longest...

Major cancer treatment shortage will lead to bladder removals (UK) Telegraph (UK) ^ | 7/11/12 | Stephen Adams, Medical Correspondent Supplies of a type of BCG used to treat bladder cancer have been completely halted due to a flood at a factory in Canada. The bacterium, which stimulates the immune system to fight cancer, is used on about 6,000 patients a year. In more than half of them it can stop cancer spreading almost indefinitely. But Sanofi Pastuer, which makes the most widelyused product, called Immunocyst, does not expect production to restart before late 2013, according to a letter to doctors from Professor Sir Mike Richards, the NHS cancer csar. He warned it was now almost inevitable that patients would...

 An Appeal to a Higher Court Congressman Tom McClintock ^ | 7.10.12 | Tom McClintock In the wake of the Supreme Court decision on the so-called Affordable Care Act, the House will once again take up the imperative of repealing it. But the Supreme Court decision has much more dire implications for our nation and its cherished freedoms than merely affirming the government takeover of our health care. In reaching its conclusion, the Court obliterated a fundamental distinction between a penalty and a tax. Congress has the power to lay and collect taxes, and therefore, the Court reasons, it can apply a tax for any reason, even those otherwise outside the confines of the Constitution....

Dutch Assisted Suicide Policy Should Serve as a Grisly Warning LiveActionNews ^ | 7/5/12 | Cassy Fiano In Canada, a judge in British Columbia has just struck down the law banning assisted suicide. Gloria Taylor, along with several other plaintiffs, filed suit claiming that the seriously ill should have the right to take their lives with the assistance of a doctor in Carter v. Canada. And its easy to sympathize with them. Its easy to look at people suffering through a terminal illness and think that its cruel to deprive them of a quick, painless death as opposed to a long, drawn-out, painful one. But if you need to understand why both assisted suicide and euthanasia need...

Romanias 20-Year Nightmare: Unraveling Socialized Health Care (our future if not repealed) PJ Media ^ | 7-6-12 | Ion Mihai Pacepa In my other life in Communist Romania, I managed a large intelligence organization that, among other tasks, was charged with keeping alive a nationalized health care system which in the end bankrupted the country and generated popular contempt. That system, very similar to the Affordable Health Care for America Act, was a bureaucratic nightmare. And it still is a nightmare in the former Soviet empire.

It's Coming: IRS Gets Ready for Obamacare Implementation Townhall.com ^ | July 7, 2012 | Kate Hicks Come 2014, you'll have to pay a tax if you're uninsured -- but how exactly it's going to work is still getting sorted out. The IRS isn't sure how many people they'll have to hire, or how much implementation will end up costing:

Hospitals 'letting patients die to save money (UK) Telegraph ^ | 7/8/12 | Stephen Adam Tens of thousands of patients with terminal illnesses are placed on a death pathway to help end their lives every year. However, in a letter to The Daily Telegraph, six doctors warn that hospitals may be using the controversial scheme to reduce strain on hospital resources. Supporters of the Liverpool Care Pathway, which allows medical staff to withhold fluid and drugs in a patients final days, claim it is the kindest way of letting them slip away. But the experts say in their letter that natural deaths are often freer of pain and distress.

Leaving Canada for medical care 2011 Fraser Institute ^ | 07/08/2012 | Nadeem Esmail Among the consequences of poor access to health care in Canada is the reality that some Canadians will ultimately receive the care they require outside of the country. Some of these patients will have been sent out of country by the public health care system due to a lack of available resources or the fact that some procedures or equipment are not provided in their home jurisdiction. Others will have chosen to leave Canada in response to concerns about quality (Walker et al., 2009); to avoid some of the adverse medical consequences of waiting for care such as worsening of...

Hundreds die from strokes at weekends because of poorer NHS (UK) care: study Daily Telegraph (UK) ^ | 10:00PM BST 09 Jul 2012 | Rebecca Smith and Stephen Adams, Medical Team Patients who are admitted to hospital at the weekend suffering from a stroke are less likely to receive vital brain scans and more are more likely to die than those seen during the week, a study of NHS hospitals has found. A team from Imperial College London and the National Audit Office has found 350 people die within seven days of their stroke unnecessarily because they were admitted at the weekend, and a further 650 suffer serious disability. Among stroke patients admitted Sundays, 11 percent died within seven days, compared with less than nine percent of those admitted on Mondays....
PPACA (Obamacare), Did you know? Did you know that under PPACA insurance comapanies cannot charge higher premiums to people with pre-existing health conditions EXCEPT ... Smokers Older People Apparently insurance companies cannot charge higher premiums for: Overweight people People who do drugs People who abuse alchohol. People who engage in risky sex Thrill seekers, daredevils, extreme sports enthusiasts http://www.bcbsm.com/healthreform/pubs/ppaca_insurance_reform_2014.pdf

Obamacare Information NOT mentioned - Is this information correct Subject: YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY RATE IN 2014 - OBAMACARE. Look clearly at the 2014 rate compared to the 2013 rate. For those of you who are on Medicare, read the following. It's short, but important and you probably haven't heard about it in the Mainstream News: "The per person Medicare Insurance Premium will increase from the present monthly Fee of $96.40, rising to: $104.20 in 2012 $120.20 in 2013 And $247.00 in 2014." These are Provisions incorporated in the Obamacare Legislation, purposely delayed so as not to confuse the 2012 Re-Election Freeper's who have read some of the Obamacare HC...

Hospitals Told Child Heart Surgery Will Stop News.sky ^ | 7/4/12 | staff Three out of 10 specialist units will stop performing heart surgery on children following an NHS review which decided resources were spread too thinly. The Royal Brompton in Chelsea, west London, Leeds General Infirmary and Glenfield Hospital in Leicester will not stop providing surgery immediately as plans to implement the new streamlined service are still being developed. Once they stop providing surgery, probably after 2013, the units will still see patients for diagnosis, monitoring and non-surgical treatment. The consultation process by the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts (JCPCT) of England

Jindal: Obamacare ruling paves way for Michelle Obama Tofu Tax mandate Washington Examiner ^ | July 5, 2012 | Joel Gehrke Mitt Romneys campaign attacked President Obama and the Supreme Court ruling in Obamacare this morning, arguing that the ruling expands congressional power by allowing the federal government to levy taxes in order to compel behavior. Under this taxing authority now, you can tax inactivity to compel behavior, you can tax inactivity, whats to stop this administration we know the First Lady is very keen on us eating healthy why not tax people for not eating tofu?Gov. Bobby Jindal,, R-La., asked reporters on a conference call this morning. This administration, theyve put taxpayers as partial owners of GM, why...
ObamaCare's Lost Tribe: Doctors Wall Street Journal ^ | 07/05/2012 | Daniel Henninger Back at the at the dawn of ObamaCare in June 2009, speaking to the American Medical Association's annual meeting, President Obama said: "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." But will your doctor be able to keep you? Or will your doctor even want to keep you, rather than quit medicine? For the longest time now, since day one of the Affordable Care Act, we have been having arguments over the mandate to purchase health-care insurance, requirements that insurance companies accept...

Lawyers Have Already Drafted 13,000 Pages of Regulations for New ObamaTax Law Gateway Pundit ^ | July 5, 2012 | Jim Hoft With the Supreme Court giving President Obamas new health care law a green light, federal and state officials are turning to implementation of the law a lengthy and massive undertaking still in its early stages, but already costing money and expanding the government. The Health and Human Services Department was given a billion dollars implementation money, Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg of Montana said. That money is gone already on additional bureaucrats and IT programs, computerization for the implementation. Oh boy, Stan Dorn of the Urban Institute said. HHS has a huge amount of work to do and the states...

DNC Wasserman Schultz tells you failure to comply with Obamacare will no longer be tolerated

CNN ^ Here's the CNN clip: http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/02/dnc-chair-tells-cnnhealth-care-is-a-penalty/?iref=allsearch From her mouth: "It's not a tax". The Internal Revenue Service would be the easiest enforcer of penalties against those who refuse to comply for those who fail to not pay the tax that isn't. This is a penalty that will be assessed on the tax return if you choose to roll the dice and make us all pay for your being irresponsible and increase all of our health care costs...Were not going to tolerate that any more in America. You have to be responsible and you have to pay a penalty if you choose
Fifteen governors reject or leaning against expanded Medicaid program The Hill ^ | 7/3/2012 | By Elise Viebeck At least 15 governors have indicated they will not participate in the expansion of Medicaid under the healthcare law, striking a blow to President Obamas promise of broader insurance coverage. Before Thursdays Supreme Court ruling, states had the option of either increasing their Medicaid rolls or being penalized by the federal government. The high court struck down that offer as unconstitutional. Governors still have a financial incentive to participate in the expansion of coverage for low-income people, since the government will foot most of the bill through 2016. But the decision is also loaded with politics, particularly for Republican governors...

NHS wait means thousands miss dementia care (Britains Healthcare) Daily Express UK ^ | July 3, 2012 | Jo Willey Thousands of dementia sufferers are being abandoned by the NHS, with shocking variations in the time it takes to get a diagnosis and support. Waiting periods for vital memory services average at least three months--but they can vary from a few weeks to more than a year, reveals a damning report by a group of MPs. And some patients are not informed for at least five years that they have the disease, meaning treatments that are available are not as effective. Early diagnosis is key to staving off the ravages of the killer brain disease--yet almost 60 percent with dementia...

'We Will Take it Anyway We Can Get it' - Valerie Jarrett Admits ObamaCare Is A Tax http://www.breitbart.com ^ | July 1 2012 | breitbart Video at link Friday in a Roland Martin interview Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett on Obama Care tax 'We will take it anyway we can get it.'

Over Half of All Obamacare Waivers Given to Union Members Weekly Standard ^ | May 16, 2012 | Mark Hemingway Over Half of All Obamacare Waivers Given to Union Members Mark Hemingway May 16, 2011 9:20 AM In what is fast becoming a weekly event, the Obama administration granted 200 more companies waivers from the Democrats' sweeping health care law in the Friday night news dump. That brings the number of companies receiving waivers to 1,372. (You can get a full list of the companies exempted here.) Not surprisingly, it helps to be a Democratic ally when seeking a waiver. The Republican Policy Committee reports that over half of the workers that have been exempted so far belong to unions:...

WSJ Economist: 75% of Obamacare Costs Will Fall on Backs of Those Making Less Than $120K a Year Human Events ^ | 6/30/2012 | Jim Hoft Take Your Medicine, America Stephen Moore, Senior Economics Writer with the Wall Street Journal, told FOX and Friends this morning that nearly 75% of Obamacare costs will fall on the backs of those Americans making less than $120,000 a year

"Your country that you love is going through a revolution to save its very soul" Joe Walsh Marathon Pundit ^ | Jul 1, 2012 Marathon Pundit Illinois, America, and the world Sunday, July 01, 2012 (Video) Joe Walsh at town hall: "Your country that you love is going through a revolution to save its very soul" Rep. Joe Walsh of Illlinois, who boasts that he is a "Tea Party conservative first...and a Republican second," was emotional and animated in front a packed house of 350 at a town hall meeting this afternoon in northwest suburban Elk Grove Village. I've attended enough of these meetings to know that it's best to start with the speaker's conclusion--the ideas of the meeting our usually summarized nicely at... The U Ks Death Panels are killing old and sick there, Obamacare wont be any different here coachisright.com ^ | July 2, 2012 | Kevin "Coach" Collins Obamacare-like Death Panels are already emptying out hospital beds in the United Kingdom. According to one report last year the UKs National Health Service (NHS) euthanized 130,000, mostly expendable seniors. Its benignly named Care Pathways, kills almost 360 people every day. Now its Obamcares turn to euthanize undesirables. The Supreme Court gave Barack Obama the right to start his own extermination program. Anybody who needs a little bit too much care will get put on Obamas list. If you were born before January 1, 1953 he has put a target on your back. You had better not get sick and...
RomneyCare by the Numbers repeal-romneycare.com ^ RomneyCare by the Numbers repeal-romneycare.com ^ Posted on Monday, July 02, 2012 4:17:00 PM by SoConPubbie -According to the Beacon Hill Institute the RomneyCare plan has increased total health insurance costs by $4.3 Billion. -The Kiaser Family Foundation recently found that Massachusetts health insurance premiums are now the highest in the nation. This has come about since the passage of RomneyCare. -Since the passage of RomneyCare, healthcare costs paid by the state have risen until they now account for 40% of the state budget. -According to current projections, the average median-income family will be expected to pay nearly a third of its income toward health insurance premiums by 2016. -According to the Pioneer Institute, total spending on Uncompensated Care and Commonwealth Care has increased by 38% since the passage of RomneyCare. -Since 2004, the average annual premium for non-group insurance nationally increased from $4,424 to $6,328 in 2009. The Massachusetts Average increased from $10,126 to 13,288 in 2009, spiking up to nearly $17,000 in 2007. RomneyCare was passed in 2006

with the partial purpose of addressing the fact that Massachusetts residents paid so much more than the rest of the country for health insurance. -Since the passage of RomneyCare the percentage of residents with difficulty paying off their medical bills has remained essentially unchanged. Why are we paying so much more for the same results? -According to the Beacon Hill Institute, RomneyCare is responsible for nearly 18,500 lost jobs since its passage. -Since the passage of RomneyCare the average cost of individual coverage has increased by more than 36% -Since the passage of RomneyCare there has been no significant reduction in Commonwealth Care administrative costs as was promised. -Since its passage, RomneyCare has cost the Massachusetts economy $29 Million in annual private investment.

Conservatives still control high court despite healthcare ruling http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20120701,0,1359950.column Nestled within the justices opinions are some disquieting hints that the Supreme Courts hostility toward government control over corporate power hasnt changed. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.s quote: We do not consider whether the act embodies sound policies. Those decisions are entrusted to our nations elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.

Medical journal calls for debate on therapeutic homicide

BioEdge ^ | 6/30/12 | Jared Yee The Canadian Medical Association Journal says that euthanasia is "therapeutic homicide" which requires extremely robust arguments to justify it. An editorial in its latest issue was commenting on recommendations made by the Dying with Dignity commission of the Quebec National Assembly. The commission released a report after two years of study. The authors wrote: "Proponents of dying with medical assistance must argue that a patients rights invoke a corresponding medical duty to provide the means if a patient cannot, and it follows that this should be done in a safe and expert way. Hence, the act of assisting death would...

NHS (UK) Facing 'Colossal' Care Bill Unless System is Overhauled Urgently
The Telegraph ^ | 29 Jun 2012 | By John Bingham They say that unless brave and radical decisions are taken now, the NHS will be flooded with tens of thousands of elderly people who could be cared for elsewhere, costing the taxpayer millions of pounds a year. Almost a million older people in need of some form of care do not receive it because their needs are not considered severe enough need or do not qualify for financial support, it has been estimated.

Obamacare: Seven New Taxes on Citizens Earning Less than $250,000

breitbart ^ | 6-29-12 | Robert Allen Bonelli While we were all debating the cost to our liberty due to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), we were ignoring the cost to our pockets. If there ever was a reason for bipartisan rage about this law, it should be on the twenty - yes, twenty - hidden new taxes of this law. Making matters even more relevant is that seven of these taxes are levied on all citizens regardless of income. Hence, Mr. Obamas promise not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000 is just another falsehood associated with this legislation.

States may opt out of Medicaid expansion..

The Boston Globe ^ | June 30, 2012 | Brian MacQuarrie The Supreme Courts ruling that states cannot be penalized if they refuse to expand Medicaid under the federal health care overhaul has left an opening for legislators who have assailed the health care act as a crippling budget-buster. Legislators in many states, from tiny New Hampshire to Texas, say they are inclined to resist the expansion of Medicaid that is intended to provide coverage for 17 million uninsured people. Before the high courts decision on Thursday, states that did not comply had been threatened with the loss of all federal Medicaid funds, which have covered an average of 57 percent...

1,968 New and Expanded Secretarial Powers in Health Law (Jan 2011) US Action News ^ | January 19, 2011 | US Action News The Center for Health Transformation (CHT) released a new chart revealing the nearly 2,000 new and expanded powers given to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius under the healthcare law. The chart, titled The New and Expanded Secretarial Powers in the Health Reform Law, shows the exact legislative language from the 2,409-page law and the 1,968 grants of new and expanded powers to the secretaries of Departments of Labor, Treasury and Health and Human Services. The overwhelming majority of which will fall under HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, from powers over access to drugs and insurance coverage to care

Some GOP states want to abandon Medicaid expansion

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_HEALTH_CARE_STATES?SITE=A P&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-06-29-17-1649 ^ | June 29, 2012 | DAVID A. LIEB JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Republicans in at least four states want to abandon an expansion of Medicaid in President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, and more than a dozen other states are considering it in the wake of the Supreme Court decision removing the threat of federal penalties. ... The states considering whether to withdraw from the expansion include presidential battlegrounds Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Colorado. "One thing is clear, state legislatures will play a big role in the future of Obamacare," said Republican state Rep. Todd Richardson of Missouri. For elected officials, the high court decision presented a...

Hospital closures inevitable and NHS operation rationing will continue, warns think-tank The Telegraph ^ | 29 Jun 2012 | Stephen Adams NHS patients should expect continued rationing of common operations for years to come, while hospital closures are inevitable, according to an influential think-tank. John Appleby, chief economist at The Kings Fund, also warned services in some hospitals could seriously deteriorate due to the impact of the economic crisis. He said it was highly unlikely the NHS budget would be significantly increased in the foreseeable future. Against this grim financial background...

Killing the Elderly Is Old News for Britain's NHS

The New American ^ | 6/27/2012 | R. Cort Kirkwood Last weeks story here that Britains National Health Service euthanizes 130,000 elderly folks a year is no surprise. Last year, a major report cited the socialist health-care agency for neglecting the elderly under its care. The neglect was so severe that doctors began prescribing drinking water to patients because they would otherwise die of thirst. In other words, nothing changes in Britain, no matter how bad the abuses are. That is the lesson to be be learned about nationalized health care. Euthanasia, as well, killed the patients more quickly than simple neglect. Last Years Report As The New American reported...

Obamacare's Hidden Taxes

IBD Editorials ^ | June 28, 2012 | Editor http://news.investors.com/article/616549/201206281902/supreme-court-confirmsobamacare-massive-tax-burden.htm
Taxation: The high bench has confirmed that ObamaCare's individual mandate is a massive tax on the American middle class. But let's not forget the 20 other new taxes that are embedded in the law. Though President Obama never sold it as a tax hike, the Supreme Court ruled the mandate is exactly that. Unfortunately, the majority argued it's legal under Congress' taxing authority. Forcing citizens to buy health insurance "is absolutely not a tax increase," Obama insisted in 2009. Earlier, he assured the public that raising taxes on the middle class to support his health care plan was "the last thing we need in an economy like this." "Folks are already having a tough enough time," Obama added.

Indeed they are. But his plan, which subsidizes some 30 million uninsured, amounts to a $1.8 trillion whammy on working families. And that's just for starters. The court was silent about the 20 other different taxes hidden in ObamaCare, more than half of which affect families earning less than $250,000 a year. The new taxes, which cost some $675 billion over the next decade, include: A 2.3% excise tax on U.S. sales of medical devices that's already devastating the medical supply industry and its workforce. The levy is a $20 billion blow to an industry that employs roughly 400,000. Several major manufacturers have been roiled, including: Michigan-based Stryker Corp., which blames the tax for 1,000 layoffs; Indiana-based Zimmer Corp., which cites the tax in laying off 450 and taking a $50 million charge against earnings; Indiana-based Cook Medical Inc., which has scrubbed plans to open a U.S. factory; Minnesota-based Medtronic Inc., which expects an annual charge against earnings of $175 million, and Boston Scientific Corp., which has opted to open plants in tax-friendlier Ireland and China to help offset a $100 million charge against earnings. A 3.8% surtax on investment income from capital gains and dividends that applies to single filers earning more than $200,000 and married couples filing jointly earning more than $250,000. A $50,000 excise tax on charitable hospitals that fail to meet new "community health assessment needs," "financial assistance" and other rules set by the Health and Human Services Dept. A $24 billion tax on the paper industry to control a pollutant known as black liquor. A $2.3 billion-a-year tax on drug companies. A 10% excise tax on indoor tanning salons. An $87 billion hike in Medicare payroll taxes for employees, as well as the selfemployed. A hike in the threshold for writing off medical expenses to 10% of adjusted gross income from 7.5%. A new cap on flexible spending accounts of $2,500 a year. Elimination of the tax deduction for employer-provided prescription drug coverage for Medicare recipients. An income surtax of 1% of adjusted gross income, rising to 2.5% by 2016, on individuals who refuse to go along with ObamaCare by buying a policy not OK'd by the government.

