Free Republic

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., predicted Wednesday that President Trump would soon move on his own to make health insurance more affordable, after the Senate failed again this week to advance any bill to reform federal healthcare policy. Paul he has been pitching the idea of using the Employee Retirement Income Security Act to let people buy insurance across state lines. That law already allows corporations to buy insurance across state lines for their workers if they are located in several states. Paul's idea is to let individuals form associations and do the same thing, and he said Trump administration officials...

On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) predicted that the Graham-Cassidy bill will receive 50 Republican votes and votes from a few Democrats. Graham said, “I’ll be honest with you, I’ve never been more excited than I am right now. We need 50 votes to get this over the finish line. The president has been working like a tiger. The vice president, Mitch McConnell’s going to give us a vote. … And I can tell you this, if you want money and power out of Washington, you want to end the march to...

The Government needs to invest more than €5 billion in additional beds, equipment and infrastructure as there is now clear evidence acute hospitals are “beginning to fail”, senior doctors have warned. In a submission to the Department of Health, the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) said the system was experiencing ever-increasing waiting lists for essential surgery while there had been a “collapse” in the elective or non-urgent output in acute hospitals. It warned key targets in relation to cancer care were also now being missed. The submission, sent last Friday, said the waiting time prior to the commencement of chemotherapy...

Back in 1987, a much younger Bernie Sanders ... warned that expanding Medicaid, the jointly run federal-state health care program for the poor and disabled, to everyone in the country would "bankrupt the nation." "If we expanded Medicaid [to] everybody. Give everybody a Medicaid card—we would be spending such an astronomical sum of money that, you know, we would bankrupt the nation." Medicaid, notably, is far less generous than Medicare, the health program for seniors that Sanders wants to expand. Medicaid's provider networks are narrower, and its benefits are generally more limited. It pays doctors quite a bit less than...

BERLIN (AP) — A male nurse who was convicted of killing patients in Germany with overdoses of heart medication is now believed to have killed at least 86 people — and the true scale of the killings could be even larger, investigators said Monday. Many of the deaths could have been prevented if health authorities had acted more quickly on their suspicions, said Johann Kuehme, police chief in the northwestern city of Oldenburg.

FULL TITLE: Charlie Gard’s Parents Receive Hate Emails: You’re “Selfish Frauds” Who “Don’t Give a S— About Charlie” Connie Yates and Chris Gard just wanted to give their son, Charlie, a chance at life. For months, they have been battling for the right to take their son to the United States for an experimental treatment and only gave up earlier this week when medical experts said their no longer is any hope for Charlie. Possibly at their lowest moment yet, the British family said they are receiving hate mail criticizing them for fighting for their son, The Sun reports. One...

After four hours of waiting in hospital, a pregnant woman in Bavaria was examined, only to find out that she had lost her baby. The 37-year-old woman who was three months pregnant had intended to go grocery shopping with her husband before she realized she was bleeding heavily about two weeks ago, the Münchner Merkur reported on Thursday. “We were so shocked that we drove to the emergency room without hesitation,” the pregnant woman’s husband told the Merkur. But the couple had no idea that it would be four hours until they’d even see a doctor at the hospital in...

Socialism: The Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party could mount primary challenges against candidates who don't fully embrace socialized medicine. They should. It would be a clarifying moment for a party that has been drifting toward the extreme left for some time. Sanders' presidential pollster Ben Tulchin told Politico this week that "within the Democratic Party, this is fast-emerging as a litmus test." And Sanders, in an email to supporters, promises to "take on" not just insurance and drug companies, but "the establishment wing of the Democratic Party" to realize his dream of medical socialism in America. If they...

Former DNC chair criticizes ‘whiny’ left By Julia Manchester - 08/05/17 07:40 PM EDT Former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Howard Dean ripped what he called the "whiny" portion of the Democratic Party on Saturday in response to criticism of Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) by a number of progressives. “There has always been a section of the left, which I call the whiny party — the party that doesn’t really wanna win, they just wanna be pure, and if they go down swinging purely, then that’s fine," Dean, who ran for president in 2004, told MSNBC's Joy Reid on "AM...

Another family in the UK is fighting to keep doctors from forcing their sick baby off of life support. From The Mirror story: Charlie Gard supporters are rallying round the family of a seriously ill little boy as his parents face a battle with medics to keep him alive. Tiny Alfie Evans in being treated at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool and suffers from a mystery condition staff are struggling to diagnose. The 14-month-old family are hoping to find pioneering treatment for their little boy abroad. Alfie has been in a coma in the hospital’s intensive care ward since...

