Free Republic

... Regardless of whether you're a supporter or opponent of Obamacare, you may have missed an important "ruling" from the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this week that resulted in Obamacare logging a key victory. The case, Coons vs. Lew, was initially brought to court in 2011 by business owner Nick Coons and orthopedic surgeon Dr. Eric Novack. The two, with the help of additional legal backing, alleged that the Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, would trim Medicare costs and potentially hurt their business by instituting reimbursement levels that wouldn't cover their own expenses. These allegations are where the term...

Two years ago in February, a 59-year-old federal inmate went under the knife at St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton to have his diseased left kidney removed. He emerged from the procedure with his tumor-laden kidney still intact. The surgeon, Dr. Charles Coonan Streit, a urologist who has had his license for 41 years, mistakenly had taken out his healthy right kidney. Last week, the California Medical Board disciplined Streit for the error, placing him on probation for three years. According to the medical board, on the day of the operation Streit relied on memory to decide which kidney to...

Loyola University Chicago’s Stritch School of Medicine appears to be the first – and so far only – medical school in the country to openly admit illegal immigrants – and has seven such students currently enrolled, a campus official tells The College Fix. Under Stritch’s admission policy, illegal aliens who fall under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status, also known as DACA and “DREAMers,” are eligible to be admitted to the medical school. DACA was created in 2012 when President Obama signed an executive order that stated, in effect, that illegal immigrant children who were brought to the United States...

Screening older patients for cancer provided minimal benefit at considerable cost and increased use of invasive procedures, reported investigators in two separate studies. "It is particularly important to question screening strategies for older persons," Gross continued. "Patients with a shorter life expectancy have less time to develop clinically significant cancers after a screening test and are more likely to die from noncancer health problems after a cancer diagnosis."

the insane ways that the VA focused on solar energy and wind towers over vets. Three years before Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki would be forced out of his job because of the veterans who had died under him, he visited the Massachusetts National Cemetery. He wasn’t there to see the men and women who had died because of him. While vets were dying, Obama and Shinseki had turned their attention to something truly important; seeing to it that all the cemeteries where they were being buried had wind or solar power. ... The cemetery turbine had cost $533,000....

the latest Fox News national poll finds voters oppose the law by a 52-41 percent margin. As in the past, the new poll shows that most Democrats favor Obamacare (74 percent), while most Republicans (84 percent) and independents (61 percent) are against it. Voters in every age group are more likely to oppose the law than favor it, with one exception: those ages 65 and over. And that group only favors it by two percentage points. President Obama receives higher job approval ratings on health care than on almost any other issue: 42 percent of voters approve, while 53 percent...

Dr. James Beattie, a cardiologist who works at the East of England NHS Foundation Trust in Birmingham, believes hospitals should let more elderly patients die and “quality of life” should be given more consideration.According to an article in the Daily Mail, Beattie said that society no longer accepts mortality and is much less familiar with death. ‘If a person is in hospital, particularly an elderly person with multiple co-morbidities, if they have a cardiac arrest it’s a sign they are in decline,’ he told Radio 4.‘It’s their act of dying and they should not be resuscitated, they should be allowed...

Cardiac surgeons and medical societies are asking the CMS to reconsider proposed payment rates for implanting Abbott's MitraClip, a device that treats a debilitating heart condition. Because the device itself costs more than $30,000, the proposed reimbursement rate would make it “prohibitive for hospitals to be able to offer this significant care so badly needed for a large majority of our patients,” Dr. Gregory Helmer, a cardiologist at the University of Minnesota, said in comments submitted to the CMS.

Under the rules that took effect in May, hospice patients or their families could not fill prescriptions through their Part D drug plans until first confirming that the prescriptions were not covered by hospice providers. Drugs related to palliative and comfort care are supposed to be covered under the fixed rate payments to the hospice. Medicare announced Friday that the rules would be revised so that the additional authorization would be required for only four types of medications: pain relievers, anti-nauseants, laxatives, and anti-anxiety drugs that are “nearly always” considered hospice-related.

By now we know that every purchase a consumer makes is added to a list detailing one’s spending and life-style habit, which is used to target people for marketing campaigns and other services. But how would you feel if that information was used by your doctors to keep tabs on your health? A new report from Bloomberg details how hospitals are using our habits such as buying cigarettes or skipping the gym to create patient profiles in order to identify those who are most likely to get sick.