 A $2,000 tax charged to employers with 50 or more workers for every full-time worker not offered health coverage. A $60 billion tax on health insurers. A 40% excise tax on so-called Cadillac, or higher cost, health insurance plans. All told, there are 21 new or higher taxes imposed by Obama's health care law and 21 more reasons to repeal it.

April 2012- IRS getting $500 million to enforce Obamacare

therightscoop.com ^ | June 28 2012 | therightscoop.com Remember when Michele Bachmann uncovered $105 billion buried within the Obamacare bill that was earmarked for enforcement of the law? Now we are learning that $500 million of that will be going directly to the IRS for that very purpose. So although the law appears to be on the verge of being ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, the White House is nevertheless racing to implement this beast, so that even if the law is overturned it will be a nightmare to unwind. Bachmann discussed all this and more last night on Greta.

The Constitution says all bills for raising revenue must originate in the House.
The National Archives ^ | 1787 | The Framers Article I, Section. 7. All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2346357/posts Passing a Shell of a Bill: Congress Secret Plan to Ram Through Health Care Reform The Heritage Foundation 9/22/09 Brian Darling

Austerity brings Greece's healthcare system to its knees

CBS Evening News ^ | June 14, 2012 | Clarissa Ward (CBS News) ATHENS - Greece is broke, and it agreed to big cuts in government spending in return for a bailout by other European countries. However, because that austerity deal was so hated by Greeks, the government fell. The country will vote for a new parliament Sunday. The question is: Will a new government abandon the bailout agreement, undermining the euro currency and the European Union? Why would Greeks risk that? Dr. Chris Rokkas is a top cardiologist at Attikon hospital, but these days the U.S.-trained surgeon rarely sets foot in an operating room, which is bad news for Georgia...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2900774/posts

46 Reasons to Repeal ALL of Obamacare NOW

Jim Demint ^ | 6/28/2012 | Jim DeMint Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2012 8:37:48 PM by kara2008

Today the Supreme Court struck down portions of Obamacare as unconstitutional --states cannot be "dragooned" into expanding their Medicaid programs according to the laws dictates. However, a list of 50 particularly onerous or egregious provisions in Obamacare (with sections from the statute duly noted) reveals just how much of this bad law remains. By the most generous interpretation, the Court struck down only four of the 50 egregious policies, illustrating why Congress should immediately repeal the entire measure once and for all. Among many other bad policies, the law: 1. Imposes $800 billion in tax increases, including no fewer than 12 separate provisions breaking candidate Obama's "firm pledge" during his campaign that he would not raise "any of your taxes" (Sections 9001-9016) 2. Forces Americans to purchase a product for the first time ever (Section 1501)

3. Creates a board of 15 unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats to make binding rulings on how to reduce Medicare spending (Section 3403) 4. Pays over $800 billion in subsidies straight to health insurance companies (Sections 1401, 1402, and 1412) 5. Requires all individuals to buy government-approved health insurance plans, imposing new mandates that will raise individual insurance premiums by an average of $2,100 per family (Section 1302)

6. Forces seniors to lose their current health care, by enacting Medicare Advantage cuts that by 2017 will cut enrollment in half, and cut plan choices by two-thirds (Section 3201) 7. Imposes a 40 percent tax on health benefits, a direct contradiction of Barack Obamas campaign promises (Section 9001) 8. Relies upon government bureaucrats to "issue guidance on best practices of plain language writing" (Section 1311(e)(3)(B)) 9. Provides special benefits to residents of Libby, Montana -- home of Max Baucus, the powerful Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who helped write the law even though he says he hasnt read it (Section 10323) 10. Imposes what a Democrat Governor called the mother of all unfunded mandates new, Washington-dictated requirements of at least $118 billion at a time when states already face budget deficits totaling a collective $175 billion (Section 2001) 11. Imposes reductions in Medicare spending that, according to the programs nonpartisan actuary, would cause 40 percent of all Medicare providers to become unprofitable, and could lead to their exit from the program (Section 3401) 12. Raises premiums on more than 17 million seniors participating in Medicare Part D, so that Big Pharma can benefit from its "rock-solid deal" struck behind closed doors with President Obama and Congressional Democrats (Section 3301) 13. Creates an institute to undertake research that, according to one draft Committee report prepared by Democrats, could mean that "more expensive [treatments] will no longer be prescribed" (Section 6301) 14. Creates a multi-billion dollar "slush fund" doled out solely by federal bureaucrats, which has already been used to fund things like bike paths (Section 4002) 15. Subjects states to myriad new lawsuits, by forcing them to assume legal liability for delivering services to Medicaid patients for the first time in that programs history (Section 2304) 16. Permits taxpayer dollars to flow to health plans that fund abortion, in a sharp deviation from prior practice under Democrat and Republican Administrations (Section 1303) 17. Empowers bureaucrats on a board that has ruled against mammograms and against prostate cancer screenings to make binding determinations about what types of preventive services should be covered (Sections 2713 and 4104)

18. Precludes poor individuals from having a choice of health care plans by automatically dumping them in the Medicaid program (Section 1413(a)) 19. Creates a new entitlement program that one Democrat called "a Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing that Bernie Madoff would have been proud of" -- a scheme so unsustainable even the Administration was forced to admit it would not work (Section 8002) 20. Provides $5 billion in taxpayer dollars to a fund that has largely served to bail out unions and other organizations who made unsustainable health care promises to retirees that they cannot afford (Section 1102) 21. Creates a tax credit so convoluted it requires seven different worksheets to determine eligibility (Section 1421) 22. Imposes multiple penalties on those who marry, by reducing subsidies (and increasing taxes) for married couples when compared to two individuals cohabiting together (Sections 1401-02) 23. Extends the Medicare payroll tax to unearned income for the first time ever, including new taxes on the sale of some homes (Section 1402) 24. Impedes state flexibility by requiring Medicaid programs to offer a specific package of benefits, including benefits like family planning services (Sections 2001(a)(2), 2001(c), 1302(b), and 2303(c)) 25. Requires individuals to go to the doctor and get a prescription in order to spend their own Flexible Spending Account money on over-the-counter medicines (Section 9003) 26. Expands the definition of low-income to make 63 percent of non-elderly Americans eligible for low-income subsidized insurance (Section 1401) 27. Imposes a new tax on the makers of goods like pacemakers and hearing aids (Section 9009) 28. Creates an insurance reimbursement scheme that could result in the federal government obtaining Americans medical records (Section 1343) 29. Permits states to make individuals presumptively eligible for Medicaid for unlimited 60-day periods, thus allowing any individual to receive taxpayer-funded assistance ad infinitum (Section 2303(b)) 30. Allows individuals to purchase insurance on government exchanges -- and to receive taxpayer-funded insurance subsidies -- WITHOUT verifying their identity as American citizens (Section 1411)

31. Gives $300 million in higher Medicaid reimbursements to one state as part of the infamous Louisiana Purchase -- described by ABC News as whatit take[s] to get a wavering senator to vote for health care reform (Section 2006) 32. Raises taxes on firms who cannot afford to buy coverage for their workers (Section 1513) 33. Forces younger Americans to pay double-digit premium increases so that older workers can pay slightly less (Section 1201) 34. Prohibits states from modifying their Medicaid programs to include things like modest anti-fraud protections (Section 2001) 35. Includes a special provision increasing federal payments just for Tennessee (Section 1203(b)) 36. Allows individuals to purchase health insurance across state lines -- but only if politicians and bureaucrats agree to allow citizens this privilege (Section 1333) 37. Allows the HHS Secretary and federal bureaucrats to grant waivers exempting people from Obamacares onerous mandates, over half of which have gone to members of union plans (Section 1001) 38. Creates a pseudo-government-run plan overseen by the federal government (Section 1334) 39. Removes a demonstration project designed to force government-run Medicare to compete on a level playing field with private plans (Section 1102(f)) 40. Gives the Secretary of HHS an UNLIMITED amount of federal funds to spend funding state insurance Exchanges (Section 1311(a)) 41. Creates a grant program that could be used by liberal groups like ACORN or AARP to conduct public education activities surrounding Obamacare (Section 1311(i)) 42. Applies new federal mandates to pre-Obamacare insurance policies, thus proving that you CANT keep the insurance plan you had -- and liked -- before the law passed (Sections 2301 and 10103) 43. Prohibits individuals harmed by federal bureaucrats from challenging those decisions, either in court or through regulatory processes (Sections 3001, 3003, 3007, 3008, 3021, 3022, 3025, 3133, 3403, 5501, 6001, and 6401) 44. Earmarks $100 million for construction of a health care facility, a sweetheart deal inserted by a Democrat Senator trying to win re-election (Section 10502)

45. Puts yet another Medicaid unfunded mandate on states, by raising payments to primary care physicians, but only for two years, forcing states to come up with another method of funding this unsustainable promise when federal funding expires (Section 1202) 46. Imposes price controls that have had the effect of costing jobs in the short time since they were first implemented (Section 1001) 47. Prohibits individuals from spending federal insurance subsidies outside governmentapproved Exchanges (Section 1401(a)) 48. Provides a special increase in federal hospital payments just for Hawaii (Section 10201(e)(1)) 49. Imposes new reporting requirements that will cost businesses millions of dollars, and affect thousands of restaurants and other establishments across the country (Section 4205) 50. Codifies 159 new boards, bureaucracies, and programs The Supreme Court may have struck some of these onerous provisions, but the only way to ensure that ALL these provisions are eliminated -- and never return -- is to repeal ALL of this unconstitutional law immediately.

Now That Obamacare Has Passed, Here's What It's Going To Cost You [ the fine is $2,058.00 !!!! ]
businessinsider.com ^ | June 28 2012 | Mandi Woodruff Consumer penalties: Part of the controversy surrounding health care reform was that the law would mandate coverage for all Americans on pain of penalties. Those penalties will be tiered and rise over a three-year period that kicks off in 2014, according to the National Association of Consumer Protection: 2014: Families$285 or 1 percent of total household income, whichever is greater. Individual adults$95. 2015: Families$975 or 2 percent of income, whichever is greater. Individual adults$325. 2016: Families$2,085 or 2.5 percent of income, whichever is greater. Individual adults$695.

Eric Cantor Already Scheduled House Vote on ObamaCare's FULL REPEAL

Reaganite Republican ^ | June 28, 2012 | Reaganite Republican First week after August recess... Obama and his congressional minions swore back in 2008/09 'you will not see your taxes increase one single dime'- and they never would have got this leviathan passed on the Hill had they been even slightly more honest about it. So consider this- some (like former AG Alberto Gonzales) even think Roberts/SCOTUS just handed the election to Romney- as the Court cannot be labelled as biased to the Right now -no way- and the truth has at longlast come out: ObamaCare is the largest tax increase in the history of the US -nay, the...

Health care stocks hit hard by Supreme Court ruling

Dayton Business Journal ^ | 06/28/2012 | Dayton Business Journal Staff The decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold President Barack Obama's health care reform law sent the stock markets lower with health industry stocks getting hit hardest on Wall Street on Thursday.

Today is The Day U.S. Citizens Became Slaves of Their Government

Today the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Federal Government can tax citizens because they exist, not because they earn income, but because they exist. There are no limits on the amount we can be taxed to exist. We are all now officially slaves owned by and for the U.S. Federal Government.

All The OTHER Stuff Wrong With ObamaCare

Reaganite Republican ^ | June 28, 2012 | Reaganite Republican As Team Obama and Democratic leaders spike the football, spit in Liberty's face, and tell us "It's constitutional, bitches!", we need to take a trip in the way-back machine to when when they rammed this pig down our throats in the Summer of 2009, what was the big hurry with having to have it on his desk by August recess? Besides his obviously eroding public support and tanking poll numbers, another reality behind that sense of urgency was betrayed by how the President -per usualwas so selective in just what he wanted you to know about in this monstrous...

Alex Schadenberg: Killing patients who are difficult to manage is becoming common in the UK
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition ^ | 6/21/12 | Alex Schadenberg <p>An article written by Steve Doughty and published in the Daily Mail in the UK on June 19. The article reports on a research by Professor Patrick Pullicino that found that approximately 29% of all deaths in the UK are prematurely ended by use of the Liverpool Pathway, a plan that defines a patient as futile and then withdraws all treatment and care, including hydration and nutrition.</p>

Melanoma drug 'too expensive' for NHS

The Telegraph ^ | 15 Jun 2012 | Rebecca Smith The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has issued draft guidance turning down the drug on the grounds that it is too expensive and the long-term benefits of it are not clear. The drug named Zelboraf, or vemurafenib, is for malignant melanoma that has spread and carries a specific genetic mutation and costs around 1,750 per patient per week. The makers Roche agreed an undisclosed discount for the NHS but Nice still felt it was not cost effective. Sir Andrew Dillon, chief executive of Nice said: We need to be sure that new treatments provide sufficient benefits to patients...

IPAB, Obamacares Super-Legislature [Its even worse than you thought.]

National Review ^ | 15 June 2010 | Michael F. Cannon & Diane Cohen The individual mandate isnt Obamacares only unconstitutional provision, or even its most unconstitutional provision. That distinction belongs to the Independent Payment Advisory Board. A heretofore unreported feature of this super-legislature makes it even more authoritarian and dangerous than anyone knew. IPAB consists of up to 15 unelected government experts. Its stated purpose is to restrain Medicare spending. If projected spending exceeds certain targets, Obamacare requires IPAB to issue legislative proposals to reduce future spending. Those proposals could include drastic cuts that jeopardize seniors access to care, leading some critics to label IPAB a death panel. But the really dangerous part...

Top Obama administration health reform law regulator to step down (Obamacare Rat abandons ship)
Business Insurance ^ | 6/14/12 | Jerry Geisel Steve Larsen, who has played a key role in directing the Obama administration's efforts to implement the health care reform law, will resign, effective next month. Mr. Larsen left his position as Maryland insurance commissioner shortly after the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010 to head what is now known as the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight.

Thanks Obamacare: 83% of Doctors Surveyed Say They May Quit

Townhall ^ | 06/15/2012 | Kate Hicks The Doctor Patient Medical Association has released a new survey of about 700 doctors, and the results are bleak. Scary bleak. Among other dismal figures, Doctors' Attitudes on the Future of Medicine: Whats Wrong, Whos to Blame, and What Will Fix It found that 83% of respondents are contemplating leaving the industry if Obamacare is fully implemented, owing to its disastrous projected consequences. Indeed, they openly blame the healthcare law for their industry's woes: KEY FINDINGS 90% say the medical system is on the WRONG TRACK 83% say they are thinking about QUITTING 61% say the system challenges their ETHICS 85% say...

ObamaCare's Secret History: How a Pfizer CEO and Big Pharma colluded with the White House
Wall Street Journal ^ | 6/11/12 On Friday House Republicans released more documents that expose the collusion between the health-care industry and the White House that produced ObamaCare, and what a story of crony capitalism it is. If the trove of emails proves anything, it's that the Tea Party isn't angry enough. Over the last year, the Energy and Commerce Committee has taken Nancy Pelosi's advice to see what's in the Affordable Care Act and how it passed. The White House refused to cooperate beyond printing out old press releases, but a dozen trade groups turned over thousands of emails and other files. A particular focus...

ObamaCare Uncovered: Even Worse Than You Thought

LiveActionNews ^ | 6/9/12 | Kristi Burton Brown In two short minutes, you can find out even more things than youve heard before about whats wrong with ObamaCare. (And this doesnt even cover it all, folks.) We knew it was bad we knew it was really bad but did we know it was this bad? I mean, seriously, $100-a-day fines for each employee? If this isnt an extreme violation of personal, constitutional, and conscience rights, I dont know what is. Of course, we shouldnt be surprised at all the things that can hide in a nearly 1,000 page law, with even more pages of regulations implementing...

Obamacare's Medical Device Tax Kills Jobs

ATR ^ | 2012-06-05 | Justin Sykes Following close on the heels of the latest dismal jobs report this week is a House vote to repeal the Medical Device Tax. The Protect Medical Innovation Act, or H.R. 436, was introduced by Representative Erik Paulsen (R-MN) and thanks to bipartisan support, including 233 co-sponsors, was approved by the Ways & Means Committee by a vote of 23-11 last week. H.R. 436 will now go to the House floor for a vote sometime this week. H.R. 436 seeks to repeal the Medical Device Excise Tax included as part of Obamacare legislation. As part of the Obamacare bill, a 2.3...

The ObamaCare poll that the White House hates: 4 takeaways (Commiecare on the ropes)
Yahoo ^ | 6/08/12 The ObamaCare poll that the White House hates: 4 takeawaysBy The Week's Editorial Staff Fri, Jun 8, 2012 A new survey shows that a full two-thirds of Americans would like to see all or part of ObamaCare struck down by the Supreme Court. Two-thirds of Americans would like to see the Supreme Court strike down all or part of ObamaCare, according to a new poll conducted by The New York Times and CBS. The poll comes as the country awaits the Supreme Court's decision on President Obama's signature legislative achievement, which is expected to be handed down sometime before...

Another Adventure in Socialized Medicine

http://moonbattery.com ^ | 06/07/2012 | Dave Blount Sandra Hynes, 50, had only gone into hospital for a simple operation to relieve her acid reflux, but following complications was left with a punctured right lung. She had to stay in for an extra two weeks and was put on morphine and oxygen to cope with her pain. But further problems arose when her morphine drip and oxygen needed replenishing over a weekend. Astonishingly, the staff on duty had not been trained in how to insert a cannula needle into her hand, and struggled to provide new oxygen, leaving her in excruciating pain. When she was given morphine orally...

Surgeon: Remove Kidneys for Transplant Before Donor's Death

Yahoo via ABCNews ^ | June 6, 2012 | KIM CAROLLO The severe shortage of viable organs for transplantation in the U.S. has led a transplant surgeon to propose harvesting kidneys from people who are not dead yet. Dr. Paul Morrissey, an associate professor of surgery at Brown University's Alpert Medical School, wrote in The American Journal of Bioethics that the protocol known as donation after cardiac death -- meaning death as a result of irreversible damage to the cardiovascular system -- has increased the number of organs available for transplant, but has a number of limitations, including the need to wait until the heart stops. Because of the waiting time

Hospitals fight drug scarcity, fear patients harmed [much worse since Obamacare was passed]
Reuters ^ | June 2, 2012 | Anna Yukhananov A few hundred medicines make the list of drugs in short supply: anesthetics, drugs for nausea and nutrition, infection treatments and diarrhea pills. A separate list has scarce cancer drugs for leukemia or breast cancer. The growing scarcity of sterile, injectable drugs is one of the biggest issues confronting hospitals across the country, and will be a key issue at the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago this weekend. Health officials blame the shortages on industry consolidation that has left only a handful of generic manufacturers of these drugs, even as the number of drugs going off patent...

NHS removes word 'Dad' from pregnancy handbook in case it offends same sex couples
Daily Mail ^ | May 27, 2012 | Sophie Borland The Health Service has removed the word dad from a pregnancy handbook for fear of offending gay and lesbian parents. Officials decided to use the term partner throughout the 200-page guide, titled Ready Steady Baby, after receiving a complaint that dad was discriminating against same-sex couples. But the omission of the word has angered some campaigners who claim that traditional family values are being undermined. Norman Wells, of the Family Education Trust, said: This is all part of an agenda to present as natural a type of family that cannot be created by natural means. The NHS should not be...

