Free Republic

Here’s the biggest topic in public health: Why does the U.S. pay substantially more than any other country in the world for healthcare, only to realize mediocre outcomes? Consider these findings, from a 2010 Commonwealth Fund report (and things have not much improved): Despite having the most costly health system in the world, the United States consistently underperforms on most dimensions of performance, relative to other countries. Compared with six other nations—Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom—the U.S. healthcare system ranks last or next-to-last on five dimensions of a high performance health system: quality, access,...

“I’m writing you a prescription for drugs A, B and C,” the doctor says. “Take those from now on, and you’ll feel like yourself again.” These kind of medical recommendations are issued with increasing frequency in the United States, and patients are generally quick to follow the orders. Researches at the Mayo Clinic reported that almost 70 percent of Americans today are taking at least one prescription drug, and over half are taking at least two. A smaller percentage of Americans are on numerous prescriptions. In 2014, Americans were written a total of 4.33 billion prescriptions. For a population of...

I wish all a very happy and blessed Thanks Giving and upcoming Holidays. This is an animation of a Bengal tiger, also called the Royal Bengal tiger, is the most numerous tiger subspecies. It is the national animal of both India and Bangladesh. By 2011, the total population was estimated at fewer than 2,500 individuals with a decreasing trend. Merlin Falcon in flight, is a small species of falcon from the Northern Hemisphere. A bird of prey once known colloquially as a pigeon hawk in North America. A South American, Colombian Parakeet (Perija) that is listed as critically endangered and...

“I’m paid to dispense a little poison every day to people,” said a well-trained pharmacist recently. We began our conversation at a Treasure Coast GOP forum for candidates running for office. There was nothing new being said so I welcomed this conversation with a real American who was unafraid to tell the truth about a tragedy he sees every day. “Forty four out of every 100 middle aged white Americans are taking anti-depressants, more than 1 in 3,” he went on. When you multiply out his figure of 495 prescriptions for pills he fills every day at one corner, corporate...

Charlie Sheen’s announcement that he is HIV positive has created a huge uproar as critics attack him from every direction, but the truth is that Charlie Sheen is simply a reflection of our society as a whole. You see, the truth is that it isn’t just big Hollywood stars that are engaged in insanely risky sexual behavior. According to the CDC, there are 110 million cases of sexually-transmitted disease in America today, and another 20 million STD cases are added to that total every year. The United States has the highest STD infection rate in the entire industrialized world, and...

Many articles have appeared in this column questioning the conventional wisdom on matters ranging from infection control practices; to the validity of established (yet oft-changing) guidelines on diet, and “healthy” blood titers for a host of substances; to suitable blood pressure numbers. The implication is that such wisdom is subject to influence by sundry commercial and political forces. While most people are familiar with the CDC, FDA, and NIH, in many cases, so-called non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are involved. These can be trade associations such as the American Heart Association and American Medical Association, as well as consensus standard groups such...

Owner-directed aggression in dogs has been written and talked about at length, but feline owner-directed aggression has received less attention. In dogs, “conflict aggression” has replaced “dominance aggression” as a more accurate description of the behavior’s motivation. The change occurred because pundits no longer accept the premise that the relationship between dogs and their owners is governed by pack mentality, as neither dogs in the wild nor, as it turns out, wolves seem to organize themselves along these lines. With this in mind, it seems ludicrous to discuss dominance or status-related aggression in cats, as they do not organize themselves...

Hillary Clinton recently drew scrutiny for a claim that resurfaced in a New Hampshire breakfast on Tuesday that she once tried to join the Marines. The dubious claim, which even implicitly accused the Marines of sexism, brings to mind another case of military optics that might not have worked out the way Mrs. Clinton wanted it: A photo of her taken while shaking the hand of a soldier. The photo inevitably made the rounds in chain emails and on websites for years. But unlike some stories that seem too good to be true, and frequently turn out to be false,...

And Republicans across the country should take note. According to all the polls leading up to last Tuesday’s gubernatorial election in Kentucky, Republican businessman Matt Bevin wasn’t supposed to have a chance. This was the same Matt Bevin who had launched a lamentably unsuccessful primary campaign last year against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and was treated by much of the press in the state (OK, technically the commonwealth) as a loose cannon who couldn’t be taken seriously. But Mr. Bevin pounded away at ObamaCare. And if you’re wondering why, since that’s ostensibly a national issue, you might recall that...

