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(VIDEO-AT-LINK)An ad produced by the Department of Health and Human Services tells the story of Elena Miller-TerKuile, who is “pursuing her dream to farm” in Colorado thanks to Obamacare. “The Marketplace is probably the only reason I have health insurance right now,” the Columbia University grad says in the ad. She said, “It’s been my dream for a while to come back to the farm and work with my dad.” In a blog post at HHS Miller-TerKuile explains, “It was a hard dream to pursue without health insurance. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, I was able to stay on...

The only guarantees in life are death and taxes. Death follows life and taxes follow you everywhere like an incurable disease The only guarantees in life are death and taxes. Death follows life and taxes follow you everywhere like an incurable disease. Nobody woke up one day and said, let’s tax the heck out of people for their bad behavior, for existing, for traveling on roads, for smoking, for drinking, for trash disposal, for luxury goods, for pollution, for phone use, radio, TV, Internet, for buying goods and services. Taxes were added slowly over millennia for the “common good,” to...

Come, let us reason together.  Mark Twain famously quoted British PM Benjamin Disraeli, “there are three kinds of lies:  lies, damned lies, and statistics.”  Generally, this is true, but sometimes statistics don’t lie.  In the case of measles, the statistics speak truth. The measles vaccine was developed in 1963, and combined with the mumps and rubella vaccines in 1971, known as the MMR vaccine.  Children are given the first shot between 12-15 months old, and another between 4 and 6 years old.  Thus has it been for well over 40 years.  In the 52 years since the measles vaccine as...

Millions of Americans are about to get their first taste of the Obamacare tax. Last year the tax penalty for failing to buy private health insurance is $95 or 1% of income, whichever is greater. Because the media hyped the $95 end of the tax, millions of people are unaware that their taxes are more likely to increase far more. The tax increases to $325 or 2% this year, it increases further in 2016. For many taxpayers, it’s going to be a rude awakening when they discover that Obamacare is going to cost them in tax much more than they...

It sounds like something from a science fiction plot: so-called three-dimensional printers are being used to fashion prosthetic arms and hands, jaw bones, spinal-cord implants -- and one day perhaps even living human body parts. While the parts printed for humans so far have been fashioned from plastic, metal and other inorganic materials, researchers in California and elsewhere also have begun printing living tissue, with the goal of eventually employing these "bioprinters" to create customized kidneys, livers and other organs for people needing transplants. What's particularly attractive about the technology, according to its proponents, is that 3D printers can produce...

Medical retainer agreements between physicians and patients will not be considered “insurance” in Michigan under a recently passed bill signed into law on Jan. 15 by Gov. Rick Snyder. The idea is to ensure that this innovative way for families to obtain routine medical services at lower costs will not be stifled by the extensive state regulatory structure currently imposed on conventional health insurance policies that cover expensive non-routine care. The rationale for this alternative is that while insurance coverage may be advisable for catastrophic illnesses and injuries, it makes less sense as a way to pay for routine primary...

According to Dr. Gilbert Ross, Medical and Executive Director, American Council on Science and Health… Smoking is America’s most important, and preventable, public health problem: It is estimated that almost a half-million of us will succumb prematurely to smoking’s deadly effects each year, with twenty-times that number sickened. Among our 43 million smokers, over half try to quit each year, yet less than one in twenty succeed. The FDA approved products—patches, gums, and drugs—help “boost” that to about one in ten, an abysmal “success” rate of 10 percent. Yet, the official line, from the FDA and the CDC on down,...

The latest data on Obamacare analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office shows that 10 million Americans are likely to lose their employer-based insurance by 2021 as companies dump their workers onto the Obamacare exchanges. That's 10 times the number originally projected by the CBO. About 1 of every 16 workers will be affected. The latest CBO report has not garnered a lot of attention, even though it contains the modestly good news that Obamacare is not costing as much as the CBO thought it would in 2010. That said, another reason the left and the administration may not be touting...

Heavier women are more likely to be lighter in the wallet, reports a new study that says obese females tend to occupy lower-paying, more-strenuous jobs in less-visible corners of the U.S. workforce when compared to average-sized women and men. In fact, the link between extra pounds and leaner paychecks is distinct: When a woman “becomes overweight,” she already is less likely to land a public-facing role in better-paying white-collar jobs, according to research released Tuesday by Vanderbilt University. And women who are considered obese or morbidly obese — based on their body mass indexes — are more likely to forced...

I sometimes gauge the virtue of a particular public policy by posing a hypothetical question: What if we promoted this policy exclusively within a disadvantaged sector? Secular progressives love assisted suicide. They fawned all over Brittany Maynard’s decision to take her own life last year, declaring the beauty of such a thoughtful, pensive, decision. After all, any decision that requires so much deep thought and garners a large online following must be the right one. So here’s the test. What if we marketed assisted suicide as an option, especially to inner-city blacks? Television commercials and billboards could tout a peaceful...