Ave Maria drops student health insurance over HHS mandate

CNA ^ | 5/23/12 Ave Maria University has become the second Catholic college to announce it will discontinue its student health insurance plan due to the Obama administrations contraception mandate. In a May 21 statement, university president Jim Towey called the mandate an affront to our core values. Ave Maria University will not offer or pay for health insurance plans that violate our deeply-held religious beliefs, he said. The announcement comes amid continued controversy over a federal insurance mandate that will require employers and colleges to offer health care plans that cover contraception, sterilization and abortion-causing drugs, even if doing so violates their religious...

Doctors Could be Banned from Practising for Refusing to Give Unmarried Women Contraceptives [UK]
The Daily Telegraph (UK) ^ | 5/23/12 Doctors who refuse to give contraceptives to unmarried women or carry out sex change operations face being banned from practicing under new guidelines.The General Medical Council has issued guidance warning that it would be discriminatory for doctors not to prescribe either the pill or morning-after pill because they disagree with people having sex before marriage. Senior Catholic bishops and campaigners have criticised the new orders claiming they will force Christian doctors and others with strong moral beliefs to prescribe treatments against their consciences. The draft GMC guidelines, entitled Personal Beliefs and Medical Practice, stipulate that doctors cannot be willing to

Baby Dies In Waiting Room: Dad Blames Hospital

SkyNews;Yahoo.com ^ | 5/18/12 | Darren Little A father whose baby son died after being born in a hospital waiting room has told Sky News he believes his son might have survived if he had been given better care. Steven Yorke and his partner Sara Proud went to Leicester Royal Infirmary on Sunday night when Sara realised she was in labour. When they arrived they were told to wait in a side room with other expectant parents. But 80 minutes later baby Kyle was born while Mr Yorke was trying to find help. When two midwives did come to assist, the umbilical cord was wrapped around the...

Florida Catholic Univ considers dropping student health plan, on heels of Ohio decision
Fox News ^ | May 17, 2012 | Judson Berger On the heels of an Ohio school's decision to abandon its student health insurance plan, another Catholic university in Florida is considering whether to follow suit over concerns about premium costs associated with the federal health care overhaul, FoxNews.com has learned. The school, the private Ave Maria University, is voicing both moral and economic concerns. Like Franciscan University -- the Steubenville, Ohio, school that just announced it is dropping student coverage -- Ave Maria officials are opposed to the so-called contraceptive coverage mandate. But for both schools, premium costs associated with new coverage requirements appear to be fueling their anxiety. ...

It begins: Catholic university drops all health-insurance coverage in response to HHS mandate
Hot Air ^ | May 15, 2012 | Ed Morrissey Actually, its not just the mandate, but also the costs that will drive Franciscan University to bail out of the health-insurance business. Before now, the Catholic institution required all students to carry health insurance; those who did not have them were required to buy insurance through the school. Thats not entirely dissimilar to the ObamaCare mandate, although of course attendance at the school is entirely voluntary. Franciscan University put the HHS contraception mandate as its first justification, however:

IRS Notices Address Significant Issues under the Affordable Care Act
JD Supra ^ | 5/2/2012 | Edward I. Leeds and Clifford J. Schoner In a series of three notices, the IRS has signaled the approach that it may take on certain key issues arising under the employer shared responsibility, or pay or play, provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and is seeking comment on these and other questions. All of the matters discussed in the notices will ultimately be addressed in regulations. Minimum Value Under the Affordable Care Act, an employer with more than 50 employees will be subject to an excise tax if any of its full-time employees obtains subsidized coverage through a state insurance exchange. This subsidy is unavailable where an...

Dad rescues brain dead son from doctors wishing to harvest his organs boy recovers completely
Life Site News ^ | April 25, 2012 | MATTHEW CULLINAN HOFFMAN LEICESTER, England, April 25, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - According to the Daily Mail newspaper, a young British man owes his life to an insistent father who would not allow his sons organs to be removed from his body, despite assurances from four doctors that his son could not recover from the wounds he had suffered in a recent car accident. The Mail reports that Stephen Thorpe, then 17, was placed in a medically-induced coma following a multi-car pileup that had already taken the life of his friend Matthew, who was driving the vehicle. Although a team of four physicians insisted that...

Washington Post: We Tried To Bury That Story About ObamaCare Blowing Up The Deficit
Investor's Business Daily ^ | April 16, 2012 | Sean Higgins Washington Post columnist Patrick Pexton made a rather startling admission in the papers Sunday edition: The Post never meant for their recent story about how President Obamas health care law expands the budget deficit to become a viral Internet sensation. In fact, they deliberately tried to bury the story. ... The story in question was titled Health care law will add $340 billion to deficit, new study finds. It pointed out that the administration had double-counted Medicare savings in the law and once you adjusted for that it added to the deficit rather than reducing it,

Bioethicist argues PVS diagnosed patients should not be kept alive

LifeSiteNews ^ | 4/11/12 | Peter Baklinski April 11, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - If an American bioethicist gets her way, all patients evaluated as being in a permanent vegetative state (PVS) would by default have artificial nutrition and hydration (ANH) withdrawn unless they have made a prior wish to be kept alive. In the March 2012 issue of Bioethics, Dr. Catherine Constable argues that in the absence of clear evidence that the patient would opt for this existence over death, keeping him alive by any means of assistance is ethically more problematic than allowing him to die. Terri Schiavo was declared to be in a PVS state and...

Obama administration diverts $500M to IRS to implement healthcare reform law

The Hill ^ | 4-9-12 | Sam Baker The Obama administration is quietly diverting roughly $500 million to the IRS to help implement the presidents healthcare law. The money is only part of the IRSs total implementation spending, and it is being provided outside the normal appropriations process. The tax agency is responsible for several key provisions of the new law, including the unpopular individual mandate. Republican lawmakers have tried to cut off funding to implement the healthcare law, at least until after the Supreme Court decides whether to strike it down. That ruling is expected by June, and oral arguments last week indicated the justices might well...

Sentenced to death for being old: The NHS denies life-saving treatment to the elderly, as one man's
Daily Mail ^ | 4/9/12 | ohn Naish When Kenneth Warden was diagnosed with terminal bladder cancer, his hospital consultant sent him home to die, ruling that at 78 he was too old to treat. Even the palliative surgery or chemotherapy that could have eased his distressing symptoms were declared off-limits because of his age. His distraught daughter Michele Halligan accepted the sad prognosis but was determined her father would spend his last months in comfort. So she paid for him to seen privately by a second doctor to discover what could be done to ease his symptoms. Thanks to her tenacity, Kenneth got the drugs and surgery

Health-Care Law Will Add $340 Billion To Deficit, New Study Finds
Washington Post ^ | April 09, 2012 Health-Care Law Will Add $340 Billion To Deficit, New Study Finds By Lori Montgomery April 9 President Obamas landmark health-care initiative, long touted as a means to control costs, will actually add more than $340 billion to the nations budget woes over the next decade, according to a new study by a Republican member of the board that oversees Medicare financing. The study is set to be released Tuesday by Charles Blahous, a conservative policy analyst whom Obama approved in 2010 as the GOP trustee for Medicare and Social Security. His analysis challenges the conventional wisdom that the health-care law,...

Surgery bans elderly patient over her carbon footprint (Commiecare - what did you expect?)
Telegraph ^ | 4/03/12 Surgery bans elderly patient over her carbon footprint. An elderly woman was ordered to find a new GP because the carbon footprint of her two-mile round trips to the surgery where she had been treated for 30 years was too large. By Daily Telegraph Reporter 11:48PM BST 03 Apr 2012 Avril Mulcahy, 83, was told to address the green travelling issues over her journeys from her home in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, to the West Road Surgery. The surgery wrote to Mrs Mulcahy, telling her to register with a new GP within 28 days.

Leipheimer: I could be dead, for sure [Lousy healthcare in Spain]

Velo News ^ | April 2nd, 2012 | Andrew Hood Levi Leipheimer is counting his blessings Monday after avoiding serious injury when a Spanish driver plowed into him during a Sunday-afternoon training ride in Spains Basque Country. The American star knows hes lucky to be alive and to have otherwise avoided serious injuries in the high-speed accident. Leipheimer was on a two-hour training ride ahead of Mondays start of the Vuelta al Pas Vasco when disaster struck: a car drove directly into him at full speed as he was riding on the right side of the shoulder on a Spanish road. Leipheimer recounted the accident to VeloNews in an exclusive...

Obama warns 'unelected' Supreme Court against striking down health law
FoxNews.com ^ | April 2, 2012 President Obama, employing his strongest language to date on the Supreme Court review of the federal health care overhaul, cautioned the court Monday against overturning the law -- while repeatedly saying he's "confident" it will be upheld.

Audio: Scalia lectures Verrilli on enumerated powers (What is left, if the gov't can do this?)
Hotair ^ | 03/27/2012 | AllahPundit The guy who uploaded this to YouTube calls it a benchslap. It's loads of fun, and the point about limited powers will sound familiar. The key part comes early when Scalia jumps in to challenge Verrilli's citation of Court precedent. Those cases dealt with commerce, he says; in this case, the legislation is aimed at people who aren't participating in commerce, i.e. people without insurance. That's a gut-punch to the left since, once you make that move conceptually, the Commerce Clause defense of the statute is hanging by a thread. You can follow his thinking over the rest of the...

Elderly dying due to 'despicable age discrimination in NHS'

Telegraph UK ^ | 3/25/12 | Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor Thousands of elderly people are dying unnecessarily early because despicable age discrimination in the NHS is denying them treatment for cancer, a charity has warned. A lack of treatment or insufficient treatment is contributing to 14,000 deaths a year in people over the age of 75, Macmillan Cancer Support has found, in what it called an unacceptable act of discrimination. Deaths from cancer are reducing in most age groups but at a slower rate in those aged 74 to 84 and are increasing in people aged 85 and over, the report said. The report, The Age Old Excuse: the under...

PHOTOS: This is tyranny: tens of thousands decry HHS mandate in 146 nationwide protests
Life Site News ^ | March 23, 2012 | Kathleen Gilbert WASHINGTON, March 23, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Another Occupy movement has just rocked the United States of America - but with a very different message. Tens of thousands of men and women gathered in 146 protests on Friday, joining a grassroots effort that organizers say grew far beyond expectations. The rallies were held to protest the Obama administration mandate forcing religious universities, charities, and other groups to pay for abortifacient drugs and other birth control for students and employees. But while the purpose of the Occupy protests last Fall was sometimes criticized as being somewhat hazy, the message of this event...

Video: Wasserman-Schultz Admits People Will Lose Their Health Insurance Under ObamaCare
The Hope For America ^ | 3/22/12 | Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Martha MacCallum The bad hair day chairperson of the DNC had a semi-contentious interview with FNC's Martha MacCallum.Wasserman-Schultz was asked about the CBO report which states that 20 million people will lose their health insurance coverage under ObamaCare. She tried to answer that one by stating, essentially, that they won't lose "coverage" even if they lose "their coverage". And that's an important distinction. Because Obama told us that we would be able to keep our existing health insurance plan under ObamaCare. That clip is included at the end of this video. In summary: No, you can't necessarily keep your health insurance plan

Sebelius: Living a Mile from a Grocery 'May Be Too Far to Get Healthier Food'
CNSNews ^ Sebelius: Living a Mile from a Grocery 'May Be Too Far to Get Healthier Food' By Penny Starr March 6, 2012 (CNSNews.com) The administrations definition of a food desert an urban area where a significant share of the population lives more than one mile from a grocery store came under the microscope during a Health and Human Services appropriations hearing on Capitol Hill Tuesday. Questioning HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, a Republican lawmaker said it was likely most of those present at the hearing lived a mile from their nearest grocery store. Do you think that definition should...

Barack Obamas Sole Article in Harvard Law Review Promotes Abortion

Life News ^ | 8/22/08 | Steven Ertelt Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) How strongly does Barack Obama believe in unlimited abortions? Strongly enough that the only article he wrote for the Harvard Law Review while he was a law school student talked about how fervently believed in legalized abortion. Obamas name wasnt attached to any other legal scholarship during the time. In an article unearthed by the Politico web site, Obama, as the president of the Harvard Law Review, wrote an unsigned article touting abortion. The web site says the article comes in at six pages and is contained in the third volume of the 1990 Harvard Law...

Rep. Michele Bachmann Warns Government May Limit Number of Babies

Opposing Views ^ | 3/7/12 | Michael Allen On Tuesday night, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) appeared on GBTVs 'Real News From The Blaze' to attack government mandated insurance coverage for contraception, which she claimed could lead to the "health care dictator" limiting the number of babies born per family. Rep. Bachmann said: Going with that logic, it isnt far-fetched to think the President of the United States could saywe need to save health care expensesthe federal government will only pay for one baby to be born in the hospital per family. Or two babies to be born per family. That could happen.

UK: More than half care home residents denied basic care, unpublished data shows
The Telegraph ^ | 3/7/2012 | Donna Bowater and John Bingham Older people routinely have to wait up to three months for formal checks for painful conditions such as bed sores, according to figures from the health care watchdog. A quarter were not given a choice of male or female staff to help them use the lavatory and more than a third of care homes surveyed admitted delays in getting medication to residents. Campaigners blamed NHS bureaucrats showing a lack of interest and failing to provide expert assessments for conditions as basic as incontinence. The findings emerged after almost 1,000 elderly people yesterday descended on Parliament to lobby their MPs calling...

Artificial nutrition and hydration should normally be withdrawn, says doctor

BioEdge ^ | 3/2/12 | Michael Cook An American doctor argues in the latest issue of the leading journal Bioethics that artificial nutrition and hydration should be withdrawn from all patients in a permanent vegetative state unless there is clear evidence that they want to be kept alive. Dr Catherine Constable, of New York University School of Medicine, studied bioethics at the Ethox Centre at Oxford University. She argues that the current presumption in favour of maintaining ANH is misguided. It is not in the interests of the patient nor, because of its cost, in the interest of society.However, her argument is not based upon cost,...

Obama in personal phone call to Sandra Fluke: Your parents should be proud
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/02/obama-in-personal-phone-call-to-sandrafluke-your-parents-should-be-proud/ ^ The president clearly thinks its advantageous to keep conservatives preoccupied with his contraception mandate because he sure ensures the topic stays in the spotlight. Today, he did that with a rare personal phone call to Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student who earlier this week testified in support of the mandate by saying that she and her peers are going broke to buy birth control.

Obama Cabinet Secretary: 'The Private [Insurance] Market is in a Death Spiral'

CNS News ^ | February 29, 2012 | Fred Lucas Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday that the days of private health insurance are coming to an end in the United States. The private market is in a death spiral, Sebelius said, contending this would be the case whether or not President Barack Obama's health care law had been enacted. At the Ways and Means hearing, Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) asked Sebelius about the administrations assurances that people who liked their current health insurance plan would be able to keep it under the new law. How about when the president...

California health insurers to raise average rates 8% to 14%

LA Times ^ | 2/24/2012 | Chad Terhune California's largest health insurers are raising average rates by about 8% to 14% for hundreds of thousands of consumers with individual coverage, outpacing the costs of overall medical care. The cost of goods and services associated with medical care grew just 3.6% over the last 12 months nationally, government figures show. But insurance premiums have kept climbing at a faster pace in California. Insurers defended their rate hikes, saying they are based on their claims experience with the customers they insure and not just the broader rate of medical inflation. They also say that healthier members dropped out of the...

Bill to Allow Organ Farming from Unconscious Patients!

First Things ^ | February 23, 2012 | Wesley J. Smith Good grief! A Maryland state legislator has filed a bill that would allow surrogate decision makers to donate kidneys and liver lobes. From HB 449: THIS SUBSECTION APPLIES ONLY TO A PATIENT WHO HAS BEEN CERTIFIED UNDER 5606(B) OF THIS SUBTITLE TO BE IN A PERSISTENT 8 VEGETATIVE STATE. (3) A PERSON AUTHORIZED TO MAKE HEALTH CARE DECISIONS FOR ANOTHER UNDER THIS SECTION MAY AUTHORIZE THE DONATION OF A NONVITAL ORGAN IF THE DONATION IS BASED ON: (I) THE WISHES OF THE PATIENT AS PREVIOUSLY EXPRESSED BY THE PATIENT; OR (II) A DETERMINATION BY THE SURROGATE THAT THE DONATION...

The Importance of Competition and the Marketplace in Biopharmaceutical Innovation

Forbes ^ | 02/22/2012 | John LaMattina Presidential candidate Rick Santorum recently had an interesting exchange with a mother about the high cost of medicines. As reported by Ed Silverman on February 3rd on his Pharmalot blog, Santorum defended the right of biopharmaceutical companies to make a profit in order to fund R&D and to discover more innovative medications: There are many people sick today who, 10 years from now, are going to be alive because of some drug invented in the next 10 years. If we say: You drug companies are greedy and bad, you cant make a return on your money, then we freeze innovation....

Rasmussens reminder: Majority still favors ObamaCare repeal

Hot Air ^ | February 21, 2012 | Ed Morrissey Perhaps Rasmussens latest poll on ObamaCare will serve as a reminder to the Republican presidential hopefuls that this will be a very productive line of attack in the general election. Given that the HHS mandate springs directly from ObamaCare, it also serves as a guideline on how to handle that issue as well: Despite the controversy over the Obama administrations requirement that Catholic institutions provide free contraceptive coverage for employees, voters opinions on the health care law behind that requirement remain steady. Just over half of voters still want the law repealed. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of...

British government to introduce privatization in health-care system

HotAir ^ | 2/18/12 | Ed Morrissey While the US federal government expands its diktat power over American health care, the British are looking for ways to rescue themselves from their own government-run system. In an attempt to resolve access and provider issues, Prime Minister David Cameron and the Conservatives want to begin outsourcing work to private practitioners outside the NHS, a reversal of over six decades of public policy:

Obama's Nurse Ratched

American Spectator ^ | 2/16/12 | ROBERT M. GOLDBERG Behind every powerful health care mandate under Obamacare is a power-hungry woman named Kathleen Sebelius. As the Health and Human Services Secretary, she has unprecedented power under Obamacare to control health care decisions, the approval of medical products and the national biomedical research agenda. The Secretary is not only the key player; she is the only one on the field. "The Secretary shall" is mentioned more than 1000 times in the new health care law. Sebelius is using that power to promote a liberal agenda and Obama's re-election. She pushed the contraception edict. Her staff wrote the rules that decided...

First private, door-to-door euthanasia service opens in Netherlands

LifeSiteNews ^ | 2/8/12 | Matthew Cullinan Hoffman February 8, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Netherlands Right-to-Die Association (NVVE) has announced that it will soon fulfill a promise made last year to open a private euthanasia clinic that offers door-to-door service, for people who cant convince their regular doctor to kill them. According to reports in the Spanish and Portuguese-language press, the clinic will serve clients who wish to end their lives, but have been refused help from doctors for ethical reasons. A report by Radio Netherlands says that the organization has mentioned patients who are in the early stages of dementia and those suffering from chronic psychiatric problems....

Muslims Exempt From Obamacare (not required to provide contraceptives)

http://libertyandpride.com/muslims-exempt-from-obamacare/ ^ There are several reasons why an individual could claim exemption, being a member of a religion that does not believe in insurance is one of them. Islam is one of those religions. Muslims believe that health insurance is haraam, or forbidden; because they liken the ambiguity and probability of insurance to gambling. This belief excludes them from any of the requirements, mandates, or penalties set forth in the bill. Other excluded groups include Amish, American Indians, and Christian Scientists.