Many concerned Americans are following the battle in Congress to defund Planned Parenthood, spurred by videos released over the summer by the Center for Medical Progress allegedly showing the organization selling the pieces of aborted babies. However, even if the abortion organization loses its funding from the federal budget, many tax payers will still be supporting it with their hard-earned dollars. Because along with the money they get from the from the federal budget, Planned Parenthood receives money from Obamacare and from state coffers. A General Accounting Office Study requested by pro-life members of Congress and released at the end...

A Female Physician in Munich, Germany sends a message to the world: Yesterday, at the hospital we had a meeting about how the situation here and at the other Munich hospitals is unsustainable. Clinics cannot handle emergencies, so they are starting to send everything to the hospitals. Many Muslims are refusing treatment by female staff and, we, women, are refusing to go among those animals, especially from Africa. Relations between the staff and migrants are going from bad to worse. Since last weekend, migrants going to the hospitals must be accompanied by police with K-9 units. Many migrants have AIDS,...

.........[Ben Carson] is leading in North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, Wisconsin, and Iowa. That's impressive. It's well-known that he's doing well with religious conservatives in Iowa, but now it looks as though he has appeal throughout the South and other Midwestern states. [SNIP] What can Trump do to rebound? He has tried casting doubt on Carson's religion. He has tried having plenty of book signings. In an interview recently he said he was going to replace Obamacare with "something much better." Who wouldn't want to vote for someone who is going to institute a "something much better" health care system? He...

Because all progressives are fascist statists at heart. Back when Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood, she realized that only the elimination of what she called “the mongrel peoples” would allow her to achieve her statist goals. Her organization was designed with population control in mind and those who didn’t measure up were to be ‘bred out’ of the population. Since then, progressives have done everything they can to pretend she’s a saint who wanted nothing more than to further women’s reproductive rights but, deep down, their totalitarian instincts still trend toward population control. These days, of course, it’s in the...

Oh boy. Thanks to those among us that have a peanut allergy, everyone else has to have a crappy Halloween. That’s what it means to be a sensitive, “responsible” American these days. Here’s the sign asking parents to only hand out carrot sticks, raisins and other boring treats:

It’s strange that liberal apologists for murder and their cohorts, the nation’s media freaks, never mention that two lives are affected by abortion, not just one. The first of these lives is snuffed out by the cold, mean hands of abortionists as they burn a baby’s brain with a saline bath. Another young life ends when her skull is crushed with forceps, yet another when a needle is rammed through his tiny brain. These little human beings did nothing to cause this horror. “He’s still alive,” one abortionist’s assistant said when she noticed a little baby boy had survived the...

Abortion stops a beating heart, kills innocent babies that are defenseless and unable to defend themselves against the murderers, and abortion advances a culture of death I own a rubber model of a 12-week unborn baby that I keep on my desk. My four-year-old granddaughter, the first time she noticed the Precious Onein my office said, “Look Grandpa. A baby!” Even my pre-school aged granddaughter recognized the reality of God’s Creation. She did not see the model as being one of a “fetus,” or “a blob of tissue.” She recognized it as being a replica of a baby. The idea...

Shortage of organs for transplantation has been one of the most challenging endeavor that patients, families and health care providers face today. But now, a possible novel answer to organ shortage has arrived: 3D printing of substitute organs. Numerous measures have been implemented to widen the pool of organ donors all across the U.S. Interventions to address the problem of organ shortage include national programs to heighten deceased donor donation, paired donor exchanges and split organ donation, among many others. Actions to hasten public awareness, enhance efficiency of donation mechanism and standardize donation policies have resulted in remarkable rates of...

Super. Thanks, Mitt. From the very beginning, Mitt Romney’s campaign was hit with two main lines of attack. The first was that he was a flip-flopper who’d tried to have it both ways on virtually every issue. The second was that he created RomneyCare - the blueprint for ObamaCare - and seemed pretty pleased with himself for doing so. Sane people everywhere asked “Why would you run a candidate like Romney, who can’t mount a successful attack against ObamaCare, when it’s your number one campaign issue.” Of course, we all know how things turned out. Romney continued to call for...

"View from Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn," 1881, by Rudolph Cronau. (Image: Public Domain/WikiCommons)The 300-year-old graveyard at Trinity Church in Lower Manhattan today serves as a respite from the frenzy of the Financial District. Small groups of tourists wander the stone pathways, stepping occasionally onto the manicured lawn to peer more closely at tilting eighteenth century tombstones of notable New Yorkers, like Alexander Hamilton, laid to rest in Trinity in 1804 after succumbing to the wounds from his duel with Aaron Burr. A cursory examination of the standing tombstones and stone memorials might lead one to guess the two and a half...