Free Republic

After World War II, the U.S. government invested an enormous amount of money in medicine; medical research, medical procedures and medical technologies. This investment made contemporary scientific medicine into American medicine, characterized by a continuing flow of new treatment possibilities. These advances raised all kinds of ethical questions. Some were personal and individual, others were social and political. Both type questions are addressed by a new academic discipline called bioethics. The first attempt to develop a scientific medicine took place in Greece in the 5th century B.C. It was called Hippocratic medicine. Closely linked with this first scientific medicine was...

A new USA Today/Gallup Poll shows that President Obama's speech last week to Congress on health care reform did little to allay the public's fears about his plan

WASHINGTON -- Let's see if we can have a reasoned discussion about end-of-life counseling. We might start by asking Sarah Palin to leave the room. I've got nothing against her. She's a remarkable political talent. But there are no "death panels" in the Democratic health care bills, and to say that there are is to debase the debate. We also have to tell the defenders of the notorious Section 1233 of H.R. 3200 that it is not quite as benign as they pretend. To offer government reimbursement to any doctor who gives end-of-life counseling -- whether or not the patient...

Medical Care: A leaked report shows that Vancouver's health authority is considering cutting thousands of surgeries to balance the budget. However organized, government-run health care inevitably leads to rationing.Defenders of ObamaCare continually point out that their plan is not like Canada's, that holding that country's system up as an example of impending medical doom is invalid. Canada's system is different. Instead of having a single national plan, Canada's national health insurance, a kind of public option, is composed of 13 interlocking provincial and territorial plans, all framed under the Canada Health Act. But based on a report leaked to the...

Hugh Hewitt talks health care with former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. AUDIO HH: Joined now by former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney. Governor Romney, welcome back to the program, always a pleasure.  MR: Thanks, Hugh. It’s good to be with you, Hugh.HH: Tell me what your thoughts are as we watch the debate over President Obama’s proposed radical revisions to American health care are.MR: Well, I think he’s going way beyond what the American people think is right, and way beyond what’s necessary. I think we all recognize that we have a problem, that people are worried that if they...

Opposition to Obamacare, continues to spike up according to the latest Rasmussen Poll. Voter support for the Obamacare plan proposed by President Obama and Democratic party lemmings congressional fallen to a new low only 42% of U.S. voters now favor the plan, that number was 47% two weeks ago and and 50% only six weeks ago. Opposition to the plan has increased to 53%, up nine points since late June. More significantly, 44% of voters strongly oppose the health care reform effort versus 26% who strongly favor it. Intensity has been stronger among opponents of the plan since the debate...

Public support for the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats has fallen to a new low as just 42% of U.S. voters now favor the plan. That’s down five points from two weeks ago and down eight points from six weeks ago. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that opposition to the plan has increased to 53%, up nine points since late June. More significantly, 44% of voters strongly oppose the health care reform effort versus 26% who strongly favor it. Intensity has been stronger among opponents of the plan since the debate...

A few days after suggesting that Democratic health care proposals being debated in Washington may imperil the life of her son, Trig, Sarah Palin on Sunday urged reform opponents to not give the opposition fodder by disrupting town halls. Palin's comments, posted on her Facebook page, come after weeks of raucous town halls in which conservatives have shouted down members of Congress. "There are many disturbing details in the current bill that Washington is trying to rush through Congress, but we must stick to a discussion of the issues and not get sidetracked by tactics that can be accused of...

Mike Sola confronted his Congressman Dingell at a Townhall and says he's been visited in the middle of the night by thugs at his house. On Americas Newsroom just now he goes "I challenge you thugs to come visit me in the middle of the day. If I catch you on my property I will use lethal force and will kill you. I will go to prison" This guy is great!

Imagine lying in some government-run hospital, hospice or nursing home many years from now. Imagine languishing unattended for days in soiled sheets, suffering from hunger and thirst, covered with bed sores, your flesh aboil with untreated infections. Imagine living in fear of resentful, underpaid health aides who take out their anger on you and abuse you. And imagine spending your final moments on earth in the company of a government health care worker with a syringe, who injects you with a lethal cocktail. President Obama’s health proposals have the potential to turn this nightmare into a reality for millions...

