Free Republic

Online retail giant Amazon has made another splash into the healthcare pond by hiring cardiologist Maulik Majmudar, MD, . Majmudar, who announced he will be moving to “an exciting and challenging role” at Amazon via Twitter, is associate director of the Healthcare Transformation Lab at Massachusetts General Hospital and a lecturer at MIT. The new hire comes at a time when healthcare executives are beginning to see Amazon as a potential competitor and disruptor in the field, according to a recent survey. Majmudar did not specify the exact nature of the work he will be doing at Amazon, adding to...

Is the health insurance business a racket? Yes, literally. And this is why the shameless pandering to robber baron corporations posing as “health providers” is such an egregious … and obvious … tactic to do nothing more than plump up insurance company profits. And do you know who’s to blame? Believe it or not, the downfall of the American health insurance system falls squarely on the shoulders of former President Richard M. Nixon. In 1973, Nixon did a personal favor for his friend and campaign financier, Edgar Kaiser, then president and chairman of Kaiser-Permanente. Nixon signed into law, the Health...

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP/VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE and AMERICA: Government, Family, Military, Business, Education, Churches, and the Media. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 1 JOHN 5:14 Religion Forum threads labeled "Prayer" are closed to debate of any kind.

<p>Viking rock music and whole pigs roasting on spits drew thousands of Swedes to a festival hosted by nationalists poised to deliver their country’s biggest political upheaval in a century.</p> <p>The Sweden Democrats have been led since 2005 by a clean-cut and bespectacled man, Jimmie Akesson. He’s gentrified a party that traces its roots back to the country’s neo-Nazi, white supremacist fringe. Some polls now show the group may become the biggest in Sweden’s parliament after general elections on Sept. 9. Such an outcome would end 100 years of Social Democratic dominance.</p>

Despite numerous promises from congressional Democrats and President Barack Obama when they passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the health care law has created far more problems than it has solved. Premiums, deductibles, and health care choices have all worsened since Obamacare went into effect, and there’s no sign America’s health insurance system will improve anytime in the near future.President Trump inherited a health insurance crisis when he took office in January 2017, so he and congressional Republican leaders immediately began to work to implement their plan to replace Obamacare with a more market-centered approach to improving the...

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is fun. No, I mean that in all sincerity; she’s a fun candidate. She’s now one of the faces of the emerging left wing of the Democratic Party. Some have even called her the future of the Democratic Party. Maybe they should slow their roll on her, but hey—a Democratic implosion of rising talent is always a fun show to watch. She’s feisty. She has her moments, but when it comes to the policy discussion for her television hits, she veers into rocky shoals. casio-Cortez is clueless on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, playing whack-a-mole concerning whether there should be...

https://khn.org/news/once-its-greatest-foes-doctors-are-embracing-single-payer/ By Shefali Luthra 08/07/2018 When the American Medical Association — one of the nation’s most powerful health care groups — met in Chicago this June, its medical student caucus seized an opportunity for change. Though they had tried for years to advance a resolution calling on the organization to drop its decades-long opposition to single-payer health care, this was the first time it got a full hearing. The debate grew heated — older physicians warned their pay would decrease, calling younger advocates naïve to single-payer’s consequences. But this time, by the meeting’s end, the AMA’s older members had agreed...

Hospitals will be required to post online a list of their standard charges under a rule finalized Thursday by the Trump administration. While hospitals are already required to make this information public on request, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said the new rule would require the info be posted online to "encourage price transparency" and improve "public accessibility." Starting Jan. 1, hospitals will be required to update the information annually. The CMS said it is also considering how to "allow consumers to more easily access relevant healthcare data and compare providers." Increasing price transparency has been a...

“It would be wrong not to state that in Cuba they have made some good advances in healthcare, they are sending doctors all over the world.…They have made some progress in education." (Bernie Sanders.)But why pick on Democrat Bernie Sanders for swallowing and parroting a hoary KGB/DGI (Cuba’s KGB-founded and mentored Directorio General de Inteligencia)-concocted disinformation meme? After all, this classic communist disinformation meme has become a mainstream Democrat/Fake News Media meme. And, after all, the KGB’s successor (FSB) also employs the Democrats and their publicity arm (the Fake News Media) as eager disseminators of their current propaganda projects (the...

PODCAST The Only Way to Fix Healthcare Insurance in the U.S. Posted June 27, 2017 in: #healthcare, #Obamacare, #TrumpOur system of government has been amazingly robust for hundreds of years, but it fails when you have these two conditions:1. An issue is too complicated for the public to understand.2. Big companies are willing to distort the system for profits.That situation describes the healthcare debate going on in the United States right now. Our undersized brains can’t grasp all the nuances and implications of any particular healthcare plan. And when our brains are confused, we default to our biases (usually party...