President Obama hailed the 42nd anniversary of 1973’s Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion at any time for any reason throughout a woman’s pregnancy. “Since 1973 over 50 million unwanted births have been prevented,” Obama pointed out. “That’s 50 million mothers spared the toils and troubles of rearing children they did not want. That’s 50 million individuals spared the indignity of being an unwanted child.” The President also took this anniversary as an opportunity to call for “continued vigilance against those who would have us backtrack on this vital human right.” Two instances of “backtracking” as the President sees it are...

This announcement actually came out almost a week ago, arriving with little fanfare or notice, given all the other global events which were unfolding. The archivists for the Clinton Library sent notice that they were preparing to release a “huge trove or records” (as Politico put it) relating to Hillary Clinton’s policy work during her time as First Lady in Bill Clinton’s White House. The descriptions here beggar the imagination and probably overshadow the fact that they will just coincidentally be coming out just when Hillary’s expected POTUS run is kicking into high gear. A massive collection of documents related...

Brasília (AFP) - Brazilian scientists have discovered a protein in coffee that has effects similar to pain reliever morphine, researchers at the state University of Brasilia (UnB) and state-owned Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation Embrapa said Saturday. Embrapa said its genetics and biotech division, teaming up with UnB scientists, had discovered "previously unknown protein fragments" with morphine-like effects in that they possess "analgesic and mildly tranquilizing" qualities. The company added tests on laboratory mice showed that the opioid peptides, which are naturally occurring biological molecules, appeared to have a longer-lasting effect on the mice than morphine itself....

Jenna Tosh New President/ CEO Santa Barbara Chapter of Planned Parenthood Jenna Tosh Talks about Protestors, Congress, and Her Plans for the Santa Barbara ChapterLast week, Jenna Tosh became the new leader for the tri-counties Planned Parenthood branch, replacing longtime president Cheryl Rollings, who retired last fall. With her, Tosh, 31, brings experience heading the Orlando affiliate, where she oversaw 69 staff and a $5 million budget. In charge of Santa Barbara, Ventura, and San Luis Obispo, Tosh — who holds a PhD in public policy, which she focused on teen pregnancy — will see her staff nearly double (120)...

If the Republican Congress fails to take swift and deliberate action on ObamaCare between now and the 2016 elections, they will have defeated themselves Can anyone remember how awful the U.S. healthcare free market system was that it needed to be replaced by the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as ObamaCare? Can’t remember? That’s because it was ranked one of the best of the world and represented 17.9% of the nation’s economy in 2014. That’s down from the 20% it represented in 2009 when ObamaCare was foisted on Americans. One of the best ways to follow the ObamaCare story is...

“If we accept that the mother can kill her own child for convenience, what moral ground is left?” If there is one subject that should not be left for the deceitful ‘debate’ of self-serving, bankrupt-of-morals politicians, it’s protecting the lives of unborn children. Any possible ‘debate’ on abortion came to a loud and grinding halt when technology proved for once and for all that babies are not the convenient so-called ‘fetuses’ that give rise to the selfish “My body, my choice” alibi but thumb-sucking infants, photographed as irrefutable proof in their mother’s wombs. Now comes proof that delaying and diluting...

Jason Kinsey, found justified in self defense shooting. I have written about the concepts of disparity of force before, and of the fact that a punch to the head is a deadly threat.   Disparity of force can come into play in a number of ways.  The assailant can be much younger, stronger, bigger, faster, there can be multiple assailants, the element of surprise, or, an assailant with known martial arts skills.  The concept is that the attacker or attackers are a serious threat to a person's life or bodily integrity because of factors that give them unequal power outside...

Perhaps the thought of those cries and screams will haunt Reps. Blackburn, Ellmers and Walorski for the rest of their days in office They ought to rename the Republican Party that gained majority control of both the House and Senate in November’s midterm elections only to turn around and renege on campaign promises immediately after being sworn in, the Pontius Pilate Party, PPP for short. No other name better suits a party that staged an 11th-hour revolt against the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, the 20-week abortion ban that had already got a green light in the last Congress with...

Alaska smokers will spend over $2 million.American smokers spend at least $1 million dollars on cigarette-related expenditures over their lifetimes, according to a state-by-state analysis done by the financial consultancy company WalletHub. The most expensive state for smokers is Alaska, where the habit costs over $2 million dollars on average. For a bargain, move to South Carolina, but that still comes in at nearly $1.1 million. “I and most people really just think of the cost of cigarettes and taxes on the packs, but if you think about the healthcare costs, which can totally be avoided, healthcare insurance premiums, and...

President Obama signed into law $5.4 billion in funding for what was already a phantom epidemic “It was impossible to predict the decline in the Ebola caseload last September, when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggested a worst-case scenario of 1.4 million victims in West Africa.” That from the Washington Post, January 18, in an article on Ebola treatment centers standing empty even as new ones are being built. Fewer than 22,000 cases have been reported and new cases are approaching zero. “Impossible?” I predicted it and repeated it over and over, in multiple major publications....