Free Republic

The Yellow Brick Road to OzbamaCare is paved with empty promises, boldfaced lies, and.....price controls. The people are promised access to high quality healthcare at little or no added cost; the proverbial free lunch. All will be "covered" regardless of pre-existing illness, and insurance premiums will actually go down! The government will decide what policies will be offered, and dictate the price. Somehow, private insurance companies will survive.

A defense lawyer is calling for calm after death threats have been made against teenagers charged in the death of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince, who committed suicide after she was allegedly bullied by schoolmates. "Not to minimize what happened to Phoebe Prince in any way, but translating this into death threats and public harassment has got to stop," says Colin Keefe, who represents Sharon Chanon Velazquez, accused of tormenting Prince, who hanged herself on Jan. 14. "It's gotten way out of control," adds Keefe, who says Velazquez has been driven temporarily from her home.

Why don't we start a letter writing campaign to the court to encourage them to give solid, real sentences to these monsters and not give them a slap on the wrist? By doing that we'll ensure that justice is done.

The attorney for one of six South Hadley High School students accused of bullying Phoebe Prince in the months leading up to her suicide is asking for highly personal information about her, a move decried by a former prosecutor and victims advocates as “unconscionable.” In a six-page motion filed in Northampton Superior Court, Terrence M. Dunphy, the lawyer for Austin Renaud, asks for the names of any physicians, psychologists or rape counselors Prince saw; any medical and psychological records viewed by the prosecutor; details of any prior allegations of rape or abuse by Prince; and a statement as to whether...

I learned the hard way that human nature is the biggest obstacle to cutting health care costs. President Obama is not the first chief executive to foist onto us an unrealistic medical reform. I left Nebraska to become Medical Director of a Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) in Louisiana in 1980. I believed the myths of managed care promoted by the smart guys. Health insurance premiums were spiraling up, and business and industry were concerned. People wanted good insurance cheap. Managed care was the answer. The Nixon administration wrote the Health Maintenance Act of 1973, funding and promoting managed care by...

Dateline: Plane change in Phoenix as I return to New Orleans after a meeting in California. Foreword: I did multiple radio interviews this past week. The host would ask, what do you think of the latest version of the Senate bill? I responded, what is the latest version? All we have are rumors. Why is this a secret, even kept from the majority of Senators! This is America! Let us see what is being sent to CBO. However, expansion of Medicare and Medicaid will be disasters.

Better beat the crowd and find a doctor. Primary care physicians already are in short supply in parts of the country, and the landmark health overhaul that will bring them millions more newly insured patients in the next few years promises extra strain.

A quiet revolution is transforming how medical care is delivered in this country, and it has very little to do with the sweeping health care legislation that President Obama just signed into law. But it could have a big impact on that law’s chances for success. Traditionally, American medicine has been largely a cottage industry. Most doctors cared for patients in small, privately owned clinics — sometimes in rooms adjoining their homes. But an increasing share of young physicians, burdened by medical school debts and seeking regular hours, are deciding against opening private practices. Instead, they are accepting salaries at...

March 23, 2010 My Dear Patient, As you must know, Congress has just passed extensive legislation governing health care delivery and insurance systems. Whether you agree with what it does or not, we are all now subject to this law and its sweeping changes. I have always conducted my medical practice with my patient’s best interests as my first priority. Although not legally obliged to do so, I have routinely provided you with a receipt that has all the codes necessary to bill your own health insurance company for any reimbursement to which you are entitled. Until now, that insurance...

Imagine you are injured, hurt, in terrible pain and are told that you will have to wait 180 days to see a doctor. He will be able to help you 6 months from now, but don't worry, you are officially on the waiting list and it won't cost you anything out of pocket. Would you wait? Well, if you live in England, a country with nationalized health care, that could be your scenario. If you continue to live in the United States, and the Health Care Bill passes and progresses as the Democrats have planned, that will also be the...