'This is a death sentence': Pensioner with aneurysm that could kill her any minute told NHS
Daily Mail ^ | 2/6/12 | Lauren Paxman When great-grandmother Barbara Judge was told that she needed an operation on her aortic aneurysm and her case had been referred to a special funding panel, she assumed it was a formality. But 10 days ago, the 72-year-old received a letter which said her local NHS trust would not pay for the treatment. Without the lifesaving operation, Barbara fears she could die any time. A rupture in the aneurysm--a blood balloon on the aorta--could kill her in minutes. Surgeons in London are confident they can save the grandmother-of-five, but the NHS believe they cannot afford to pay

UK elderly are wasting too many bedrooms (CIVIL WAR if they try this in US.
CFP ^ | 05 FEB 12 | Anna Grayson London, England-In yet another outrageous piece of social engineering from our coalition government, pensioners will be encouraged to downsize to smaller properties allowing local councils to rent their homes out as council houses and manage the tenancy. Local authorities will help older people move from their homes into more suitable accommodation. Grant Schapps, the Housing Minister, who is a conservative member of parliament claims the scheme will solve a socalled housing crisis as well as creating a system that will permit access to various sources of wealth that are currently not being used to pay for care. Read that as...

NICE: Prostate cancer drug too costly for NHS

BBCNews ^ | Smitha Mundasad A drug that can extend the life of men with advanced prostate cancer by more than three months has provisionally been rejected for NHS use. The health watchdog for England and Wales says the drug's benefits are not enough to justify the price the NHS has been asked to pay. Cancer charities have been angered by the decision about abiraterone, one of the few drugs available to men in the final stages of prostate cancer. A final decision is yet to be made. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer to affect men in the UK. Abiraterone costs just under...

RUSH: Santorum Was Right About Romneycare www.RushLimbaugh.com ^ | January 30, 2012 | Rush Limbaugh Santorum Was Right About Romneycare January 30, 2012 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Wall Street Journal, Grace-Marie Turner: "Rick Santorum went for the jugular in Thursday night's Republican presidential debate, exposing Mitt Romney's weak and contradictory defense of his Massachusetts healthreform law. Mr. Santorum attacked Mr. Romney's claim that the individual mandate affects only'the 8% of people who didn't have insurance.'Mr. Romney insisted that'92% of the people in my state had insurance before our plan went in place. And nothing changes for them.'Mr. Santorum blasted back that'what Governor Romney said is just factually incorrect,'because the mandate affects 100% of the residents...

Yemeni president heads to US for medical treatment

msnbc.com ^ | 1/28/12 | AHMED AL-HAJ/ AP SANAA, Yemen Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh headed to the United States on Saturday for medical treatment, his spokesman said, the latest stage in an effort to distance him from his country's policies to help ease a transition from his rule. Ahmed al-Soufi, the press officer for the presidency, told The Associated Press that Saleh had arrived in London and would leave later Saturday for New York for medical treatment in the United States for wounds suffered in a June assassination attempt in the Yemeni capital. Saleh left Yemen for to neighboring Oman a week ago, planning to head...

Confirmed: Romneycare = Obamacare

Michelle Malkin ^ | 1/26/12 | Michelle Malkin

Obama's game plan: Do nothing

Thursday, January 26, 2012 8:03:16 AM by SmithL 12 replies San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 1/26/12 | Debra J. Saunders Toward the end of his State of the Union speech, President Obama observed that Washington politicians should learn from the example of the U.S. military: "When you're marching into battle, you look out for the person next to you, or the mission fails." Obama recalled the successful Navy SEAL mission, which under his watch took out Obama bin Laden, and observed, "the mission only succeeded because every member of that unit trusted each other - because you can't charge up those stairs, into darkness and danger, unless you know that there's someone behind you, watching your back." At first blush,...

Four patients die thirsty or starving Every Day on our hospital wards show damning new statistics
Daily Mail ^ | 1/22/12 | Sophie Borland Four patients are dying hungry and thirsty on hospital wards every day, shocking figures reveal. Dehydration or malnutrition directly caused or was linked to 1,316 deaths last year in NHS trusts and privately run hospitals. The revelation follows a series of damning reports accusing staff of failing to address the most basic needs of the vulnerable, particularly the elderly. Only this month David Cameron was forced to order nurses to carry out hourly spot checks of patients just to see whether they need help eating, drinking or going to the toilet.

Labor unions primary recipients of Obamacare waivers

dailycaller.com ^ | 01/06/2012 | By Paul Conner Labor unions continued to receive the overwhelming majority of waivers from the presidents health care reform law since the Obama administration tightened application rules last summer. Documents released in a classic Friday afternoon news dump show that labor unions representing 543,812 workers received waivers from President Barack Obamas signature legislation since June 17, 2011. By contrast, private employers with a total of 69,813 employees, many of whom work for small businesses, were granted waivers. The Department of Health and Human Services revised the rules governing applications for health reform waivers June 17, 2011, amid a steady stream of controversial news...

Why the Doctor Wont See You

Townhall.com ^ | January 7, 2012 | John C. Goodman Are you having difficulty finding a doctor who will see you? If you are, brace yourself. Things are about to get a whole lot worse. Right now, the biggest problems are in Massachusetts. If you live in Boston and are trying to see a new family doctor, get prepared to wait more than two months before you ever get a foot in the door. For the state as a whole, the average wait to see a new family doctor is one month. More than half of all family doctors and more than half of all internists are not accepting new...

Doctors going broke

CNN Money ^ | 1/5/12 | Parija Kavilanz New York - Doctors in America are harboring an embarrassing secret: Many of them are going broke. This quiet reality, which is spreading nationwide, is claiming a wide range of casualties, including family physicians, cardiologists and oncologists. Industry watchers say the trend is worrisome. Half of all doctors in the nation operate a private practice. So if a cash crunch forces the death of an independent practice, it robs a community of a vital health care resource. (Snip) Doctors list shrinking insurance reimbursements, changing regulations, rising business and drug costs among the factors preventing them from keeping their practices afloat

Rejecting Obamacare: Why the Legislature Defunded the State Health Exchange
Michigan Capitol Confidential ^ | 12/28/2011 | Jack McHugh In an end of the year analysis of Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, the Associated Press states that one of the political misses of Snyders first year was he failed to get the GOP-led House to approve spending federal dollars to develop a state health exchange where individuals and small businesses could shop for health insurance. Although the AP considers it a failure for the Snyder Administration, many limited-government proponents believe that it is a good thing the exchange was not created. Health care exchanges are health care plans regulated by a state where residents can purchase health insurance. Jack McHugh,...

An American's nightmare in a Mexican hospital

American Thinker ^ | 12/18/11 | David Paulin A recent vacation in Mexico turned into a nightmare for a 79-year-old Illinois man. But it wasn't a devastating bus crash that almost killed U.S.-born Alfonso Acosta. It was his stay in one of Mexico's government-run hospitals. According to a harrowing account in the Quad-City Times, a daily newspaper, Acosta suffered a "major head injury, multiple facial fractures, broken ribs and a punctured lung." Yet for five weeks he lay "virtually untreated" at the hospital where he was taken in Toluca, about 40 miles southwest from Mexico City, say outraged family members in the United States who rushed to his

Loved ones not always told their relative is on controversial 'death pathway
telegraph.co.uk ^ | 10:00PM GMT 01 Dec 2011 | Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor Tens of thousands of patients with terminal illnesses are being placed on a "death pathway"

Surgeon Says Obamacare Will Nix Brain Operations for Elderly

Life News ^ | 11/30/11 | Warner Todd Huston/Steven Ertelt Are you an elderly American? Well get ready to be determined a non-essential medical expenditure if Obamacare has any say in the matter which it will if its allowed to become fully implemented. A caller to the nationally syndicated Mark Levin talk radio show last week gave us an appalling sneak peak at the death panels that are about to be unleashed on the country once Obamacare is fully implemented (God forbid). The caller said that he was a neurosurgeon and told talker Levin that the advance briefing that he got from government representatives informed him that anyone over...

No Breast Cancer Screening For Women Aged 40-49, New Canadian Guidelines

Medical News Today ^ | 11/21/2011 | Editor's Choice Women aged forty to forty-nine should not undergo routine mammography screening for breast cancer, according to new guidelines issued by the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care, which were published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). The Task Force also recommends that the screening interval be extended to every two to three years for females aged 50 to 74, from every two years. Women should not carry out clinical breast exams and breast self-examinations if they have no symptoms pointing to breast cancer, the guidelines also recommend.

Elderly need to be cared for, not killed

Voxy ^ | 11/21/11 | Voxy The Nathaniel Centre - The New Zealand Catholic Bioethics Centre - is appalled at suggestions that legalizing euthanasia could be a solution to the increasing number of suicides amongst elderly New Zealanders. Director, John Kleinsman, says that people suffering from depression need extra care and support, not encouragement to die. "The old and the sick can too easily be persuaded, often in subtle ways, that their lives are not worth living. If people are suffering depression, they need help with that - they need support, care and counseling not a license to kill themselves or be killed at the hands...

Since Obamacares Passage, Millions Have Lost Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance

www.weeklystandard.com ^ | November 11, 2011 | JEFFREY H. ANDERSON Throughout the Obamacare debate, President Obama repeatedly promised, If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. Now, Gallup reports that from the first quarter of 2010 (when Obama signed Obamacare into law) to the third quarter of this year, 2 percent of American adults lost their employer sponsored health insurance. In other words, about 4.5 million Americans lost their employer-sponsored insurance over a span of just 18 months. This is not what the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had predicted would happen. Rather, the CBO had predicted that Obamacare would increase the number of people...

New info indicates Justice Kagan's conflict of interest on ObamaCare

Examiner ^ | 11-11-11 | Anthony Martin When former Obama Administration attorney Elena Kagan was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by Barack Obama, conservatives warned that the nominee was perhaps the most politically partisan Justice that has ever served on the high court. Kagan had served as Obama's Solicitor-General and was responsible for defending his policies in court cases.But new information has surfaced today that may indicate a stark conflict of interest when it comes Kagan and the Supreme Court's decision on the constitutionality of ObamaCare. As a result of a lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch and CNSNews in response to the Justice Department's refusal to...

Woman with Alzheimers euthanized in Netherlands

LifeSiteNews ^ | 11/10/11 | Patrick B. Craine AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, November 10, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) When a 64-year-old Dutch woman with dementia was killed in March, she was the first to be euthanized without the ability to consent, Dutch media reported Wednesday. But anti-euthanasia activists are contesting the claim, saying Dutch patients have been killed without their consent for years. The woman, a long-time euthanasia advocate, had progressed in her illness to the point where she lacked the ability to consent, but a committee of doctors approved the euthanasia nevertheless. She left a note expressing her wish to be euthanized, and her husband and children supported her decision....

Guess How They'll Now Keep Down Health Care Spending in Massachusetts?
Hotair ^ | 11/10/2011 | Joseph Lawler From the Boston Globe: BOSTONA special commission charged with studying rising health care costs in Massachusetts is recommending the creation of an independent oversight panel to identify acceptable and unacceptable reasons for price variations in care based on which hospital or doctor is used. The Special Commission on Provider Price Reform was created by lawmaker last year. It also recommends that state regulators be given the authority to settle price disputes between insurers and health care providers if the cost of a medical procedure exceeds the market-based median. So, Romneycare is proving to be too expensive. And the fix is a...

Appeals court upholds Obamas health care law

The Washington Times ^ | November 8, 2011 | Paige Winfield Cunningham A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a controversial requirement for Americans to purchase health insurance, becoming the sixth appeals court to rule on challenges to President Obamas health care law that are likely headed to the Supreme Court next year. In a split opinion, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said that the centerpiece of the health care law a mandate for individuals to buy health insurance or pay a fine was an encroachment on individual liberty, but no more so than requiring businesses to serve all customers

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2803148/posts There are actually two messages here. The 1st points out the incredible "benefits" of Universal Healthcare and is very interesting; the 2nd is absolutely astounding - and explains a lot. 1. A recent "Investor's Business Daily" article provided very interesting statistics from a survey by the United Nations International Health Organization. Percentage of men and women who survived a cancer five years after diagnosis: U.S. 65% England 46% Canada 42% Percentage of patients diagnosed with diabetes who received treatment within six months: U.S. 93% England 15% Canada 43% Percentage of seniors needing hip replacement who received it within six months: U.S. 90% England 15% Canada 43% Percentage referred to a medical specialist who see one within one month: U.S. 77% England 40% Canada 43% Number of MRI scanners (a prime diagnostic tool) per million people: U.S. 71 England 14 Canada 18 Percentage of seniors (65+), with low income, who say they are in "excellent health": U..S. 12% England 02% Canada 06%

ObamaCare's Billions In Hidden Pork For Unions

IBD Editorials ^ | November 3, 2011 | Editor Health Reform: How do you funnel billions of dollars to your union pals at a time when the government is running record deficits? Easy, you just tuck the money into ObamaCare. According to a new Government Accountability Office report, the federal government has so far handed out $2.7 billion out of a $5 billion program squirreled away in ObamaCare. The Early Retiree Reinsurance Program is advertized as a way to "stabilize the availability of employer-sponsored coverage for early retirees," according to a Health and Human Services memo. The argument goes that companies are increasingly dropping retiree health benefits,

Pelosi Defends Obamacare Waivers To 1,800 Firms: "They're Small Companies" [Video]
Real Clear Politics ^ | 10/28/11 | Real Clear Politics "They're small. I couldn't speak to all 1,800 of them, but some of the lists that I have seen have been very, very small companies. They will not have a big impact on the economy of our country," Nancy Pelosi said in an interview with CNBC. McDonalds, one of the nation's largest employers in recent years, has received a waiver.

Between 46,000 and 49,000 Massachusetts Residents Fined Under 'Romneycare' Law
Capitol Confidential ^ | 10/25/2011 | Jack McHugh

55-year-old man responsive after nearly being starved to death at hospital

Alliance Defense Fund ^ | 10/21/11 | Matt Bowman FREDERICK, Md. A 55-year-old Maryland man who became temporarily unconscious after suffering a heart attack and a seizure has been saved from being starved to death after an ADF-allied attorney obtained an order in state court on behalf of the mans mother and brother. The man, Daniel Sanger, is now responding to hospital staff after going six days without food and water. Although Sanger told his doctor and his mother I want to live before he went unconscious, Frederick Memorial Hospital removed the public-assistance patient from life-giving food, water, and nutrients on Friday with the permission of his wife

Wesley J. Smith: The "Duty to Die" Advances

The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network ^ | 10/19/11 | Wesley J. Smith Is there such a thing as a duty to die? Some notable voices in bioethics say, yes. They believe that as a matter of distributive justice, when people reach a certain advanced age, severe disability, or very poor health, they owe it to society, their familiesand even themselvesto allow life to (or make it) end. Thus, in 1997, University of Tennessee bioethics professor, John Hardwig, wrote in the prestigious Hastings Center Report, A duty to die is more likely when continuing to live will impose significant burdensemotional burdens, extensive caregiving, destruction of life plans, and yes, financial hardshipon your family...

Patients go hungry in half of hospitals: Elderly routinely left for hours without a drink (UK)
MailOnline ^ | Oct 7, 2011 | Sophie Borland Nearly half of hospitals visited by undercover inspectors are failing to meet basic nutrition standards, a damning report has warned. Elderly patients are routinely left without anything to drink for hours, with some so dehydrated they are being put on drips. Other patients found themselves regularly being fed by their relatives because nursing staff were too busy to help. Mealtime: But in many hospitals patients must wait hours without food or drink (picture posed by models) Mealtime: But in many hospitals patients must wait hours without food or drink (picture posed by models) The appalling failings were uncovered by the...

Shock Photos: Candidate Obama Appeared And Marched With New Black Panther Party in 2007
Big Government ^ | 10/3/11 | Andrew Breitbart New photographs obtained exclusively by BigGovernment.com reveal that Barack Obama appeared and marched with members of the New Black Panther Party as he campaigned for president in Selma, Alabama in March 2007. The photographs, captured from a Flickr photo-sharing account before it was scrubbed, are the latest evidence of the mainstream medias failure to examine Obamas extremist ties and radical roots. In addition, the new images raise questions about the possible motives of the Obama administration in its infamous decision to drop the prosecution of the Panthers for voter intimidation. The images, presented below, also renew doubts about the transparency...

Don't give out cancer drugs if it's just to extend life: Treatment costs can't be justified,
Daily Mail ^ | 9/26/11 | Sophie Borland Patients with terminal cancer should not be given life-extending drugs, doctors said yesterday. The treatments give false hope and are too costly for the public purse, they warned. The group of 37 cancer experts, including British specialist Karol Sikora, claimed a 'culture of excess' had led doctors to 'overtreat, overdiagnose and overpromise'. Campaigners dismissed the report, saying it was wrong to write off cancer victims. 'I would hardly call this type of treatment futile,' said Rose Woodward, of the James Whale Fund for Kidney Cancer.

Canadian MDs consider denying fertility treatments to obese women

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/new-health/health-news/canadianmds-consider-denying-fertility-treatments-to-obese-women/article2173941/ ^ | 9/26/2011 | carolyn abraham Canadian doctors are considering a policy that would bar obese women from trying to have babies through fertility treatments provoking debate over whether the fat have the same reproductive rights as the thin. Some studies find obese women face higher risks of medical complications while trying to become pregnant through in-vitro fertilization (IVF). The science is not certain and some believe a ban would be tantamount to discrimination, yet a growing number of fertility doctors worldwide already bar treatment based on a womans Body Mass Index. Weve had many angry patients say to us, This is discriminatory and I...

China and India Making Inroads in Biotech Drugs

New York Times ^ | 18 Sep 2011 | Gardiner Harris Chinese and Indian drug makers have taken over much of the global trade in medicines and now manufacture more than 80 percent of the active ingredients in drugs sold worldwide. But they had never been able to copy the complex and expensive biotech medicines increasingly used to treat cancer, diabetes and other diseases in rich nations like the United States until now. These generic drug companies say they are on the verge of selling cheaper copies of such huge sellers as Herceptin for breast cancer, Avastin for colon cancer, Rituxan for nonHodgkins lymphoma and Enbrel for rheumatoid arthritis.

ObamaCare Undermined by Study that RomneyCare Killed 18,000 Jobs, Cost $8 billion
Rick Perry.org ^ | September 15th, 2011 | Staff AUSTIN President Obamas socialized medicine plan was dealt a serious blow today by a new Beacon Hill Institute study showing that Governor Mitt Romneys RomneyCare plan has cost 18,000 jobs and $8 billion. If RomneyCare killed 18,000 jobs in Massachusetts, imagine what ObamaCare will do to a U.S. economy already hurting from too much liberalism, said Perry spokesman Ray Sullivan. These government-mandated health schemes kill too many jobs and cost too much. RomneyCares job-killing results are another reason ObamaCare must be stopped. Yesterday, Governor Romney defended RomneyCare at a town hall meeting in Sun Lakes, Arizona,

Report: Romneycare a killer (Study finds Bay State lost thousands of jobs)
http://www.bostonherald.com ^ | Thursday, September 15, 2011 | Frank Quaratiello The Bay States controversial 2006 universal health-care plan also known as Romneycare has cost Massachusetts more than 18,000 jobs, according to an exclusive blockbuster study that could provide ammo to GOP rivals of former Gov. Mitt Romney as he touts his job-creating chops on the campaign trail. Mandating health insurance coverage and expanding the demand for health services without increasing supply drove up costs. Economics 101 tells us that, said Paul Bachman, research director at Suffolk Universitys Beacon Hill Institute, the conservative think tank that conducted the study. The Herald obtained an exclusive copy of the findings.

No Place For Gov't

IBD Editorials ^ | September 14, 2011 | Staff Health Care: Another federal judge has ruled that ObamaCare's individual mandate is unconstitutional. It's hard to see how a court could possibly decide any other way. Presiding in Harrisburg, Pa., district court Judge Christopher Conner ruled Tuesday that the law's individual mandate that requires those who don't have health care insurance to buy it "cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny." Conner, who is the third federal judge to overturn the law in part or in whole, reminded the Democrats of the elementary principles they ignored when they passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Mich. to require BMI reports on kids

Wednesday, September 14, 2011 11:13:26 AM by Palter 18 replies AP ^ | 14 Sept 2011 | KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN Gov. Rick Snyder plans to direct doctors in Michigan to begin monitoring the body weight of their young patients and provide the data to a state registry in one of the most extensive government efforts to address the growing problem of pediatric obesity, the Associated Press has learned. The move would help track the state's growing obesity problem while opening the way for doctors to be more proactive in offering advice, Snyder spokeswoman Sara Wurfel told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The Republican governor will announce the initiative Wednesday as part of his proposal for improving Michigan residents' health.