America has been sucker punched. The unifier, the great post-racial, post-American President, has adopted the street tactics of Chicago thug politics. His ACORN/SEIU/Union goons are beating up decent American citizens at town hall meetings. And with the violence comes vilification: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has claimed that protesters are "carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on healthcare." Union thugs beat up a protester, Randy Arthur, at Florida Democrat Congresswoman Kathy Castor's town hall meeting in Tampa on Thursday. Castor's union thugs also shut the doors to prevent the opposing opinions from being heard. Fifteen hundred people...

A recent Washington Post op-ed by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius suggests a new motto for the Obama Administration: "Home of the Whopper." The Sebelius piece contains no fewer than 10 health care whoppers, including: Whopper Number 1: Americans are too stupid to buy their own health insurance. SEBELIUS: Americans are left to worry about whether they'll get laid off and lose their insurance or wake up from surgery with a $10,000 bill because they didn't read the fine print on their policy. FACT: Most health care policies are fairly straightforward. My own Health Savings Account plan...

President Barack Obama, his staff and administration, are all in danger of making the worst political mistake of their lives. They seem unable or unwilling to recognize the damage it will cause. And this reality may be America's brightest reason for genuine hope and change. Since the beginning of the August recess the actual "rulers" in this nation have been given their chance to speak. In high school gyms, in church basements, and in community college auditoriums the first real chance for accountability has been measured against the most tone-deaf administration of my lifetime. Retirees, stay-at-home moms, young professionals, and...

Dean on Palin’s health care claims: ‘She made that up’ Posted: August 9th, 2009 10:17 AM ET From From CNN's David deSola WASHINGTON (CNN) — Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told CNN Sunday that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin had deliberately made up charges that the Obama administration’s health care bill would lead to euthanasia. “About euthanasia, they're just totally erroneous. She just made that up,” he said. “Just like the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ that she supposedly didn't support. “There's nothing like euthanasia in the bill. I practiced medicine for a long time, and of course you have...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin called President Barack Obama's health plan "downright evil" Friday in her first online comments since leaving office, saying in a Facebook posting that he would create a "death panel" that would deny care to the neediest Americans. "The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care," the former...

IBD Exclusive Series: Government-Run Healthcare: A Prescription For Failure Discourse: At a town hall last week in Dallas, an elderly "mob" with "manufactured" outrage questioned AARP's support for nationalized health care, asking: "Do you work for us or do we work for you?"There were no swastika-wearing grannies at Tuesday's meeting, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi might claim. Nor were they "taking their cues from talk show hosts, Internet rumor-mongers . . . and insurance rackets," as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said. But they were mad as hell at the perception that AARP was selling them out in the...

Robert Gibbs assured Jake Tapper that the new White House initiative to get people to snitch on their neighbors for dissenting on ObamaCare had nothing to do with collecting names. Oh, no — that would not be Hope and Change! Instead, it has everything to do with collecting our e-mails: Asked about Cornyn’s letter on Thursday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, “nobody is collecting names.” The blog and tips email was because, Gibbs said, “we have seen, and as I’ve discussed from this podium, a lot of misinformation around health care reform. Some of it I think...

Team Obama, having labelled town hall opponents of health care as violent mobs of extremists, have now instructed their supporters to turn violent. Top White House officials counseled Democratic senators Thursday on coping with disruptions at public events on health care this summer, officials said, and promised the party and allies would respond with twice the force if any individual lawmaker is criticized in television advertising. Until now, the protests have been entirely peaceful, but the Obama administration’s decision to encourage violent clashes is designed to reinforce their depiction of opponents of health care as violent extremists. The media will...

We have entered uncharted territory in the fight over national health care. There’s a new tone in the debate, and it’s ugly. At the moment the Democrats are looking like something they haven’t looked like in years, and that is: desperate. They must know at this point they should not have pushed a national health-care plan. A Democratic operative the other day called it “Hillary’s revenge.” When Mrs. Clinton started losing to Barack Obama in the primaries 18 months ago, she began to give new and sharper emphasis to her health-care plan. Mr. Obama responded by talking about his health-care...

Public Discourse: The candidate who told his supporters "to argue with them and get in their face" now finds the shoe on the other foot. So they're taking names and encouraging you to turn in your neighbors.So this is hope and change — telling American citizens who in a democracy disagree with you that they are mind-numbed robots participating in mob action and expressing "manufactured" outrage. Considering that upward of 80% of those hooligans like their doctors, like their insurance and like their care, anger over your government-run health care was not that hard to assemble. It was not that...