Free Republic

Proponents of President Obama’s “Affordable Care Act” often suggest skeptics look across the Atlantic to the United Kingdom as an example of what can be made better with the American health care system. But doctors in the United Kingdom have about had it, it seems, calling their own system “worse than Communist China.” A recent report in the U.K. Telegraph chronicles the conclusions of the British Medical Association’s annual conference, where doctors loudly lamented the undue power of abusive managers and bureaucrats, who seem to have as much or more power in hospitals than the actual doctors. “The result is...

After I graduated college and before I landed my first real-deal job that included insurance benefits, I took out my own independent health insurance plan that covered all of the bases a young and healthy person like myself might need. It cost me about ninety dollars a month, and seeing as how I didn’t have any regular health care needs, it was pretty much just catastrophe insurance in case I happened to break my leg or get into a car accident or catch malaria or some other relatively unlikely scenario. I felt secure about the situation, knowing that I would...

Remember that Nancy Pelosi told us that we needed to pass ObamaCare to find out what’s in it. Barack Obama promised to “bend the cost curve,” too. Looks like both of them were right, at least according to the Paper of Record, which discovers to its surprise that dumping nebulous mandates on insurers causes them to bend the cost curve sharply upward (via Instapundit): Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid...

"Your guaranteed Medicare benefits won’t change — whether you get them through Original Medicare or a Medicare Advantage plan.” “First of all, if you've got health insurance, you like your doctors, you like your plan, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan" President Barack Hussein Obama “Cynics beware, I am romantic about the National Health Service; I love it. … The NHS is one of the astounding human endeavors of modern times.” (Donald Berwick)

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Now that President Barack Obama has signed the pro-abortion health care bill into law, a supporter of his has admitted the rationing components in it. During an appearance on ABC's "This Week" Paul Krugman admits some of the concerns that pro-life groups pointed out during the debate. Krugman claims accurately that the cost/benefit board established over private medicine by the new health care program will be able to impose “more or less binding judgments” refusing care. He said these judgments will save “a lot of money” in the context of treating the elderly and people with...

In an unusual move that has rocked the local hospital community, the Sacramento City Council is poised to stretch its approval authority over construction projects to include the way large medical facilities spend money and care for patients. Under the plan, the council would go beyond a typical examination of whether a proposed medical facility poses environmental, traffic or other impacts. Added to its considerations would be nine "community benefit principles" that range from collection practices to labor issues. The plan was drafted by a coalition of religious leaders, social-justice activists and representatives from the Service Employees International Union and...