Obama HHS: Doctor malpractice, disciplinary data no longer public

fiercehealthcare.com ^ | Sept 14, 2011 | Alicia Caramenico While the healthcare industry promotes enhanced transparency, the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) is taking a step in the other direction, shutting down the once-public National Practitioner Data Bank, reports The Kansas City Star. As a result, the public can no longer access information on malpractice and disciplinary actions against thousands of doctors. "We have a responsibility to make sure under federal law that it remains confidential," said Martin Kramer, spokesman for the HHS's Health Resources and Services Administration, which oversees the Data Bank. The HHS defends the shutdown, noting that the names of doctors were getting leaked...

Pa. Fed Judge Knocks Down Key Obamacare Health Care Requirement
AP ^ | 9 /13 11 | Marc Levy HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) The requirement in the national health-care overhaul law that individuals buy health insurance is unconstitutional, a federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled Tuesday in a question that the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to settle. The suit decided by Judge Christopher C. Conner in Harrisburg is one of more than 30 lawsuits nationwide that have been filed over the 2010 law that is President Barack Obama's signature initiative. Conner, who was appointed to the federal bench in 2002 by President George W. Bush, said the individual mandate is an unconstitutional extension of authority granted to the federal

Health reform has sent costs soaring

NY Post ^ | September 12, 2011 | Betsy McCaughey The actuaries at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services now forecast health-care spending to reach 19.8 percent of GDP by 2020, up from 16.6 percent when President Obama took office. And half this spending (49 percent) will be by government. The actuaries predictions suggest that, in the long run, the largest threat to the nations solvency isnt Medicare; its the Obama health laws vast expansion of Medicaid, which will cost more than Medicare once baby-boom demand peaks. Simply put, the presidents reform is converting Medicaid from a temporary safety net to a permanent, taxpayer-paid health entitlement, replacing private insurance....

http://www.dailynews.com/health/ci_18848233 Medical fraud in Valley alleged 91 charged involving $295 million in false billings.

GP's ordered to ration cancer scans (British socialized medicine)

Daily Mail ^ | Sept. 8, 2011 | Sophie Borland Family doctors have been ordered to ration the number of patients they send for life-saving cancer scans to save money. They are being told to slash the number they refer to hospital for tests including ultrasounds, MRIs and CT scans commonly used to spot tumours. Last night experts warned the cost-saving measures increased the risk of patients being diagnosed too late and dying unnecessarily. Britain has one of the lowest cancer survival rates in Europe, and experts say late diagnosis is to blame. The cuts are being brought in despite Government pledges to give GPs better access to cancer tests...

Private hospital operations to cut NHS waiting times

BBC ^ | 7 September 2011 The NHS in Wales has been given the go ahead to use private hospitals to help cut waiting times for orthopaedic surgery. The Welsh Government said local health boards should explore all possible ways of meeting targets. The Conservatives said Labour had to clarify its policy and the Lib Dems that it was "muddled and inconsistent". Prior to May's assembly election, the previous government ruled out the use of the private sector in the NHS. A plan to treat orthopaedic patients in south Wales within the target time of 36 weeks lists the use of the independent sector among a...

Goldberg: Obamacare impacts Americans' access to drugs (Commiecare shortages begin)

Star-Telegram ^ | 9/03/11 | Robert Goldberg Goldberg: Obamacare impacts Americans' access to drugsBy Robert Goldberg Special to the Star-Telegram Posted Saturday, Sep. 03, 2011 Call it Obamacare's Final Destination Tour. People whose lives should be saved by new and existing cancer drugs are driving from hospital to hospital in search of medicines in short supply -- thanks in part to Obamacare's implementation. Over the past two years, shortages have developed for more than 180 drugs, including cancer treatments. The shortfall is the result of stricter FDA regulation, government price controls on already discounted but complex drugs, and policies that discourage the use of new medications.

GE Healthcare cutting 81 jobs

JS ONLINE ^ | 8-23-11 | John Schmid GE Healthcare Ltd. is cutting 81 jobs at its Milwaukee and Waukesha facilities, or 1.2% of the company's positions in southeastern Wisconsin, the medical technologies division of the General Electric Co. said Tuesday. In response to questions, a GE spokesman said notifications were sent out on Friday and that GE is reducing staff in response to the economic uncertainty in the U.S. and Europe. GE, which employs about 6,500 in southeastern Wisconsin, provided few other details. GE's medical technology operations in the region, based in Waukesha, Milwaukee and Wauwatosa, manufacture equipment for diagnostic imaging and X-ray equipment; computed tomography; magnetic

Canadas feds paying full maternity benefits after abortion

LifeSiteNews ^ | 9/2/11 | Patrick B. Craine OTTAWA, Ontario, September 2, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Pro-life Canadians have complained for years that they are forced to pay for the direct killing of unborn children through the countrys health system. It turns out they are also paying for abortive mothers to get full maternity benefits. Canadas employment insurance guidelines reveal that a woman who aborts her child after 19 weeks

gestation is eligible to receive 17 weeks of maternity leave, the same as a mother who gives birth. For an abortion occurring before 19 weeks gestation, the woman can collect sick leave for the same length of time.

Age, wage to play big roles in health cost

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel ^ | 8/28/11 | Guy Boulton People who are young, healthy and have good jobs that don't provide health benefits will pay more for health insurance under federal health care reform. People who are older, or have health problems, will pay less. So will those who work in low-paying jobs and buy insurance on their own. At the same time, the number of people without health insurance in Wisconsin would drop by 340,000 by 2016. Those are among the key projections in a report released last week by the state Office of Free Market Health Care on how health care reform will affect Wisconsin.

The 6-Year Search for a Family Doctor in Canada

Professor Blog for Economics and Finance ^ | 8/23/11 | Mark J. Perry From the article "The Soul-Destroying Search for a Family Doctor," about a woman's six-year search to find a family doctor in Canada, where the single-payer system is frequently plagued with shortages for primary care physicians. Although once you manage to find one, you are entitled to receive their medical services for "free" (and there might be some long waiting times): "When the man took my registration papers and said congratulations, you have a family doctor, I confess I had to hold back a few tears. I had just spent three hours of my Saturday standing in line (pictured above)

Coventry Hospital 'removed healthy part of brain' (more NHS hijinks!)

BBC ^ | 8/23/11 A Warwickshire hospital trust has admitted liability after a man suffered permanent brain damage after he was subjected to unnecessary brain surgery. John Tunney, 63, from Sutton Coldfield should have been given tablets to control a pituitary gland problem. But instead he was subjected to an unnecessary biopsy

by a surgeon who then wrongly removed part of his brain rather than the tumour. The former paramedic is now partially sighted and needs full-time care. University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust said the surgeon involved was no longer involved in such surgery. Richard Kennedy,

U.S. Scrambling to Ease Shortage of Vital Medicine

New York Times ^ | August 19, 2011 | GARDINER HARRIS WASHINGTON Federal officials and lawmakers, along with the drug industry and doctors groups, are rushing to find remedies for critical shortages of drugs to treat a number of life-threatening illnesses, including bacterial infection and several forms of cancer. The proposed solutions, which include a national stockpile of cancer medicines and a nonprofit company that will import drugs and eventually make them, are still in the early or planning stages. But the sense of alarm is widespread.

The Federal War Against Medical Technology

IBD Editorials ^ | August 18, 2011 | BENJAMIN ZYCHER At about $75 billion annually, U.S. private-sector investment in medical technology is substantial, and a large body of research demonstrates that the economic returns to these investments are enormous. But emerging federal policies are likely to create powerful disincentives for the research and development of medical innovations, in particular, pharmaceuticals and medical devices and equipment. Two such policies the emerging process for comparative effectiveness reviews and the new auction design for durable medical equipment implemented by the Medicare program are not yet front-page news. But new research from the Pacific Research Institute shows that these policies will yield...

Never-Confirmed Medicare Director Announces New Obamacare Paperwork Requirement

Cybercast News Service ^ | 8/18/11 | Fred Lucas

A proposed federal health insurance regulation set to take effect next year requires insurers to provide consumers with explanatory summaries of their plans, but the insurance industry contends this could be costly to enrollees, and offer little benefit. The new rule part of the $1 trillion Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare was announced Wednesday by Donald Berwick, President Obama's recess appointee to be director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Berwick has never been confirmed or subjected to a confirmation hearing by a Democrat-controlled Senate.

Health coverage, rates rise in Massachusetts: Romney law fails to bend cost curve
The Washington Times ^ | Tuesday, August 16, 2011 | Paige Winfield Cunningham Five years after Gov. Mitt Romney signed Massachusetts groundbreaking health care legislation, it has met its chief goal of extending insurance coverage to most residents but with costs rising faster than inflation, lawmakers face the challenge of how to pay for it all. Although the law has extended coverage, it has done little to fundamentally change the way consumers shop for health care, which analysts say is the only lasting solution to ballooning costs. Massachusetts uninsured rate plunged to the lowest in the nation, from 6.4 percent to 1.9 percent, after the law was enacted in 2006. The rest...

Man With Breast Cancer Denied Medicaid Coverage Because He's Not a Woman
ABC News ^ | 08/08/2011 | ALICIA TEJADA and COURTNEY HUTCHISON For Raymond Johnson it was bad enough being diagnosed with cancer when he was just 26 and with no health insurance, but his shock was only aggravated when he was denied Medicaid, because rules say men are not covered for breast cancer. Johnson, a construction worker from Charleston, S.C., is one of the roughly 2,000 men who develop breast cancer each year -- just 1 percent of all breast cancer cases. But doctors say even though the numbers of cases may be small compared to the number of women who get the disease, what male breast cancer patients suffer is...

Shock: When Joe Wilson Said "You Lie," The President Was In Fact Lying
ace of spades blog citing bryan preston ^ | August 11, 2011 Wilson's shouted comment was in response to Obama's claim that none of the ObamaCare dollars & treatment would flow to illegal immigrants. You'll never guess... "The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Tuesday that it has awarded $28.8 million to 67 community health centers with funds from the Obamacare health reform law. Of that $28.8 million, approximately $8.5 million will be used by 25 New Access Point awardees to target services to migrant and seasonal farm workers, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Spokeswoman Judy Andrews told CNSNews.com. HRSA is a part of HHS. Andrews said that...

Obamacare: Free Birth Control for All! (You think you won't be paying for it?)
National Review ^ | 08/12/2011 | Deroy Murdock The Obama administration forces the public to subsidize peoples sex lives. To understand how the Obama administration is running America into the ground, consider the Department of Health and Human Services August 1 decree ordering, essentially, free birth-control pills for all women. Through this brandnew entitlement announced the very day that Congress voted to reduce the national debt Washington mandates more giveaways, not just to poor women, but to every woman in America, regardless of employment, income, or trust fund. By Aug. 1, 2012, Obamacare will require insurers to cover BCPs. Further, HHS guidelines state that health plans...

Joe Wilson ("You Lie!") Was Right: ObamaCare IS Funding Illegal Aliens
StandWithArizona.com ^ | 08-11-2011 | John Hill <p>Remember Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) and his outburst at Obama's 2010 State of the Union address? Here's a refresher.</p> <p>Obama said his healthcare plan would not cover illegal aliens - twice. Wilson said "You lie!" to the outrage of many, and for which he was later censured by Pelosi & Co.</p>

http://capoliticalnews.com/blog_post/show/9339 Medicare to penalize hospitals that readmit patients too soon-Obama to Cripple inner city hospitals
Written by CA Political News on August 04, 2011, 02:43 AM

Medicare to penalize hospitals that readmit patients too soon Christina Jewett, California Watch, 8/3/11

Medicare soon will start docking payments to hospitals if they have a higherthan-expected level of patient readmissions within 30 days of being discharged. The move doesn't bode well for 10 California hospitals already identified by Medicare as having high readmission rates for patients with pneumonia or heart failure.

(UK) 'Miracle' MS Pill Won't Get NHS Funding

Sky News ^ | 8/5/11 | Rhiannon Mills Multiple Sclerosis campaigners have claimed thousands of patients will be denied a tablet once hailed a breakthrough in treating the condition. Fingolimod is the first pill to treat MS, but now NICE, the health watchdog, has ruled it should not be funded by the NHS because it is not cost effective. Amanda Cook from Norfolk has taken the tablet for the past three years. She told Sky News: "This tablet has changed my life completely. I think it's a very disappointing decision. "It takes away another option for MS therapies and I think it's the wrong decision."

http://www.breitbart.tv/uncovered-video-obama-explains-how-his-health-care-plan-willeliminate-private-insurance/

Uncovered Video: Obama Explains How His Health Care Plan Will Eliminate Private Insurance
breitbart.tv ^ The budget arguments in Washington are raising concern about future industry shifts, too, as lawmakers try to squeeze savings and revenue from the drug companies. Two weeks ago, the industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America warned that proposed cuts by President Obama to drug reimbursements in Medicare Part D would have a devastating effect on American jobs. And medical device makers say they will cut jobs unless Congress reverses a new 2.3 percent device tax imposed by the health care overhaul that takes effect in 2013. The employment reductions have followed a wave of company mergers producing overlapping responsibilities, as well as more outsourcing of research and trimming of sales forces. Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., said it was meeting its target of cutting 20,000 jobs by the end of this year after its $41 billion purchase of Schering-Plough in November 2009. From that merger through 2015, the company said, restructuring will save more than $4 billion a year in combined operational costs. The environment we operate in is changing rapidly and dramatically, and these steps will help us more efficiently serve customers and patients around the world, Kenneth C. Frazier, president and chief executive, said in a statement. Mr. Frazier, in an earnings call with analysts, said Merck would cut 13 percent of its employees, the top end of an estimate in the statement saying 12 to 13 percent. The jobs are cut from a base as measured Dec. 31, 2009, the statement said, a time that Merck employed 100,000 people, according to its annual report. The company now employs 91,000. The new round of cuts, Mr. Frazier said in the analyst call, would come disproportionately from the elimination of nonrevenue-generating positions such as administrative and headquarters personnel, consolidation of office facilities and ongoing sale or closure of manufacturing sites, including Animal Health facilities. Jami Rubin, analyst with Goldman Sachs, said the cuts were very good news for investors. Merck announced second-quarter sales of $12.1 billion, up 7 percent over last

years quarter, and profits of $2.9 billion, up 9 percent, largely in line with estimates. Merck stock fell by more than 2 percent on Friday, closing at $34.13 amid a market selloff caused by disappointing economic and political news from Washington. http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/merck-plans-more-job-cuts/

ObamaCare projected to cost more than doing nothing

hotair.com ^ | July 29, 2011 | Bruce McQuain Promises, promises, promises. President Obama promised the passage of the Affordable Care Act would lower health care costs across the board, making health care more affordable. The entire premise of the massive government intrusion in that market was to lower costs and make insurance more affordable. A new study says that doing nothing would actually have been slightly less expensive. The irony is this isnt some opposition think tank which has put up these numbers but the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services:

Poll of Dutch doctors shows broad acceptance of euthanasia

LifeSiteNews ^ | 7/29/11 | Thaddeus Baklinski NETHERLANDS, July 29, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - An opinion poll conducted by the Een Vandaag Institution of 800 general medical practitioners shows that there is a broad acceptance of the practice of euthanasia and a general willingness among Dutch doctors to offer euthanasia to people in their care. The survey was conducted from 21 to 27 July and published in the Dutch press. The poll found that 86.5% of Dutch doctors would cooperate in principle with a request for euthanasia, while only 7.9% said they would not cooperate. 64.6% said they were under pressure regularly or sometimes to commit euthanasia. Increasing...

U.S. will pay for half of all health care costs by 2020 (US doomed while Democrats play games)
cnn ^ | 7/28/2011 | By Parija Kavilanz

The U.S. government will foot the bill for half of all health care costs in the United States by 2020, according to a government report released Thursday. That's up from 44% just two years ago, and reflects both the rising cost of health care and the fact that millions more people will have access to it under health reform, said the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Total health care spending is expected to nearly double to $4.6 trillion in 2020 from $2.6 trillion in 2010. The agency makes these projections annually, but this is the first year that they...

Report: 1 in 8 employer insurance plans getting the axe since Obamacare

Daily Caller ^ | 7/25/11 | C.J. Ciaramella One in eight small businesses have had or expect to have their health insurance plans terminated since the passage of President Obamas health care reform. This figure comes from a National Federation of Independent Business report which surveyed small businesses one year after the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The report, released today, found prevailing negative attitudes about the laws impact among small business owners. Among the most striking of NFIBs findings was the number of employer health insurance plans that have been or will be eliminated since PPACAs passage 12 percent, or one in...

One-Year Later: Small Businesses See More Harm, Not Help, From Democrats Health Care Law
House Ways and Means News ^ | July 25, 2011 | by Dave Camp A new report released today by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the nations largest small business advocacy group whose membership consists of 350,000 small business owners nationwide, provides further evidence that the Democrats health care law is adding higher costs, new taxes and increased deficits. The key findings from the report provide a stark contrast to the promises of lower costs that were repeated over and over again by the President and other supporters of the Democrats health care law.In reality: 75 percent of small businesses that offer health insurance do not believe the law will slow the...

Hospital tells families to use Skype to save cost of visiting sick patients (U.K.)
DailyMail.U.K. ^ | 23rd July 2011 Doctors recommend internet chats to save cash Family members of mental health patients have been urged to stop visiting their sick relatives in hospital and instead talk to them on Skype. Officials at Berkshire Healthcare NHS Trust want to stop bedside visits in an attempt to save cash earmarked for relatives' travel expenses. Mental health patients in Berkshire are due to be relocated from Ascot, Maidenhead and Slough to Reading. Under the proposed scheme, some relatives would qualify for travel expenses to visit their sick family member. As part of plans to help save 4million-a-year, the Foundation Trust has suggested...

Business Leaders Former Progressive Supporters, Dont Like Socialism

Flopping Aces ^ | 07-22-11 | Curt In a belated effort that makes people wonder whether CEO positions are hereditary, business leaders are finally realizing the oppressive nature of Marxism. Steve Wynn, Las Vegas based CEO in the hospitality business has finally noticed that the Obama doctrine is strangling business and investment, he is one of many Democrat businessmen speaking out against Obama and his Socialism. During a conference call on Monday, Wynn called Obama: "the greatest wet blanket to business, progress and job creation in my lifetime." Wynn a former fervent supporter of the Obama Myth, still considers himself a Democrat; but he and several...

UK eugenic abortion stats released thousands killed for Downs, cleft lip, club foot, etc.
LifeSiteNews ^ | 7/21/11 | Hilary White http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/uk-eugenic-abortion-stats-released-thousands-killedfor-downs-cleft-lip-clu

UK eugenic abortion stats released thousands killed for Downs, cleft lip, club foot, etc.
In total, nearly 18,000 babies were aborted between 2002 and 2010 on the grounds of suspected disability. 1,189 were killed after the upper legal gestational age limit of 24 weeks. The figures show that these include 482 killed for Downs syndrome in 2010 alone. In the same year, 181 abortions were attributed to musculoskeletal problems such as club foot, while 189 unborn children killed for anencephaly and 128 for spina bifida.

Mother dies as 150 heart patients told they are at risk from Hepatitis B in NHS hospital outbreak
Daily Mail ^ | 7/22/11 A mother has died and hundreds of patients could be infected after hepatitis B was apparently spread by unclean surgical equipment at a hospital. Patients who have received any kind of heart surgery at the hospital in recent months have been informed that they may have contracted the virus. The woman who died, who has not been named, is believed to have caught the infection from another patient, possibly after surgeons used the same probe during two operations.