In a twist that exemplifies just how wild the healthcare debate has been, on Thursday the Senate voted on a single-payer healthcare plan. Introduced by a Republican. Who doesn't support it. The plan, proposed as an amendment to the House bill by Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, was called the Expanded & Improved Medicare For All Act. It was overwhelmingly voted down, with the 57 voting "no" and many Democrats choosing to vote "present." There wasn't a single "yes" vote. The amendment was the third healthcare plan to face a key vote during the 20-hour Senate debate period. Votes on...

the hospital and the British Parliament will make suitably grave remarks about how tragic it is to lose "this beautiful baby" (whom they killed), and how much their hearts go out to "his loving parents" (whom they stripped of their rights, their dignity, and their baby). But the public outcry will die down; Charlie's death will, given the time-distorting elasticity of memory, begin to look like a vindication (rather than condemnation) of the government's decision; and the real issues at the heart of this case – progressivism's crushing of the private family and socialized medicine's absolute rejection of the natural...

Charlie Gard will be allowed to die after his parents today made the heartbreaking decision to let him 'slip away'. Chris Gard and Connie Yates arrived at the High Court in tears as they ended a campaign to save his life that has touched millions around the world. They have battled for six months for their beloved 11-month-old son to be flown to the US for pioneering drugs to treat his rare strain of mitochondrial disease. But they have now decided to let him die clearly believing that Great Ormond Street's refusal to let him travel to a New York...

The Democratic Party will consider proposing a single-payer health insurance system, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York said. “We’re going to look at broader things [for the nation’s health care system.] Single-payer is one of them,” Schumer said to ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on “This Week” Sunday. The top Democrat in the Senate added that single-payer is among a number of health insurance options. “Many things are on the table,” Schumer said. “Medicare for people above 55 is on the table. A buy-in to Medicare is on the table. Buy-in to Medicaid is on the table.”

“We're in this room today to deliver on our promise to the American people to repeal Obamacare and to ensure that they have the health care that they need,” President Trump told Republican senators at a White House luncheon on Wednesday. “We have no choice. We have to repeal and replace Obamacare.” Trump said Republicans are “so close” to getting the job done, even without a single vote from Democrats: "The way I looked at it, we have no Democrat help. They're obstructionists. That's all they're good at is obstruction. They have no ideas. They've gone so far left, they're...

Until now, I haven't been too concerned about the Republican Party's difficulties in passing a health care reform bill because delays have resulted in improvements to the proposed legislation. But enough is enough. No more games. It's time to quit the finger-pointing. Neither congressional leaders nor President Trump have done enough to whip votes and sell the bill. A major overhaul of Obamacare, whether a full repeal, or a repeal and replacement, is imperative for Trump and congressional Republicans. More than any other, Obamacare is the issue that has galvanized grass-roots conservatives since 2010, and the Republicans' failure to...

I woke up very early this morning with the tortured picture of an infant running through my mind. Charlie Gard has a tube through his nose into his lungs, connected to a machine that breathes for him. He has all the latest electronics monitoring his status. But he is unable to provide any indication of his pleasure or pain at the process. He is dying from a horrendous genetic disease that robs his body of the ability to move, breathe, or respond. Next I saw his parents. Their expression conveyed the pain that Charlie cannot. But their pain is not...

Republicans are finally getting smart on Obamacare. It took one of the savviest Republican senators -- Ted Cruz of Texas, with an assist from Mike Lee of Utah -- to get the GOP to figure out how to replace Obamacare, reduce premiums and save money for the government, all without alienating millions of voters. He's pulled the Republicans' fannies out of the fire, flipping a losing strategy into a big-time winner. The Cruz amendment -- which has been inserted into the GOP Senate health plan -- is smart, because it doesn't take anything away from anyone. If you want Obamacare,...

[Cruz's] Provision would allow insurers to sell plans that aren’t compliant with Affordable Care Act

Republicans have never been closer to actually repealing large chunks of what they dismiss as “Obamacare.” Within two short weeks, the GOP will likely either be reveling in their unexpected victory or mired in deep infighting over the party’s failure to live up to a pledge it has made over the last seven years. Some Republicans remain optimistic — and Democrats fearful — that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) can pull off the negotiating tricks necessary, but he still faces an uphill fight in winning the votes to pass the Better Care Reconciliation Act by his tentative deadline of...