PHOENIX (AP) -- Sen. John McCain listened to complaints from several veterans over the Veterans Affairs system, telling them that reported lapses in care in Phoenix are part of a nationwide problem that needs to be fixed. "This is not a unique situation as far as Arizona is concerned," McCain said Friday. "I emphasize everyone is innocent until proven guilty, but this appears to be a problem of nationwide implications."(continued)

Last Sunday, The New York Times published a front-page article about the heartfelt need of California farmers for more illegal aliens. The first tip-off that heinous public policy ideas were coming was that the Times introduced farmer Chuck Herrin, owner of a farm-labor contracting company, as a "lifelong Republican." That's Times-speak for "liberal." Herrin admitted that he employs a lot of illegal aliens and bitterly complained that they lived in fear of "Border Patrol and deportations." (But, apparently, he doesn't live in fear of admitting he's violating our immigration laws.) Sorry that running a country inconveniences you, Chuck. He said...

In an address to the House on Wednesday, Alabama Representative Mo Brooks read aloud a letter sent to him by Dr. Marlin Gill of Decatur. The letter holds nothing back while detailing the excessive costs and regulations that Dr. Gill calls Obamacare’s “war against doctors.” Here is the full text of the letter, courtesy of Rep. Brooks’ office: Dear Congressman Brooks, As a practicing family physician, I plead for help against what I can best characterize as Washington’s war against doctors. The medical profession has never before remotely approached today’s stress, work hours, wasted costs, decreased efficiency, and declining ability...

The last time Lou Pelletier spoke with his 15-year-old daughter was Feb. 14 — Valentine’s Day. For this father of four, though, the day held a different meaning for his youngest valentine: It marked one year since she was taken and placed in a psychiatric ward against her parents’ will. “We need help,” Lou Pelletier told TheBlaze in an exclusive interview, explaining why he made the decision to break a judge’s gag order and talk about the situation. “I’m trying to save my daughter’s life,” he said. “While still being able to live,” Jessica, one of Justina’s older sisters, added....

Reolubin is one of the country’s 186,000 medical coders who work in the back offices of hospitals. It’s her job to translate doctors’ scribbles into diagnosis codes. Those are sent to insurance companies, which use them to determine how much to pay hospitals for care. With 14,000 codes, ICD-9 seems puny by comparison. The new manual explodes that code set to 68,000 much more granular and detailed terms to define — very exactly and specifically — what ails us. There are different numbers for getting struck or bitten by a turkey (W61.42 or W61.43). There are codes for injuries caused...

Unable to guarantee adequate medical care for its citizens, the Quebec Government is turning to euthanasia. The law would allow 14 year olds to refuse treatment without the consent of their parents. Also in the French version, other witnesses including Luc describe the potential abuses by politicians, hospital administrators, the medical profession and families in a money driven society where certain lives would be deemed less worthy to live because of financial pressures.

Aliso Viejo resident Danielle Nelson said Anthem Blue Cross promised half a dozen times that her oncologists would be covered under her new policy. But when she went to her oncologist's office, she promptly encountered a bright orange sign saying that Covered California plans are not accepted. "I'm a complete fan of the Affordable Care Act, but now I can't sleep at night," Nelson said. "I can't imagine this is how President Obama wanted it to happen." "There are a lot of economic incentives for health insurers to narrow their networks, but if they go too far, people won't have...

Thousands of Anthem Blue Cross individual customers with older insurance policies untouched by Obamacare are getting some jarring news: Their premiums are going up as much as 25%. These increases, 16% on average, are slated to go into effect April 1 for up to 306,000 people — unless California regulators persuade the state's largest for-profit health insurer to back down. Amid the fury last fall over canceled health policies, consumer advocates and state officials warned people that holding onto grandfathered policies purchased before the federal healthcare law was enacted in 2010 wouldn't shield them from significant rate hikes.

U.S. veterans are dying because of delays in diagnosis and treatment at VA hospitals. At least 19 veterans have died because of delays in simple medical screenings like colonoscopies or endoscopies, at various VA hospitals or clinics, CNN has learned. The new document obtained by CNN shows a worse problem than has previously been made public by the VA. As CNN has previously reported, as many as 7,000 veterans were on a backlog list -- waiting too long for colonscopies or endoscopies -- at VA facilities in Columbia, South Carolina and Augusta, Georgia.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday it is working with the three manufacturers of intravenous saline solutions commonly used to hydrate hospital patients to address a shortage caused by a spike in demand. To cope with the shortage, healthcare providers are using substitute products such as oral hydration fluids or smaller IV saline bags with slower drip rates when appropriate, said Bona Benjamin, director of medication use quality improvement for the American Society of Health System Pharmacists. "We have heard from our members all over the country that the shortage is serious," Benjamin said. "People are able...