Blunt talk from Home Depot CEO about Obama and economy
http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2011/07/21/blunt-talk-from-home-depotceo-about-obama-and-economy/ ^ IBD: Whats the single biggest impediment to job growth today? Marcus: The U.S. government. Having built a small business into a big one, I can tell you that today the impediments that the government imposes are impossible to deal with. Home Depot would never have succeeded if wed tried to start it today. Every day you see rules and regulations from a group of Washington bureaucrats who know nothing about running a business. And I mean every day. Its become stifling. If youre a small businessman, the only way to deal with it is to work harder,

This chart shows the jobs slowdown after Obamacare was passed http://hotair.com/archives/2011/07/20/report-private-sector-job-creation-ground-to-ahalt-almost-instantly-after-obamacare-passed/

America provides 31 percent of all global scientific research and development funding. 87 out of 143 Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine have gone to Americans. http://americaintheworld.typepad.com/briefings/2008/08/health-care-in.html

Carter attempt to limit doctor supply faces tough going in congress. Feb 1979 http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nf pb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ198603&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_ 0=no&accno=EJ198603

http://townhall.com/columnists/johncgoodman/2011/07/16/where_are_all_the_new_jobs/ page/full/

This chart shows the jobs slowdown after Obamacare was passed http://hotair.com/archives/2011/07/20/report-private-sector-job-creation-ground-to-ahalt-almost-instantly-after-obamacare-passed/

Report: Private sector job creation ground to a halt almost instantly after Obamacare passed
Hot Air ^ | 20 Jul 2011 | Tina Korbe http://hotair.com/archives/2011/07/20/report-private-sector-job-creation-groundto-a-halt-almost-instantly-after-obamacare-passed/ A new report out yesterday from The Heritage Foundation shows private sector job creation dropped dramatically almost immediately after President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare)

into law. From the recessions low point in January 2009 until April 2010, when Obamacare went into effect, the private sector created about 67,600 jobs a month. After the president signed PPACA into law, that number slowed to a meager 6,400 jobs a month a more than 90 percent decrease or less than one-tenth the previous rate. As the report states, correlation cannot prove causation

Wesley J. Smith: Abandoning the Disabled to Assisted Suicide in the UK

First Things/Secondhand Smoke ^ | 7/16/11 | Wesley J. Smith The UK is falling off a vertical moral cliff on the assisted suicide issue. It remains a crime. But the Public Prosecutor of England and Wales has stated that if, after a complete investigation, it is determined that family or others who assist suicides did it for an altruistic reason, there will be no prosecution. Indeed, the death could even by accomplished by the assister, and nothing will be done.What is the message of that directive? That the assisted suicides of people with disabilities and serious illnesses dont matter as much as those of othersso long as the motive is...

Dems' parade of health-care lies

NY Post ^ | July 15, 2011 | Michelle Malkin http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/dems_parade_of_health_care_lie s_r9nIlZqgamDYkr6Da67VYN

Number of healthcare waivers nears 1,500

The Hill ^ | 7/15/11 | Sam Baker The Health and Human Services Department granted 39 new waivers last month from part of the healthcare law, bringing the total to just shy of 1,500.In September, HHS will stop the process of granting a new batch of one-year waivers at the end of each month. Companies have until Sept. 22 to file their initial application for a one-year reprieve and seek an extension to carry them through the next three years. Department officials said they decided on the September cutoff because, by then, every company that thinks it needs a waiver would have had time to apply.

California Workers Comp Doctors Take Aim at State Fund Contract

The Insurance Journal ^ | 7-15-11 | Chris Rizo A controversy in the California workers compensation market over a revised provider contract threatens to erupt into an all-out legal brawl as doctors for injured workers and applicants attorneys take aim at the states largest carrier.

Big push for home births: Too many babies are being born in hospital, say doctors
Daily Mail ^ | 7/14/11 | Sophie Borland Women should no longer assume they will give birth in hospital with a doctor on hand. In a watershed moment, leading medical experts declared that mothers should be given more opportunity to have babies at home because a maternity ward is not necessarily the 'safer option'. A report by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists suggests that as many as a third of all women should give birth 'without a doctor going anywhere near them'. It calls for a radical shake-up in the NHS which could lead to thousands more women having babies at home,

Paul Ryan Schools HHS Secretary on Patient-Centered Medicare Reform

Heritage.org ^ | 7/12/11 | Kathryn Nix This morning, the House Budget Committee invited Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to a hearing on the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), the lefts weapon of choice for tackling Medicares $38 trillion in unfunded promises to Americas seniors. Both sides of the debate agree that extensive reductions to Medicares runaway spending are needed, and have even proposed comparable targets for growth in spending. The key difference, then lies in who makes the difficult decisions regarding seniors health care under the chosen direction for reform: Patients, or bureaucrats? Sec. Sebelius argued that IPAB, a board of unelected officials tasked...

Sebelius: Obamacare's Penalty on Small Businesses a 'Great Incentive' for Growth

CNSNews ^ | 7/12/11 | Nicholas Ballasy (CNSNews.com) - Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius told CNSNews.com on Monday that a provision in President Barack Obama's health-care law that requires small businesses to begin buying health insurance for their workers when they hire their 50th employee--or otherwise pay a penalty to the federal government--"will actually be a great incentive" for businesses to grow. CNSNews.com asked Sebelius, Part of the health care law requires small businesses that grow to over 50 employees to provide health insurance to their employees or face a penalty [starting in 2014]. Do you think that may affect their incentive to grow--small...

ObamaCare, ObamaCars, and Government-Mandated Broccoli

Pajamas Media ^ | July 10, 2011 | Rick Richman Ready for the government to regulate the interstate commerce in your stomach? Last week, the Sixth Circuit upheld the constitutionality of ObamaCare in a 2-1 decision, producing three opinions running a total of 64 pages. To understand the issues fully, you also need to read Judge Roger Vinsons erudite 78-page opinion holding ObamaCare unconstitutional. Or you could watch this fascinating debate at Harvard featuring three of Americas best constitutional lawyers. But there is an even quicker way to focus on the central constitutional issue: read the panel discussion from Sundays This Week, in which George Will posed a challenge that none of...

Doctors Keeping Very Sick Babies Off Life Support

Fox News ^ | 7/8/11 | Reuters A study of babies in intensive care suggests that doctors are getting better at recognizing situations where infants are sure to die or have severe brain damage -and are often holding back on life support when that's the case. The findings "reflect increasing awareness by the medical community of the need to limit interventions of minimal or very questionable benefit, and particularly if those interventions potentially include significant pain or suffering to the patient," said

Dr. Renee Boss, a neonatologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, who wasn't part of the new research. Over the past 30 years, Boss...

What Difference Has RomneyCare Made?

Townhall.com ^ | July 9, 2011 | John C. Goodman

Howard Dean Reveals Medicaid Is "Not Just For Poor People" (video)
RealClearPolitics ^ | July 8, 2011 | RealClearPolitics http://realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/07/07/howard_dean_reveals_medicaid_is_ not_just_for_poor_people.html
Howard Dean says the only way you're ever going to control healthcare costs in this country is to get rid of the "perverse incentive that we [doctors] have to do as much as we possibly can." Howard Dean, a doctor, says government health care beneficiaries should be given a "set amount and tell them 'this is what you get.'" Dean says government health care users should be told the benefits that are provided and "let them figure out how to do it." "We use Medicaid not just for poor people. We use Medicaid for the basis of our universal health care for kids under 18. which we've had for 20 years in Vermont as a result of an expansion of Medicaid," Fmr. Gov. Dr. Howard Dean (D-VT) said on MSNBC. Dean ran for President in 2004 and served as DNC chair from 2005 to 2009. "The problem with Medicaid is that it doesn't have that much of a constituency because not that many politicians care about poor people. The Republicans clearly don't care about them all. Obviously Orrin Hatch thinks they're the enemy."

GAO: Children on Medicaid Have Worse Physician Access Than Uninsured Children
http://blogs.forbes.com/aroy/2011/07/05/gao-children-on-medicaid-have-worsephysician-access-than-uninsured-children/

Canada: Doctors Must Get Consent Before Cutting Lifesaving Care

Life News ^ | 7/1/11 | Alex Schadenberg http://www.lifenews.com/2011/07/01/canada-doctors-must-get-consent-beforecutting-lifesaving-care/

GAO: Children on Medicaid Have Worse Physician Access Than Uninsured Children
http://blogs.forbes.com/aroy/2011/07/05/gao-children-on-medicaid-have-worsephysician-access-than-uninsured-children/ Forbes ^ | 7/5/11 | Avik Roy When I first began writing about the University of Virginia surgical outcomes studythe one that evaluated nearly a million major surgical operations from 2003 to 2007, and found that Medicaid patients were 13 percent more likely to die in-hospital than those with no insurance at allthere were skeptics. And I get why, because the studys findings were counter-intuitive: we spend more than $400 billion a year on a welfare program, only to get worse health outcomes? Those invested in the political success of Obamacare had even more incentive to attack the UVa study, as our new health law adds 16...

Canada: Doctors Must Get Consent Before Cutting Lifesaving Care

Life News ^ | 7/1/11 | Alex Schadenberg http://www.lifenews.com/2011/07/01/canada-doctors-must-get-consent-beforecutting-lifesaving-care/ The Rasouli family and the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) have won a precedent setting decision in the Court of Appeal for Ontario.EPC applauds the unanimous decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal to uphold a lower court decision which requires that doctors obtain consent from substitute decisionmakers before unilaterally withdrawing life-support where such a decision is anticipated to result in the death of the patient. The unanimous Court of Appeal ruled that it is necessary for doctors to raise any objections or concerns they may

have about consent before the Ontario Consent and Capacity Board who has the jurisdiction to...

AP Exclusive: Fuzzy math in health law formula

Associated Press ^ | Jun. 30, 2011 3:34 AM ET | RICARDO ALONSOZALDIVAR The glitch mainly affects older adults who are too young for a Medicare card but have reached 62, when people can qualify for early retirement from Social Security. (snip) To see how the Social Security wrinkle would work, consider a hypothetical example of two neighbors on the same block. They are both 62 and have the same income of $39,500 a year. But one gets all his income from working, while the other gets $20,000 from part-time work and $19,500 from Social Security. Neither of them gets health insurance on the job. Instead, they purchase it individually. Starting in 2014,...

Organs of those killed by euthanasia being used (harvesting)

The Telegraph ^ | 14 Jun 2011 | Simon Caldwell Doctors are impressed by the superior condition of lungs taken from people who killed by lethal injection compared to those extracted from those killed in accidents... Surgeons in Leuven between 2007 and 2009 successfully transplanted four pairs of lungs from people who died from euthanasia. The authors of the study, Initial Experience with Transplantation of Lungs Recovered From Donors After Euthanasia, insisted that doctors were acting strictly within Belgian guidelines on euthanasia, which was legalised in 2002. They reveal how donors were admitted to the hospital a few hours before the planned euthanasia procedure. A central venous line was placed...

Legally killed: 21 dementia victims given lethal injections by Dutch doctors in 2010
The Daily Mail (UK) ^ | June 29, 2011 | Mail Foreign Service Dementia sufferers are being killed by doctors in Holland under the countrys euthanasia laws, official figures are to reveal. A total of 21 patients with earlystage dementia, including Alzheimers, died by lethal injection last year, according to a forthcoming annual report. This is the first time dementia sufferers have been included in the countrys euthanasia statistics. None of the cases is thought to have involved any illegal act on the part of health professionals, and each time the patient was considered capable of giving their consent. But the figures have caused alarm among critics who say the pool of patients...

ObamaCare Puts Big Dent in Hiring

Human Events ^ | June 29, 2011 | John Rossomando ObamaCares implementation is causing many employers across the country to think twice about hiring as they consider the impact of its rules and regulations. More than 3,500 pages of regulations have been penned since the law passed last March, and their impact is already being felt. I know for a fact that the mandates in ObamaCare are discouraging the creation of new jobs, said Tennessee GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander, the third-highest-ranking member of the Senate Republican leadership. And I will be specific. I met with the chief executives of the chain restaurants in America, who are the largest employer in...

Euthanasia on the rise in Holland: now being applied to patients with dementia
LifeSiteNews ^ | 6/27/11 | Jeanne Smits June 27, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Euthanasia is on the rise in the Netherlands, and it is taking an even uglier turn than many would have expected. Cases of euthanasia have risen from 2,500 in 2009 to 2,700 in 2010; but even more shocking, last year 21 persons suffering from the early stages of dementia, but who were otherwise in good health, were euthanized. All of these 21 mercy killings were subsequently approved by the official euthanasia follow-up

commission. This 2010 annual report on euthanasia has yet to be published, but key figures were released by the official news channel, NOS,...

RELEASE: Wal-Mart, SEIU, CAP Join In Support for Health Reform, Including Employer Mandate
Center for American Progress ^ | June 30, 2009 | Drew Brookie Wal-Mart SEIU Join In Support for Health Reform, Including Employer MandateWorkers Caring for Seniors and People With Disabilities Need Minimum Wage and Overtime Protections. As the nations largest private employer, the nations largest union of health care workers , we have worked closely in support of health care reform we are coming together to to reform our nations health care system.

The breast cancer patients TOO OLD to save: (U.K. NHS)

DailyMail.U.K. ^ | 6/15/11 | Sophie Borland

Employers Drop Insurance Over Obamacare

Townhall.com ^ | June 12, 2011 | Bob Beauprez McKinsey & Co., the high profile global business consulting firm, surveyed 1300 businesses and found that "30 percent of employers will definitely or probably stop offering [employer-sponsored insurance] in the years after 2014." That's the year that the full impact of ObamaCare is scheduled to kick in. Several other surveys have reached similar conclusions. Another study found that among businesses with a "high awareness" of what ObamaCare is all about, more than half are planning to drop health care insurance benefits for their workers. The result spells death to private insurance and life to nationalized healthcare just as conservatives predicted....

Older people receive worse NHS cancer care

The Telegraph ^ | 6/9/11 | Martin Beckford Older people with cancer are more likely to die in England than in other leading countries because of "age bias" in the NHS, according to a new report. The study from the Kings Fund found that pensioners tended to be diagnosed with the disease later and were less likely to receive surgery. Some 15,000 people over 75 in Britain die prematurely from cancer each year compared with betterperforming countries, according to estimates. The report said there was substantial evidence that older patients were under-treated on the NHS and that their chances of survival were poorer as a result. It found...

Prime Minister under fire after waiting lists for NHS tests soar
The Telegraph ^ | 6/9/11 Tens of thousands of patients a year spend more than four hours waiting in Accident and Emergency departments, according to official figures. They show that 50 per cent more people waited beyond the target time, equating to an extra 185,800 patients a year spending more than four hours in A&E. Meanwhile the number of patients waiting several weeks for vital health tests on the NHS has tripled within 12 months. They show that 14,163 people are now being forced to wait longer than six weeks for scans and internal examinations, after targets for treatment times were scrapped.

The ultimate NHS indignity: Body of hospital patient left to die in corridor (U.K.)
DailyMail.U.K. ^ | 6/8/11 FULL TIILE: The ultimate NHS indignity: Body of hospital patient left to die in corridor is ignored for hours... before staff simply drag him away 'He went to them for help and they left him out in the corridor to die', says Peter Thompson's daughter Senior nurse claims it was 'the appropriate method of handling the situation' Two heartbroken parents have slammed 'inhumane' nurses who left their dead son lying in the middle of a hospital corridor and stepped over his corpse for more than ten hours thinking he was asleep. CCTV captured staff pulling the lifeless body of Peter...

OK - Just What Is the Ryan Medicare Plan? Educate Yourselves and ignore the hype and rhetoric
American Thinker ^ | 06/07/2011 | John McGlaughlin Much chatter today centers on the Ryan Medicare Plan, a proposal to reform Medicare first proposed by Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan as part of "A Roadmap for America's Future" to guide the House Budget Committee under Republican Party control. Though hype and rhetoric surround the subject, little real understanding has seeped down into the public at large. Let's try to sort it out. To understand where Ryan is heading, one must first understand the basics of Medicare. The current Medicare program provides single-payer medical care insurance for people 65 and over as well as people under 65 with certain disabilities...

Obama solicitor general: If you don't like mandate, earn less money
Washington Examiner ^ | 06/02/11 | Philip Klein President Obama's solicitor general, defending the national health care law on Wednesday, told a federal appeals court that Americans who didn't like the individual mandate could always avoid it by choosing to earn less money. Neal Kumar Katyal, the acting solicitor general, made the argument under questioning before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, which was considering an appeal by the Thomas More Law Center. (Listen to oral arguments here.) The three-judge panel, which was comprised of two Republican-appointed judges and a Democratic-appointed judge, expressed more skepticism about the government's defense of the health care...

Medicaid (AND Medicare) to Quit Paying for Preventable Events ( read what they consider as such) Medpagetoday ^ | June1, 2011 | Emily P. Walker WASHINGTON -- The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced that hospitals and healthcare providers will no longer be reimbursed for treating their Medicaid patients for illnesses, injuries, or readmissions that should have been prevented. A final rule announced Wednesday enacts a portion of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that prohibits states from making Medicaid payments to providers for conditions that are deemed "reasonably preventable." In 2008, Medicare stopped reimbursing hospitals for treating conditions, infections, or illnesses that were acquired in the hospital, and for any readmissions associated with treating those hospital-acquired conditions. The Medicaid list of what

UK: Health Secretary - funding crisis threatens the NHS [funding black hole]
The Telegraph ^ | 6/1/2011 | Andrew Porter The National Health Service is facing a 20 billion-a-year funding black hole that will threaten its founding principles unless the Coalitions controversial reforms are brought in to prevent it the core values of the NHS are under threat as never before from a financial crisis that will see annual health spending double to 230 billion a year without urgent reform. While insisting he would never privatise the NHS, Mr Lansley warns that its future as a universal service, available to all and free at the point of use will be at risk within years if radical change is blocked. Mr...

Obama's IPAB Board Will Control Medicare Decisions

Newsmax ^ | 5/27/11 | Betsy McCaughey Obamacare cut Medicare by $575 billion over next decade and used $410 billion to expand Medicaid. Robbing Grandma to benefit Medicaid recipients (takers). Medicare will spend $14,731 per senior in 2019, instead of $16,162 if the health law had not passed. Less care for seniors and redistributing the wealth to the government dependent poor. Congress controls the countrys purse strings but will loose control of Medicare as Obamacare creates a new office called IPAB (Independent Payment Advisory Board). IPAB is a cost-cutting panel that will decide what is unnecessary for seniors. Paul Ryans plan would give each new Medicare enrollee a choice of private health plans and a premium paid to the plan they choose. The money would come from preventing expansions to Medicaid and returns the funds raided from Medicare.

New England Flu: It's Catching

Tuesday, May 24, 2011 5:21:35 PM by Kaslin 2 replies IBD Editorial ^ | May 24, 2011 | Staff Health Care: This week, Vermont's governor will sign legislation establishing a single-payer system. The Green Mountain State is catching the same sickness that afflicts Massachusetts. When Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin signs the bill Thursday, Vermont will become the first state to overtly move to a single-payer health care system. It is, inarguably, a government takeover. While more than half the states are trying to stand astride the rail down which the runaway government health care train is speeding, Massachusetts and Vermont are clearly chugging hard in the other direction. States where officials have wisely questioned ObamaCare's constitutionality have made a...

Two patients died after waiting in ambulance outside 'full' Oldham hospital unit (UK)
Manchester Evening News ^ | 5/21/11 Two patients died after being left waiting in ambulances outside an over-stretched hospital. The patients, believed to have been in their 80s, couldnt get into the Royal Oldham Hospital for seven and 20 minutes respectively. They were assessed by ambulance crews as very sick and were both suspected of having suffered heart attacks. The A&E department was so busy that all but the most urgent cases were being sent to other hospitals at the time. All five resuscitation beds at Oldham were full. The two patients were assessed and treated by a casualty doctor and senior nurse in the ambulances....