If you’ve followed the saga of Baby Oliver – the British baby with the life-threatening heart tumor – you’ll be glad to know that the good ‘ol U.S. of A. came to this young Brit’s rescue. But how it happened is an amazing saga – and also very instructive to some left-wing American politicians … or at least to their constituents. Oliver Cameron, in case you weren’t following the limited coverage here in America, is a baby boy born with cardiac fibroma – a large, non-cancerous tumor on the heart. Without surgery, his life would be measured in mere months....

Legislation that would dramatically increase an important contribution limit just cleared a major hurdle. The House of Representatives recently passed two pieces of legislation that would make significant changes to health savings accounts (HSAs), including a massive increase in the amount of tax-deferred contributions that could be made to them. These changes could not only allow Americans to get more of a tax deduction for their healthcare expenditures, but they could also help participants build their retirement nest eggs at a faster rate. Here's a rundown of what the new HSA contribution limit could be, why it matters for retirement...

Four US paramedics accused of racially profiling and failing to provide medical care to a dying woman face a disciplinary hearing on Tuesday. Crystle Galloway's mother says medics assumed the Tampa, Florida, family could not afford the ambulance cost. The 30-year-old's mother drove her to hospital instead. Ms Galloway slipped in to a coma after suffering a presumed stroke, and died five days later. Hillsborough County officials have already accepted responsibility. The incident occurred early on the morning of 4 July this year, days after Ms Galloway had given birth by Caesarean section. Her mother, Nicole Black, called 911 after...

Sunday, December 7 | 1:00 a.m. BY JOHN LAIRD, OPINION EDITOR Vancouver, Washington Let’s assume that Rush Limbaugh is right, that liberals are “invested” in a U.S. defeat in Iraq because it would accelerate their anti-military agenda. Using that same logic, conservatives are invested in the economic recession because it accelerates their reduced-government agenda. And, oh, how our governments are about to be reduced. While America’s economy is in the toilet, some conservatives are flushed with excitement over budget cuts on the horizon. Even Democrats know that now is not the time to raise taxes. That leaves politicians no choice...

Megan Hobson still cannot walk properly since being caught in a crossfire of bullets in Florida six years ago. But for her and many other shooting victims, the price of survival is not just months of rehabilitation and operations. It is tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills with no end in sight.

Most parents would readily cross oceans to save their child's life, with no thought as to the cost or distance. But for some children in the UK, like Alfie Evans and Charlie Gard, that simply wasn't an option they were given. Oliver Cameron is one of the fortunate ones, though, and thanks to the tireless efforts of his parents and doctors at Boston Children's Hospital, Oliver is alive and thriving today. When Oliver was born in the United Kingdom, he had a large, non-cancerous tumor in his heart, called a cardiac fibroma. It was so rare that doctors in the...

One of Donald Trump's more memorable promises on the campaign trail was to lower the cost of prescription drugs. Polls show this issue remains popular with Americans, especially lower-income families, who are worried about high drug prices. Of course, the entire concept of drug prices' being "too high" is subjective. Drugs are too expensive ... compared with what? Certainly not compared with not having the drugs available at all. If you suffer from the intense pain of migraine headaches or have been diagnosed with lung cancer, how much would you pay for a drug to help you? I have friends...

America has a big, big problem on its hands. Healthcare costs are rising at astronomical and unsustainable rates, and the country’s leader seems powerless to stem the tide. Perhaps that would not be a big problem if the economy was keeping pace. But it isn’t. In fact, growth in healthcare spending is projected to outflank economic growth by a factor of more than 2:1. The U.S. might be the largest economy in the world, but it still spends a disproportionately large amount on healthcare. In 2016, health care expenditure per capita clocked in at $10,348--about double the average spend by...

The U.K.’s government-run healthcare system, the National Health Service, turns 70 this month. There’s not much to celebrate. The NHS is collapsing. Patients routinely face treatment delays, overcrowded hospitals, and doctor shortages. Even its most ardent defenders admit that the NHS is in crisis. Yet American progressives want to import this disastrous model. About one in three Democratic senators and more than half of Democratic representatives support single-payer health care. Why? The British experiment with socialized medicine has been a monumental failure. It would be foolish to repeat that mistake here. Single-payer is fundamentally flawed. It relieves consumers of any...

Full Title: National Health Care Fraud Takedown Results in Charges Against 601 Individuals Responsible for Over $2 Billion in Fraud Losses Largest Health Care Fraud Enforcement Action in Department of Justice History Resulted in 76 Doctors Charged and 84 Opioid Cases Involving More Than 13 Million Illegal Dosages of Opioids Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex M. Azar III, announced today the largest ever health care fraud enforcement action involving 601 charged defendants across 58 federal districts, including 165 doctors, nurses and other licensed medical professionals, for their alleged participation in health...