Free Republic

Americans have heard Obama pedantically touting his signature piece of legislation, his legacy — aka Obamacare — for over 4 years. What began as a firm promise, “If you like your healthcare plan, you’ll be able to keep your healthcare plan” has morphed to a conditional assurance, “if you have, or had one of these plans, before the Affordable Care Act came into law, and you really liked that plan…what we said was, you could keep it IF it hasn’t changed since the law was passed.”

The Associated Press ran a surprisingly scathing look at the current state of health care in Venezuela, In a word, the whole system, and especially the parts run by the government as part of a 1999 constitutional mandate to provide “free” universal health care, is collapsing: Driving the crisis in health care are the same forces that have left Venezuelans scrambling to find toilet paper, milk and automobile parts. Economists blame government mismanagement and currency controls set by the late President Hugo Chavez for inflation pushing 50 percent annually. The government controls the dollars needed to buy medical supplies and...

The NHS could become an American-style service paid for through insurance contributions following the appointment of a new chief executive, the head of health at the country's largest union has suggested. Christina McAnea, Unison's head of health, made the comments after Simon Stevens - a former advisor to Tony Blair who is currently an executive for a US private healthcare firm - was announced as the next head of the organisation. She said she was “concerned” about what the move could mean. “Is this the Tory and Lib Dem Government hoping to import America-type values into the NHS, a sort...

Rock legend Roger Daltrey has questioned the effectiveness of the NHS claiming it encourages people to lead unhealthy lives because they know they will get free treatment. The Who frontman, who at 69 is still a picture of good health, said offering state-run free healthcare meant people did not bother looking after themselves. He said: “We have this free NHS, which makes us take our health for granted and means we don’t take responsibility for looking after ourselves. “Most illnesses people suffer from are because of their lifestyles.” His comments came just days after Labour peer Lord Warner’s dire warning

A former NHS director died after waiting for nine months for an operation - at her own hospital. Margaret Hutchon, a former mayor, had been waiting since last June for a follow-up stomach operation at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, Essex. But her appointments to go under the knife were cancelled four times and she barely regained consciousness after finally having surgery.

Hundreds of hospital kitchens across the country are dirty, have cockroach and mice infestations or are stocking out-of-date food, a MailOnline investigation has revealed. Inspectors found that three-quarters of kitchens are flouting basic food hygiene rules while nearly a third were not properly cleaned. Six NHS hospitals had mice, two had rats, five had cockroaches and another hospital had an unspecified problem with “pests”. … An analysis of 769 environmental health inspection reports revealed that 581 hospitals across Britain are breaking the rules. …

Andy Mitchell, medical director for National Health Service (NHS) England in London said, “At times, throughout the week, even throughout the day, services aren’t safe”. Mitchell’s admission comes after the NHS Confederation said the service will soon be “unsustainable” if radical reforms are not presented before the next general election. The top health officials said the NHS is currently facing "the most challenging period in its 65-year existence,” and that the service might not be able to provide free health care for all patients any more. “Demand continues to rise, drugs cost more, and NHS inflation is higher than general...

With the implementation of Obamacare in full-swing, Americans are worried about the prospects of government-run health care. To see the damage centralized health care can do to patients, Americans need only look “across the pond” to England. There, the British government-run health care system — which pays for abortions with taxpayer funds and has been criticized for pushing euthanasia — is literally leaving patients needing lifesaving medical treatment to die. The London Daily Mail newspaper profiles Stewart Fleming, whose wife Sarah took a picture on her smartphone as he waited six agonizing hours for medical care and attention for a...

Terminally ill patients are dying prematurely because of a controversial 'death pathway' being followed by NHS doctors. Medical experts have warned some patients are being wrongly labelled as close to dying when they still have months to live. They say the system used by the Health Service and many care homes could amount to 'backdoor euthanasia'. Under the Liverpool Care Pathway, doctors can withdraw fluids and drugs from patients if they are deemed close to death. Many are then put on continuous sedation so they die free of pain. But sedation can often mask signs of improvement, meaning doctors may...

As many as 1,165 people starved to death in NHS hospitals over the past four years fuelling claims nurses are too busy to feed their patients. The Department of Health branded the figures 'unacceptable' and said the number of unannounced inspections by the care watchdog will increase. According to figures released by the Office for National Statistics following a Freedom of Information request, for every patient who dies from malnutrition, four more have dehydration mentioned on their death certificate.