The Obamacare Diaries Continue: Latest Waiver Scam Goes to the AARP
American Medical Society ^ | May 20, 2011 .., the problem of the Obamacare Waivers continues with the latest ObamaPelosi-Reid game of favoritism going to the AARP. Everyone knows that if we allocated just part of the trillion(s) given to the PPACA legislation to pay for uninsured care, combined this with an honest buy-in of physicians who could contribute charity care in exchange for tax credits (for instance) to oversee reasonable outcomes-based changes to how medical and surgical care is delivered and payed for, and threw in open interstate competition for insurance companies, that wed be most of the way there toward meaningful reform. Add to these basic...

Gov. Sarah Palin on Pelosi districts Obamacare waivers: Seriously, this is corrupt
Daily Caller ^ | 5/17/2011 | Matthew Boyle What other GOP candidate has even mentioned this?? Not a one.

HHS: Pelosi had no influence on healthcare waivers to her district

The Hill ^ HHS: Pelosi had no influence on healthcare waivers to her district By Mike Lillis and Julian Pecquet - 05/17/11 02:53 PM ET House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had no influence on the healthcare waivers granted last month to businesses in her district, an official with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said Tuesday. Republican leaders on and off Capitol Hill had slammed the Obama administration for granting a growing number of healthreform waivers to constituents of the top House Democrat. But Steve Larsen, director of HHS Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, said those businesses were...

Nevada secures partial waiver from federal health care law

The Daily Caller ^ | 5/17/11 | Karoun Demirjian Nevada got a partial waiver from the health care law a significant development that Democrats are dismissing as par for the course and Republicans are claiming as a political victory. The Health and Human Services Department announced late Friday that Nevada had secured a statewide waiver from certain implementation requirements of the Obama administrations health care law, because forcing them through, the department found, may lead to the destabilization of the individual market.

Massachusetts: The Canary in the Coal Mine for ObamaCare

PajamasMedia ^ | 5/12/2011 | Paul Hsieh http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/massachusetts-the-canary-in-the-coal-mine-forobamacare/?singlepage=true Five years ago, Massachusetts adopted its universal health care plan, which served as the template for President Obamas subsequent national health care legislation. However, Massachusetts problems of rising health costs and worsening access foreshadow similar problems for the rest of America as well as how to avoid them. The Massachusetts Medical Society recently reported that the state law has resulted in longer patient wait times [and] continued difficult access to primary care physicians. The average wait time in Massachusetts to see an internal medicine physician is now 48 days double the national average. Over half of primary care practices are no longer accepting new patients. Fewer physicians are accepting the state-run Commonwealth Care and Commonwealth Choice insurance plans. So although Massachusetts politicians frequently boast that they have increased coverage, many patients cannot find doctors to provide them with actual medical care.

Obama Admin Defends Dropping Doctors Conscience Protections

Life News ^ | 5/11/11 | Steven Ertelt In a letter to several pro-life groups complaining about President Barack Obamas decision to drop some of the conscience protections for medical professionals, the administration is defending the decision. Several pro-life groups sent a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius warning her of the alarming effects on patients that will follow the Obama administrations recent move to strip the medical community of key conscience protections on abortion. As LifeNews.com reported in February, the Obama administration overturned some of the conscience protections the Bush administration put in place to protect pro-life medical workers who dont want to be involved in certain...

State declares Obamacare unconstitutional, null and void

WND ^ | April 28, 2011 | Bob Unruh President Obama's signature accomplishment to date, the Obamacare health care reform law that is just a year old, twice has been ruled unconstitutional by federal judges, and it is expected eventually to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. But it's now taken another shot across the bow, in a vote in the North Dakota legislature where lawmakers determined it "likely" is unconstitutional and "may violate its true meaning and intent as given by the founders." The lawmakers decided that "no provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010...

GOVERNORS EXECUTIVE ORDER PROHIBITS STATE AGENCIES FROM IMPLEMENTING OBAMACARE

Idaho Governors Office ^ | April 20. 2011 | Mark Warbis C.L. Butch Otter GOVERNOR NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT: Jon Hanian April 20, 2011 (208) 334-2100 11:028 GOVERNORS EXECUTIVE ORDER PROHIBITS STATE AGENCIES FROM IMPLEMENTING OBAMACARE (BOISE) Governor C.L. Butch Otter issued an executive order today imposing a State prohibition on receiving federal funding for or otherwise implementing the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act often called Obamacare. Executive Order 2011-03 uses portions of House Bill 298, a so-called nullification bill that was approved by the Legislature this year. The executive order directs State agencies not to establish new programs, promulgate rules or accept federal funding...

UK: Hospital wards will close to save money, say NHS finance chiefs
The Telegraph ^ | 4/20/2011 | Martin Beckford Almost half of trust finance directors questioned by a leading health think-tank said they would lose beds and reduce treatments as the NHS seeks to save 20billion. Others said they would cut their workforces, prescribe fewer drugs and try to ensure inpatients are discharged more quickly. Few thought they could save money through politically popular reductions to back office functions

despite the Governments insistence that savings can be made without front-line services or clinical staff being lost. The first in a new series of quarterly NHS monitoring reports published by the Kings Fund on Wednesday also highlights official figures showing...

RomneyCare Is A Bust
Boston Herald ^ | April 12, 2011 | Michael Graham As governor, Mitt Romney accomplished a feat that most Republicans would have thought impossible. With the single stroke of a pen he convinced the liberal population of Massachusetts that they, too, hate government-run health care. As a health care plan, Romneycare is an unmitigated fiasco. It has caused costs to skyrocket, insurance premiums to soar and nonprofit providers like Blue Cross to suffer hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. But as a political policy, Romneycare is nearly unparalleled in Republican history. It has destroyed one front-runners presidential hopes (Romneys) and helped undermine an entire presidency. For, as Barack Obamas...

38% of Massachusetts Voters view RomneyCare favorably

Politicons- Politically Conservative ^ | April 7th | Henry D'Andrea A new poll from Suffolk University/7NEWS shows that just 38% of Massachusettss voters say RomneyCare is working in their state. 49% say RomneyCare isnt working and 13% were undecided. Interestingly enough, 54% said it would hurt Mitt Romneys 2012 Presidential run, while 22 percent felt it would help; and 22 percent were undecided. Of these same voters, 57% view President Obama favorably and 35% unfavorably.......

Judicial Watch Obtains Documents Detailing ObamaCare Rationing

Big Government ^ | 6/6/11 | Tom Fitton The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS), under enormous public pressure, proposed that Provenge, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved treatment for prostate cancer, be covered by insurance following a controversial review. A final decision on the issue is expected to be published 60 days after the public comment period for the proposed decision has ended. On the same day as the CMS decision, Judicial Watch released hundreds of pages of documents from the Obama Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) detailing how and why the review was instituted. And heres one of our major finds: While the...

Socialized Medicine Director dies waiting for Operation.

The New American ^ | 04/04/2011 | Selwyn Duke Its a bit like a supermarket manager dying of starvation or a bottled-water distributor dying of thirst: In the U.K., a former National Health Service (NHS) director died while waiting for medical care at her own hospital. The Daily Mail reports:

Cancer patients denied 'last hope' robot surgery

Telegraph ^ | 4/3/11 | Laura Donnelly Cancer patients are being denied a pioneering treatment that offers their only hope of survival - even though millions of pounds have been spent on the technology behind it. Doctors referred Lesley Whiting, 56, from Sussex, for a robotic radiosurgery procedure called Cyberknife, which is widely used across the world, but only became available on the NHS last year. (Snip) But NHS bureaucrats refused to fund the treatment, which costs the health service around 10,000 per treatment- despite the fact almost 9 million has been spent buying the robotic technology for three NHS hospitals.

Bitter irony of socialized medicine

American Thinker (citing UK Daily Mail) ^ | April 02, 2011 | Thomas Lifson A former director of Britain's National Health Service, which runs the country's socialized medicine system, has died while waiting 9 months for an operation. The UK Daily Mail reports: A former NHS director died after waiting for nine months for an operation - at her own hospital. Margaret Hutchon, a former mayor, had been waiting since last June for a follow-up stomach operation at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, Essex. But her appointments to go under the knife were cancelled four times and she barely regained consciousness after finally having surgery. Her devastated husband, Jim, is now demanding answers from Mid...

That Great Canadian Health System (not)

http://edrs.waittimes.net/En/ProvincialSummary.aspx?view=0 ^ | Current | Government of Ontario Ontario Wait Times Provincial Summary In April 2008, the government announced that reducing wait times in emergency rooms and improving access to family health care are its two most important health care priorities over the next four years. Currently, 126 hospital sites across Ontario are submitting ER information to the National Ambulatory Care Reporting System (NACRS) for reporting on this website. This represents 90 percent of ER visits throughout the province. The amount of time a patient spends in the Emergency Room is referred to as Total Time Spent in the ER and is measured from the time patients register...

List of health reform waivers keeps growing (1,168 waivers)

The Hill ^ | April 2, 2011 | Jason Millman The number of waivers the Obama administration has awarded for a provision of the year-old healthcare reform law grew by 128 in March. With the new waivers,

that means 1,168 businesses, insurers, unions and other organizations have received one-year exemptions from a healthcare reform provision requiring at least $750,000 in annual benefits.

Guess the Largest Contributor to November Congressional Races

Townhall.com ^ | March 31, 2011 | Ross Mackenzie Comments on issues currently in the news.... --At stake in November were 472 congressional seats (37 Senate seats and all 435 House seats). A record 42 doctors were candidates -- making doctors candidates in about one-twelfth of the 472 congressional races. This is the decisive datum: Of those 42 physician/candidates, 33 favored the repeal of ObamaCare. --Maybe they understand, among other things -- as Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf does -- that ObamaCare will cost the nation jobs. In February testimony before the House Budget Committee, Elmendorf put the number of jobs lost by 2021 as a consequence of...

Britain has fewer high-tech medical machines than Estonia and Turkey
Telegraph ^ | 30 Mar 2011 | Martin Beckford Even those units that do have MRI and CT scanners often leave them to lie idle for much of the time despite rising demand, the National Audit Office said. It claims the NHS is not getting value for money out of the technology, particularly as trusts do not collaborate to buy them or try to get the best prices. The NHS in England had 6 MRI machines per million population in 2010, with figures across Britain putting the country below the Slovak Republic, Turkey, Estonia and Ireland in a league table of provision. For CT scanners, there were 8.4 per...

The Weiner Waiver Wormhole

Creators Syndicate ^ | 3/25/11 | Michelle Malkin New York Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner toasted the one-year anniversary of Obamacare this week -- and accidentally spilled his champagne glass all over the disastrous, one-size-fits-all mandate. Ostensibly one of the federal health care law's staunchest defenders, Weiner exposed its ultimate folly by pushing for a special cost-saving regulatory exemption for New York City. If it's good for the city Weiner wants to be mayor of, why not for each and every individual American and American business that wants to be free of Obamacare's shackles? Weiner joins a bevy of the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's" loudest cheerleaders --...

UK: Private firms to run hospitals in Budget 'growth' plan

The Telegraph ^ | 3/19/2011 | Patrick Hennessy, Private companies are to be given sweeping new powers to run hospitals, more schools and local council services under Budget plans to be unveiled this week, according to leaked documents. George Osborne, the Chancellor The coalition's "growth strategy" to be published on Wednesday at the same time as George Osborne, the Chancellor, delivers the Budget will promise an "across the board change" in the way public services are run in future. The controversial move paves the way for private companies to run more schools as well as whole departments of NHS hospitals and council-run services such as parks...

Woman loses custody of child for five years for refusing C-section
LifeSiteNews ^ | 3/17/11 | Matthew Cullinan Hoffman March 17, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A New Jersey woman has lost custody of her child for the past five years for refusing to sign a consent form permitting a Csection during her childs birth, according to an exclusive report published by Britains Daily Mail newspaper. The Daily Mail reports that the woman, whose initials are given as VM, was accused of child abuse by staff of St.

Barnabas Hospital of New Jersey for refusing to sign the document, despite the fact that VM agreed to submit to the operation if it later became necessary. Although VMs judgment turned out to...

Medicare and Medicaid Made $70 Billion in Improper Payments Last YearMore Than...
cns ^ | March 15, 2011 | Terence P. Jeffrey The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Servicesthe federal health-care agency that is a key bureaucracy in implementing Obamacaremade at least $70.5 billion in improper payments last year. These improper federal health-care payments amounted to more than the combined total of $68.3 billion spent by the entire Homeland Security and the State departments last year, which spent $44.5 billion and $23.8 billion respectively according to the White House Office of Management and Budget. ... A key element of Obamacare provides government health-insurance to lower income people by increasing the income threshold for Medicaid eligibility and putting more people on the Medicaid...

Babies who are born at 23 weeks should be left to die, says NHS chief
dailymail.co.uk ^ | March 6, 2011 | Sophie Borland and Emma Cox Babies born after just 23 weeks of pregnancy or earlier should be left to die, a leading NHS official has said. Dr Daphne Austin said that despite millions being spent on specialised treatments, very few of these children survive as their tiny bodies are too underdeveloped. She claimed keeping them alive is only prolonging their agony, and it would be better to invest the money in care for cancer sufferers or the disabled. Dr Austin, who advises local health trusts how to spend their budgets, said doctors were doing more harm than good by resuscitating 23-weekers and that treatments have...

First in the Nation: Idaho House Passes Health Care Nullification

Tenth Amendment Center ^ | 02-16-2011 | Michael Boldin In an historic vote in the Idaho House of Representatives, the Federal Health Care Nullification Act (originally authored by the Tenth Amendment Center) passed by a vote of 49-20. House Bill 117 states: "The state of Idaho hereby exercises its sovereign power to declare the public policy of the state of Idaho regarding the right of all persons residing in the state of Idaho in choosing the mode of securing health care services free from the imposition of penalties, or the threat thereof, by the federal government of the United States of America relating thereto" The principle behind such legislation...

Obamacare declared unconstitutional in US District Court

Examiner ^ | 1-31-11 | Michael Francis In his decision in the case of Florida v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson stated that the "individual mandate" which would force consumers to purchase some form of health insurance was in violation of the Commerce Clause and cited numerous examples where such government expansion of powers was deemed to be out of order. He also stated that "(I)t would be a radical departure from existing case law to hold that Congress can regulate inactivtity under the Commerce Clause" which could then extend beyond any rational enumeration of powers set forth in the...

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/26/medicare-actuary-doubts-health-care-lawhold-costs/
WASHINGTON -- Two of the central promises of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law are unlikely to be fulfilled, Medicare's independent economic expert told Congress on Wednesday.

Federal center hopes to spur drug research http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_drug_research Obama has decided to enter the drug development market by throwing one billion dollars at creating a new federal research center called the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. He is concerned that drug developers have slowed down on research. We knew before Obamacare, that we subsidized the rest of the world and their low prices on drugs. But we also knew that life saving drugs were not available to other countries that had decided that life was, in some cases, not cost affordable. We knew that America provides 31 percent of all global scientific research and development funding. That 87 out of 143 Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine have gone to Americans. http://americaintheworld.typepad.com/briefings/2008/08/health-care-in.html

Bogus number of the day ("129 million Americans" could be denied coverage if Obamacare repealed)
Daily Mail.com ^ | 1/18/2011 | Don Surber

129 Million Lies About ObamaCare

IBD's Capital Hill ^ | 1/18/2011 | David Hogberg

Health Reform Hits Drug Maker Profits

Fox Business News via American Action Forum ^ | Elizabeth MacDonald, Fox Business News

Research & development programs are already being drastically scaled back. There are dwindling incentives to create drugs and vaccines. And the full impact to the drug and medical devices sectors from the new healthcare law is yet is yet to be scoped out. [The American pharmaceutics industry has for decades led the world in its discovery of "miracle" drugs which have cured, prevented, or mitigated the ravages of innumerable diseases. But because of new hidden taxes imposed on pharmaceutical corporations and R&D by Obamacare, this is about to end. We're moving to Third World socialism not only politically and economically,...

Obama enacts end-of-life plan that drew 'death panel' claims

NYT/msnbc ^ | 12/26/2010 | Robert Pear When a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning touched off a political storm over death panels, Democrats dropped it from legislation to overhaul the health care system. But the Obama administration will achieve the same goal by regulation, starting Jan. 1.

Catholic hospitals face ACLU inquisition

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/catholic_hospitals_face_ aclu_inquisition_jEAFcnpbhTYdKUXh30XHtI Just before Christmas, the American Civil Liberties Union launched another salvo against people of faith. On Dec. 22, the ACLU sent a letter to federal health officials urging the government to force US Catholic hospitals to perform abortions in violation of their core moral commitment to protecting the unborn. They're counting on sympathetic Obama rationing czar Donald Berwick to dictate which religious principles hospital operators can and can't follow. The ACLU reiterated its call for a federal probe of Catholic hospitals nationwide that refuse to provide "emergency" contraception and abortions to women.

Health-care law dealt a blow, but its not fatal

MarketWatch ^ | Dec. 13, 2010, 1:45 p.m. EST | Rex Nutting Commentary: Only the Supreme Court can settle thisWASHINGTON (MarketWatch) A U.S. federal judge ruled Monday that the central provision of the new health-care-reform law is unconstitutional. According to Federal Judge Henry Hudson in Richmond, Va., Congress cannot require everyone to purchase health insurance. The Constitutions commerce clause gives Congress the power to regulate economic activity, he ruled, but not to regulate economic inactivity. Read MarketWatch news story on the judge's ruling. Importantly, the judge did not take the next step and rule that the entire law must be declared void immediately,

More Health Waivers

The Obama Administration has quietly granted even more waivers to the new federal health reform law, doubling the number in just the last three weeks to a new total of 222. One of the more recognizable business names included on the newly-expanded list of waivers issued by the feds is that of Waffle House, which received a waiver on November 23 for health coverage that covers 3,947 enrollees. Another familiar name was that of Universal Orlando, which runs a variety of very popular resorts in the Orlando, Florida area. Universal was given a waiver for plans that cover 668 workers....

Fox: AARP admits supporting Obamacare was a mistake for its members
Fox News Channel | 11/5/10 Members' premiums up 8-13% for just next year. Spokesman on Fox twisting and squirming, admitting supporting ObamaCare might have been a mistake. AARP spokesman saying it might have been worse without Obamacare. Developing...

Two more states vote to nullify healthcare reform (amend State Constitutions)
http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2010/11/two-more-states-vote-to-nullifyhealthcare-reform.html ^ Voters in Arizona and Oklahoma amended their state constitutions Tuesday with "healthcare freedom" measures designed to block the new federal mandate on individuals and some employers to buy health insurance. Voters in Colorado went the other way, defeating a similar initiative. The measures purport to give state residents the right not to participate in any healthcare system without penalty and to have access to any legal medical services they can afford.

U.S. to Let Insurers Raise Fees for Sick Children

NYT ^ | 10/13/10 | ROBERT PEAR WASHINGTON The Obama administration, aiming to encourage health insurance companies to offer child-only policies, said Wednesday that they could charge higher premiums for coverage of children with serious medical problems, if state law allowed it. Earlier this year, major insurers, faced with an unprofitable business, stopped issuing new child-only policies. They said that the Obama administrations interpretation of the new health care law would allow families to buy such coverage at the last minute, when children became ill and were headed to the hospital. In September, the administration said that insurers could establish open-enrollment periods

Government by Favoritism
American Thinker ^ | October 7, 2010 | Thomas Lifson ObamaCare is an even bigger disaster for America than previously suspected, going beyond merely wrecking the health care sector. It is changing the rule of law, the sacred principle of our political economy, into rule by government favor. One of the many poorly-conceived provisions of ObamaCare was one mandating the percentage of premium income which would have to be spent on medical expenses. This had the effect of making it impossible to offer low cost plans to lower wage workers. When it became known McDonald's would drop a health coverage option for tens of thousands of its workers, ObamaCare advocates,...