Health Overhaul: We were harshly criticized last September for an IBD/TIPP Poll that showed 45% of doctors would consider leaving medicine if a health care takeover passed. A new poll has vindicated our findings. Our questionnaire went out Aug. 28 to some 25,600 doctors nationwide. Of that substantial sample, we got 1,476 responses. One hundred of those were retired, leaving 1,376. At the time, virtually no one had stopped to ask doctors how they felt about the medical takeover being discussed in Congress. We thought it was vital to ask them, since any overhaul would rise or fall on its...

Health Reform: The white coats showed up again at the White House, helping the administration ram health care reform down our throats. Can you have a bipartisan bill without a bipartisan vote?It didn't work the first time, when the White House last year assembled enough sympathetic medical professionals to stage a photo-op in the Rose Garden trying to persuade us that, as the commercial goes, three of four doctors really, really support the administration's attempt to nationalize health care. Rather than a grass-roots uprising of physicians, last year's event was a classic case of astroturfing. Attendance was by invitation only,...

One look at my office tells you that I'm still taking Medicare patients: The worn carpet and peeling paint give it away. Yes, Medicare's payment rates are that bad. The real threat of a further across-the-board cut of 21 percent only added to the old problems of "routine" Medicare cuts. The program now pays $53 for a standard office visit; with the cut, that would've been $40. For comparison, Aetna pays $70. Average Medicare payments to physicians have been relatively stagnant since 2001 (but reimbursements for surgery and procedures have been cut a lot). Meanwhile, average total physicians' costs have...

Three days before the Feb 25 media event, where chosen representatives can say their last words before the nuclear option is set off, The President’s Proposal on “healthcare reform” was released. These 11 pages do not start with a blank sheet of paper, as Republicans recommended, but with the 2,000-page Senate bill. They are getting a disproportionate amount of commentary, but amount to little difference.

Today in Los Angeles charges were presented against Michael Jackson’s doctor. Charges of involuntary manslaughter by Dr. Conrad Murray, a cardiologist who had acted “unlawfully and without malice” in bringing about Mr. Jackson by administrating a powerful sedative in order to help Mr. Jackson sleep.

More than 40 percent of physicians participating in a single-question online poll said they feel the U.S. government "never will" understand how declining reimbursement rates from Medicare negatively affect the care patients receive from their physicians.

<p>Changes to Medicare will give the feds control of surgical decisions.Changes to Medicare will give the feds control of surgical decisions.</p> <p>Democrats are touting the American Medical Association's endorsement of President Obama's health plan. But there's an important reason why the American College of Surgeons and 18 other specialty groups are opposed.</p>

Democrats are touting the American Medical Association's endorsement of President Obama's health plan. But there's an important reason why the American College of Surgeons and 18 other specialty groups are opposed. The plan's most tangible efforts to restrain medical costs are through its controls on specialist physicians. Based on the government's premise that they often make wasteful treatment decisions, the health-care legislation in Congress will subject doctors to a mix of financial penalties and regulations to constrain their use of the most costly clinical options. The penalties and regulations are aimed first and foremost at surgeons and the medical devices...

Afghan girls wait for medical treatment in the village of Zakuzi in the Zabul province of Afghanistan, Nov. 18, 2009. U.S. Army medical personnel and Afghan physicians are providing villagers assorted medical services during a civilian affairs patrol. Photographer's Name: TSgt. Efren Lopez Location: Zakuzi village Date Shot: 11/18/2009 Date Posted: 11/24/2009

Reform: Only a Bernie Madoff could believe the Senate's health care bill will extend coverage to 31 million Americans while cutting deficits by $127 billion over 10 years. It would be the first profitable entitlement. But that's what Majority Leader Harry Reid, citing Congressional Budget Office estimates, tells us the 2,074-page bill — said to cost only $849 billion over a decade — would do. Like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he seems to be following Vice President Joe Biden's admonition at an AARP town hall meeting that "we've got to spend money to keep from going bankrupt." We suspect Reid's...