The minister, Taro Aso, is only saying out loud what many government officials in countries with nationalized health care are thinking: people are getting older, living longer, and becoming a drain on our national budgets. From the Guardian: ******** Japan's new government is barely a month old, and already one of its most senior members has insulted tens of millions of voters by suggesting that the elderly are an unnecessary drain on the country's finances. Taro Aso, the finance minister, said on Monday that the elderly should be allowed to "hurry up and die" to relieve pressure on the state...

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso... on social security reforms, "the medical system should be changed so that the many terminal patients now using government money for expensive treatment, can quickly pass away. Such patients can keep living even if they wish to die...

Hospitals are denying patients the latest life-extending cancer drugs, a report reveals. Dozens of trusts are failing to hand out treatments for bowel, ovarian, lung and brain cancer that have been approved by the NHS watchdog NICE. Some of these drugs have been shown to boost survival rates by a quarter while others have extended the lives of terminally-ill patients by over a year. The report - commissioned by the Department of Health - also reveals that many hospitals are failing to prescribe the latest treatments for heart attacks, asthma, multiple sclerosis, arthritis and Crohn’s Disease. In fact some of...

Hospitals are denying patients the latest life-extending cancer drugs, a report reveals. Dozens of trusts are failing to hand out treatments for bowel, ovarian, lung and brain cancer that have been approved by the NHS watchdog NICE. Some of these drugs have been shown to boost survival rates by a quarter while others have extended the lives of terminally-ill patients by over a year.

Since Ed and I have each written about the latest round of Obamacare-exacerbated premium hikes, let’s check in on Britain’s single-payer system, which many American liberals fetishize: An official inquiry into failings at [Stafford] hospital, where between 400 and 1,200 patients died needlessly due to a catalogue of failings and appalling standards of care, is due to be published later this month. The report is expected to blame managers who cut costs and reduced staffing levels in an attempt to hit "efficiency" targets and win foundation status. Before taking control of the health service, Sir David ran the health authority...

If it feels like you’re spending more time in the waiting room of your doctor’s office these days, it’s not your imagination. Family doctors are busier than ever. For many people, it is becoming difficult to even find a doctor, say experts who blame Obamacare for accelerating the nation’s doctor shortage. … What’s driving the trend, health experts say, is the nation’s growing population of older Americans using more healthcare resources. At the same time, as many as 1 in 3 practicing physicians are nearing retirement age. What’s more, the addition of some 30 million patients newly covered by insurance—as...

FULL TITLE: 60,000 patients put on death pathway without being told but minister still says controversial end-of-life plan is 'fantastic' Up to 60,000 patients die on the Liverpool Care Pathway each year without giving their consent, shocking figures revealed yesterday. A third of families are also kept in the dark when doctors withdraw lifesaving treatment from loved ones. Despite the revelations, Jeremy Hunt last night claimed the pathway was a ‘fantastic step forward’. Outcry: Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt provoked outrage by saying the death pathway was a 'fantastic step forward' In comments that appeared to prejudge an official inquiry into...

Much like the Greek debt crisis offered a glimpse of that fiscal day-of-reckoning 'Obama bucks' America is soon to face, the UK's  ever-ailing National Health Service -a 60-year-old system of socialized medicine known as the NHS- provides Americans a useful preview of all the expensive, unnecessary disasters our own Obamacare will soon be bringing on this side of the pond. And the prognosis?  Hope you're sitting down... The Guardian (UK): Senior doctors warned that the findings reflected their increasingly frantic efforts to find beds for the growing number of emergency admissions and that repeated breaches of the 85% (capacity) limit meant...

I’m not easily grossed out or nauseated. Heck, I’m on email lists for a half-dozen softball teams and you can only imagine the strange/filthy/nasty things that guys send to each other. But I read a story about the death panels in the United Kingdom that left me discombobulated. I can’t even begin to describe how I feel.Here’s the intro of a disturbing report in the Daily Mail.Sick children are being discharged from NHS hospitals to die at home or in hospices on controversial ‘death pathways’. Until now, end of life regime the Liverpool Care Pathway was thought to have involved...

"Her family was told she was brain dead..... Now she’s back at home cooking dinner with her family....The world of organ donation in Denmark is in turmoil. A documentary was aired earlier this month which showed family members reacting in anguish to the news that their 19-year-old daughter was brain dead after a car accident, agreeing to donate her organs and allowing doctors to turn off her respirator.....“But we made a mistake underway and made the family believe that their daughter and sister would die.”....The hospital acknowledged that the question of organ donation should not have been raised as there...