Obamacare firesale: Three Catholic Hospitals for sale in Pennsylvania

The Washington Examiner ^ | October 7, 2010 | Mark Hemingway It looks like its not just insurers that suddenly want to get out of the health care business. Three Catholic hospitals in Pennsylvania are now on the market, and the hospital management is telling the local media that Obamacare is a major reason why the facilities are being unloaded: Mercy Hospital in Scranton is up for sale. Those who run the place and all other Mercy facilities in our area said Wednesday they are already in talks with organizations interested in buying. Mercy Health Partners hopes to have a buyer by the end of the year. Officials said there are...

McDonald's, 29 other firms get health care coverage waivers

timesnewsnet ^ | 10/10/2010 | staff USA Today is reporting that nearly a million workers won't get a consumer protection in the U.S. health reform law meant to cap insurance costs because the government exempted their employers. Thirty companies and organizations, including McDonald's and Jack in the Box won't be required to raise the minimum annual benefit included in low-cost health plans, which are often used to cover part-time or low-wage employees. The Department of Health and Human Services, which provided a list of exemptions, said it granted waivers in late September so workers with such plans wouldn't lose coverage from employers who might choose instead...

3M to dump retirees from medical coverage

HotAir ^ | Ed Morrissey | ED MORRISSEY Remember when Barack Obama repeatedly promised that no ones current coverage would have to change if Congress approved the health-care overhaul he demanded? When the ObamaCare bill passed, the Associated Press suddenly discovered that the change of tax law that would supposedly generate billions of dollars to pay for the costs of the bill would also drive companies to dump retirees from their existing drug coverage and push them into Medicare. Minnesota-based 3M became one of the first large corporations to do just that and push retirees off of all their plans as well: 3M Co., citing new federal...

United Healthcare Drops Medicare Drug Coverage with AARP

AARP Notification | 9/30/2010 | EagleUSA Well, folks, here it comes. AARP's huge Medicare Part D insurance provider, and provider to others, has sent notice to policy holders that they are dropping their policies as of year end. The horrific atrocity that is dubbed Obamacare, is now taking its toll and this is just the start. We knew that the elderly would be hit hard in this egregious debacle to pay for the redistribution of healthcare to worthy people such as illegal aliens. Could not find any news on this yet but just received notice from AARP and United Healthcare about it.

McDonald's says it may drop healthcare benefits

LA Times ^ | 30 Sep 2010 McDonald's Corp. may cut health insurance for nearly 30,000 hourly workers in the U.S. unless federal regulators waive a requirement of the new healthcare law. The restaurant chain is at odds over the law's stipulation that "mini-med" insurance plans, which provide limited benefits, spend at least 80% of premium revenue on medical care, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a company memo. McDonald's told federal regulators it would be "economically prohibitive" for its insurance carrier to continue to cover hourly workers unless it receives a waiver excluding it from the 80% requirement, the memo said.

Obamacare taxes http://capoliticalnews.com/blog_post/show/6419 To further complicate this part of ObamaScare, the new tax works in tandem with the capital gains tax which is set to increase this year from 15-20% for most taxpayers. That aside, here is the basic outline: Income Period: * Applies to all tax years after December 31, 2012. Included Transactions: (subject to the limits below) * Gains from the sale of homes and other non business property * Interest Income * Dividend Income * Annuities * Royalties * Rental Income * Income from Trading financial instruments and commodities (stocks, bonds etc)

UK: RAF hero, 86, with three forms of cancer 'refused NHS care because he's not ill enough'
The Daily Mail (U.K.) ^ | September 22, 2010 A terminally ill RAF hero who spent a year in a World War II prisoner-of-war camp has been denied NHS nursing care because he is 'not ill enough' - despite having just weeks to live with three cancers and dementia. Former RAF sergeant Bernard Warren, 86, was diagnosed with cancer of the stomach, liver and lungs two weeks ago and given two months to live. His wife Tricia, 69, has dutifully nursed him at home for six years as he fell victim to dementia but is now unable to cope with his failing health. (edit) Bernard's son...

White House tries to give healthcare a human face (After Providers Begin Dropping Children)
reuters ^ | 9/22/2010 | Patricia Zengerle President Barack Obama launches a new attempt to convince Americans of the advantages of his healthcare overhaul on Wednesday, just six weeks before an election in which the plan has proved more of a liability than a benefit for his fellow Democrats. Obama will travel to the suburban backyard of a family home in Falls Church, Virginia, to talk about provisions of the new law that will come into effect on Thursday, six months after it became law. The event will include Americans from across the country who are already benefiting from healthcare reform, the White House said, seeking to...

Regulations rise as VCs exit health care

EETimes ^ PALO ALTO, Calif. Medical electronics companies face increasing hurdles getting funding and regulatory approval to bring new technologies to market, according to executives at a medical device event here. "We're in a bit of a perfect storm right now with some of the worst things I've seen in 30 years," said Eamonn Hobbs, chief executive of DelCath Systems and chairman of the Medical Device Manufacturers Association (MDMA), host of the event. As many as threequarters of venture capitalists are exiting the health care field as the total pool of venture capital decreases and regulatory hurdles increase, said Kevin Wasserstein,...

Health Insurers Seeking Rate Hikes Of More Than 20 Percent In Connecticut

Hartford Courant ^ Health insurers are asking for immediate rate hikes of more than 20 percent in Connecticut for some plans, citing rising medical costs and federal health reform laws as reasons. Both issues the new federal health care reform and rising medical costs are significant drivers of the increases, according to filings by insurers with state regulators that were reviewed by The Courant.

Employers shifting health-care costs to workers, survey shows washington post ^ | 9/2/2010 | David S. Hilzenrath Amid high unemployment and a weak economy, employers have been shifting health care costs to workers, according to a study released Thursday. The premiums that employees pay for employer-sponsored family coverage rose an average of 13.7 percent this year, while the amount that employers contribute fell by 0.9 percent, the survey found. For family coverage, workers are paying an average of $3,997, up $482 from last year, while employers are paying an average of $9,773, down $87, according to the survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust. With so many people out of work,...

Mother told to clean own room after caesarean (Coming to the USA with 0bamacare) The Local Swedens News In English ^ | August 22, 2010 Mother-of-two Elin Andersson has highlighted staffing shortage problems at a maternity ward in Sundsvall in northern Sweden after she was asked to clean out her own hospital room just two days after giving birth by caesarean section.Every time Andersson required medicine she had to call staff to remind them, she told local newspaper Sundsvalls Tidning. The new baby's father meanwhile was requested to aid in the care of his partner. Two days after the operation, the recovering mum decided she was ready to go home. That was when the midwife said I had one final task to perform. Then she...

'We'll do cancer scan on Monday...if she's still alive': Agony of family of dying grandmother UK Daily Mail ^ | 8/21/10 | Emily Andrews As a hospital cleaner, Margaret Cummins dedicated years of her life to the Health Service. She would keep the buildings spick and span - and go out of her way to help the sick and reassure those in distress. But if she expected a little respect in return when she became a cancer patient, she was very wrong. Instead, the 74-year-old's family were told that she could not have a vital scan because that particular unit was closed at weekends. The locum doctor said: 'We'll do it on Monday - if she's still here.' That crass remark was among 36...

UK: Top doctors could be forced to take 10,000 pay cut by Government The Telegraph ^ | 8/20/2010 | Andy Bloxham Bonuses for clinical excellence can be worth around 80,000 a year for the best consultant-grade doctors but Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, is expected to ask them to be trimmed. The Times reported that Mr Lansley will ask the independent Doctors and Dentists Review Body, which sets pay and bonuses, to bring the scheme in line with other public sector pay schemes. Bonuses cost the NHS around 350million every year, with around two thirds of that being paid out directly through the awards for clinical excellence. Mr Lansley's ideas will not be uniformly opposed. Several high-profile figures have asked for...

Dont Tell Palin, Here Come The Death Panels Investor's Business Daily ^ | August 19, 2010 | David Hogberg An earlier Capital Hill post examined the Independent Payment Advisory Board created under ObamaCare that will recommend changes to Medicare payments in years that Medicare exceeds set spending targets and noted that historical evidence suggests that agencies like the IPAB will be ineffective or harmful. The Food and Drug Administration may be giving us a preview of things to come with IPAB. Currently, the FDA is considering whether to withdraw approval of Avastin, a drug that helps extend the life of breast cancer patients. The evidence suggests that Avastin extends the life of women with breast cancer by 31% to...

Assurant Health to eliminate 130 jobs (more ObamaCare victims) js online ^ | 8/19/2010 | Guy Boulton Assurant Health said Thursday that it will eliminate 130 jobs at its offices in Milwaukee and Plymouth, Minn., by Oct. 1 as the health insurer prepares for the pending changes under federal health care reform. The company, based in Milwaukee and part of Assurant Inc., sells health insurance for individuals and small employers as well as short-term policies. Companies that sell health insurance for individuals and small employers face an onslaught of new regulations under health care reform, including the requirement that they spend 80% of premiums on medical care. "While it always is a tough decision to eliminate jobs,...

Death Panels Begin As Reform Takes Shape IBD Editorials ^ | August 18, 2010 | Investors Business Daily staff Medicine: After the recess appointment of a Medicare and Medicaid head, an FDA panel drops its endorsement of a widely used cancer drug. Another FDA-approved cancer therapy may not be paid for. It begins. It didn't take long for the health care philosophy of Dr. Donald Berwick, President Obama's choice to head the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, and an appointee we have labeled a "one-man death panel," to have an effect. Berwick is an admirer of Britain's National Health Service and its National Institute for Clinical Excellence, with the Orwellian-acronym NICE. "NICE," Berwick has said, "is extremely effective...

Employee health care costs going up Washington Business Journal ^ | 8/18/2010 | Jeff Clabaugh More than two-thirds of large employers surveyed by the National Business Group on Health plan to increase employee contributions to health care plans next year, and most are making changes to health plans in advance of federally mandated health care reform. The Washington-based group's survey found 53 percent of employers will make changes to their benefit plans despite uncertainty about compliance with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Among biggest changes, removing lifetime dollar limits on benefits, removing annual dollar limits on benefits and removing pre-existing condition exclusions for children. "They have to foot the bill, not the government,"...

Health Care Premiums Are Already Soaring In Advance of Obamacare FNC ^ | 8/16/10 | Bradley Blakeman This past month millions of Americans got notice from Blue Cross/Blue Shield providers across the country that their insurance premiums were going way up effective immediately. Here is the terse reason CareFirst/ Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Washington gave its subscribers for raising a monthly premium from $333 to $512 on a middle aged man who is healthy, is not a smoker and is not obese: "Your new rate reflects the overall rise in health care costs and we regret having to pass these additional costs on to you." Recently, Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly also received a similar notice from...

US breast cancer drug decision 'marks start of death panels' The Telegraph ^ | 8/16/2010 | Nick Allen in Los Angeles and Andrew Hough America's health watchdog is considering revoking its approval of the drug Avastin for use on women with advanced breast cancer, leading to accusations that it will mark the start of 'death panel' drug rationing. A decision to rescind endorsement of the drug would reignite the highly charged debate over US health care reform and how much the state should spend on new and expensive treatments. Avastin, the worlds best selling cancer drug, is primarily used to treat colon cancer and was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2008 for use on women with breast cancer that has...

http://ihealthbulletin.com/blog/2010/08/09/massachusetts-health-care-plan-restrictsaccess-primary-care/ Massachusetts health care plan dangerously restricts access to primary care Published August 9th, 2010 in General Interest, Health News, Life, Medical News, Popular The first health care plan from a for-profit insurance company approved to offer government-subsidized coverage under Massachusetts health care reform has dangerously restricted access to primary care, according to data reported on August 5, 2010 in the New England Journal of Medicine . Researchers say the findings raise troubling concerns about the Obama administrations new health law, which is modeled after the Massachusetts plan.

The cheating ways of AMA http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2554263/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2552595/posts An Obamacare mandate requires a 1099 form on all purchases over $600 from another business.

Big Pharmas stalled R&D machine, 200,000 jobs could go across the industry http://www.reuters.com/article/idAFLDE65D1ES20100616?rpc=44

Dr. Donald Berwick picked to be director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, an outspoken proponent of the British National Health Service.

America provides 31 percent of all global scientific research and development funding. 87 out of 143 Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine have gone to Americans. http://americaintheworld.typepad.com/briefings/2008/08/health-care-in.html

Carter attempt to limit doctor supply faces tough going in congress. Feb 1979 http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nf pb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ198603&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_ 0=no&accno=EJ198603

http://www.usatoday.com/educate/college/healthscience/articles/20050306.htm USA Today, March 3, 2005 Medical miscalculation creates doctor shortage Snip The marketplace doesn't determine how many doctors the nation has, as it does for engineers, pilots and other professions. The number of doctors is a political decision, heavily influenced by doctors themselves.
Congress controls the supply of physicians by how much federal funding it provides for medical residencies -- the graduate training required of all doctors. To become a physician, students spend four years in medical school. Graduates then spend three to seven years training as residents, usually treating patients under supervision at a hospital. Residents work long hours for $35,000 to $50,000 a year. Even doctors trained in other countries must serve medical residencies in the USA to practice here. Medicare, which provides health care to the nation's seniors, also is the primary federal agency that controls the supply of doctors. It reimburses hospitals for the cost of training medical residents. The government spends about $11 billion annually on 100,000 medical residents, or roughly $110,000 per resident. The number of residents has hovered at this level for the past decade, according to the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. In 1997, to save money and prevent a doctor glut, Congress capped the number of residents that Medicare will pay for at about 80,000 a year. Another 20,000 residents are financed by Veterans Affairs and Medicaid, the state-federal health care program for the poor. Teaching hospitals pay for a small number of residents without government assistance.

America truly is the Greatest Country in the World. By: Kitty Werthmann What I am about to tell you is something you've probably never heard or will ever read in history books. I believe that I am an eyewitness to history. I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history. We elected him by a landslide - 98% of the vote. I've never read that in any American publications. Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force. In 1938, Austria was in deep Depression. Nearly one-third of our workforce was unemployed. We had 25% inflation and 25% bank loan interest rates. Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily. Young people were going from house to house begging for food. Not that they didn't want to work; there simply weren't any jobs. My mother was a Christian woman and believed in helping people in need. Every day we cooked a big kettle of soup and baked bread to feed those poor, hungry people - about 30 daily. The Communist Party and the National Socialist Party were fighting each other. Blocks and blocks of cities like Vienna , Linz , and Graz were destroyed. The people became desperate and petitioned the government to let them decide what kind of government they wanted. We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany , where Hitler had been in power since 1933. We had been told that they didn't have unemployment or crime, and they had a high standard of living. Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group -- Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believe that everyone was happy. We wanted the same way of life in Austria . We were promised that a vote for Hitler would mean the end of unemployment and help for the family. Hitler also said that businesses would be assisted, and farmers would get their farms back. Ninety-eight percent of the population voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler. We were overjoyed, and, for three days, we danced in the streets and had candlelight parades. The new government opened up big field kitchens and everyone was fed. After the election, German officials were appointed, and like a miracle, we suddenly had law and order. Three or four weeks later, everyone was employed. The government made sure that a lot of work was created through the Public Work Service. Hitler decided we should have equal rights for women. Before this, it was a custom that married Austrian women did not work outside the home. An able-bodied husband would be looked down on if he couldn't support his family. Many women in the teaching profession were elated that they could retain the jobs they previously had been required to give up for marriage. Hitler Targets Education - Eliminates Religious Instruction for Children:

Our education was nationalized. I attended a very good public school. The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler's picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class we wouldn't pray or have religion anymore. Instead, we sang "Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles," and had physical education. Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance. Parents were not pleased about the sudden change in curriculum. They were told that if they did not send us, they would receive a stiff letter of warning the first time. The second time they would be fined the equivalent of $300, and the third time they would be subject to jail. The first two hours consisted of political indoctrination. The rest of the day we had sports. As time went along, we loved it. Oh, we had so much fun and got our sports equipment free. We would go home and gleefully tell our parents about the wonderful time we had. My mother was very unhappy. When the next term started, she took me out of public school and put me in a convent. I told her she couldn't do that and she told me that someday, when I grew up, I would be grateful. There was a very good curriculum, but hardly any fun - no sports, and no political indoctrination. I hated it at first, but felt I could tolerate it. Every once in a while, on holidays, I went home. I would go back to my old friends and ask what was going on and what they were doing. Their loose lifestyle was very alarming to me. They lived without religion. By that time, unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler. It seemed strange to me that our society changed so suddenly. As time went along, I realized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn't exposed to that kind of humanistic philosophy. Equal Rights Hits Home: In 1939, the war started and a food bank was established. All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant, if you didn't work, you didn't get a ration card, and if you didn't have a card, you starved to death. Women who stayed home to raise their families didn't have any marketable skills and often had to take jobs more suited for men. Soon after this, the draft was implemented. It was compulsory for young people, male and female, to give one year to the labor corps. During the day, the girls worked on the farms, and at night they returned to their barracks for military training just like the boys. They were trained to be anti-aircraft gunners and participated in the signal corps. After the labor corps, they were not discharged but were used in the front lines. When I go back to Austria to visit my family and friends, most of these women are emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handle the horrors of combat. Three months before I turned 18, I was severely injured in an air raid attack. I nearly had a leg amputated, so I was spared having to go into the labor corps and into military service. Hitler Restructured the Family Through Daycare:

When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers. You could take your children ages 4 weeks to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, 7 days a week, under the total care of the government. The state raised a whole generation of children. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, no one talked about equal rights. Health Care and Small Business Suffer Under Government Controls: Before Hitler, we had very good medical care. Many American doctors trained at the University of Vienna . After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries. As for healthcare, our tax rates went up to 80% of our income. Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families. All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing. We had another agency designed to monitor business. My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables. Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn't meet all the demands. Soon, he went out of business. If the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it could be in control. We had consumer protection. We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency specially designed for farmers. The agents would go to the farms, count the livestock, then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it. "Mercy Killing" Redefined: In 1944, I was a student teacher in a small village in the Alps . The villagers were surrounded by mountain passes which, in the winter, were closed off with snow, causing people to be isolated. So people intermarried and offspring were sometimes retarded. When I arrived, I was told there were 15 mentally retarded adults, but they were all useful and did good manual work. I knew one, named Vincent, very well. He was a janitor of the school. One day, I looked out the window and saw Vincent and others getting into a van. I asked my superior where they were going. She said to an institution where the

State Health Department would teach them a trade, and to read and write. The families were required to sign papers with a little clause that they could not visit for 6 months. They were told visits would interfere with the program and might cause homesickness. As time passed, letters started to dribble back saying these people died a natural, merciful death. The villagers were not fooled. We suspected what was happening. Those people left in excellent physical health and all died within 6 months. We called this euthanasia. The Final Steps - Gun Laws: Next came gun registration. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law-abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long afterwards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily. No more freedom of speech. Anyone who said something against the government was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up. Totalitarianism didn't come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria . Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism. Now, our only weapons were broom handles. The whole idea sounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little, eroded our freedom. After World War II, Russian troops occupied Austria. Women were raped, pre-teen to elderly. The press never wrote about this, either. When the Soviets left in 1955, they took everything that they could, dismantling whole factories in the process. They sawed down whole orchards of fruit, and what they couldn't destroy, they burned. We called it The Burned Earth. Most of the population barricaded themselves in their houses. Women hid in their cellars for 6 weeks as the troops mobilized. Those who couldn't, paid the price. There is a monument in Vienna today, dedicated to those women who were massacred by the Russians. This is an eye witness account. "It's true...those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity. America Truly is the Greatest Country in the World. Don't Let Freedom Slip A way! Please forward this message to other voters who may not have seen it. " After America , There is No Place to Go"

The author of this article lives in South Dakota and is very active in attempting to maintain our freedom. I encourage everybody to read this article and pass it along. I see so many parallels in this country; are we going to sit by and watch it happen? If you don't want to be bothered, then you're part of the problem! Google Kitty Werthmann and you will see articles and videos. happening here today right under our noses