Posted on 09/06/2009 7:49:46 PM PDT by socialismisinsidious
Is This The Obamacare Future? Overworked Doctors in Australia Worried They Are Killing Patients
Australia Courier News/The Lid ^ | 9/6/09 | The Lid
Posted on Sunday, September 06, 2009 5:17:36 PM by Shellybenoit
Australia has a health care system which is similar in some aspects to what the Democrats are proposing. There is a public plan which covers about 70% of the country and private insurance which covers the rest. In a short time (the system was set up in 1983) the country became divided into one group that gets good medical care (private insurance) and the group whose insurance is not as good.For example those in the public system have to wait longer for surgery.
There are also extensive waiting times for non emergency surgeries at public hospitals. Although waiting lists for the most urgent elective surgery for heart disease and cancer are almost nonexistent, there are long waiting lists for orthopedic surgery (median wait for total hip replacement is 88 days; 10% of patients waited over 345 days in 1999 to 2000), and cataract surgery (median is 73 days; 10% waited more than 316 days). One of the attractions of private health insurance is the ability to bypass public hospital waiting lists.
One of the reason for the long waits is a shortage of Doctors. In fact Doctors in one Australian State are worried that they are working so hard, their exhaustion is causing them to make errors and lose patients:
Why federal health control is like federal gun control
The Examiner.com ^ | September 5, 2009 | Mike Stollenwerk
Posted on Sunday, September 06, 2009 1:50:48 AM by majstoll
Just like federal gun control schemes, federal health control schemes can be attacked on constitutional grounds. There are two lines of attack.
First, federal action can be attacked as violating individual rights.
Federal gun control schemes have been successfully attacked as violating the individual right to keep and bear arms. In District of Columbia v. Heller the U.S. Supreme Court struck down DC's handgun ban and inflexible trigger lock law. Subsequently at least two federal judges have that under the Second Amendment, "federal laws depriving persons who are merely accused of certain crimes of the right to legal possession of a firearm." United States v. Arzberger, 592 F. Supp. 2d 590, 602 (S.D.N.Y. 2008). Same result in United States v. Kennedy, 593 F. Supp. 2d 1221, 1231 (W.D. Wash. 2008).
Likewise federal health control schemes can be challenged as violating the individual right to privacy. As I previously here, legal experts question the constitutionality of health control rationing and regulation in under Roe v. Wade's right to privacy framework.
Second, federal health control can be challenged as . . .
CNN Article on Van Jones Resignation Cites His Contention He is a "Victim of Health Care Opponents"
Freedom's Lighthouse ^ | September 5, 2009 | BrianinMO
Posted on Sunday, September 06, 2009 7:30:39 AM by Federalist Patriot
In announcing the resignation of Obama Adviser Van Jones, CNN relays Jones' contention that he is a "victim of health-care reform opponents." The center the controversy on the 9/11 petition he signed, rather than his whole life of radical statements and actions.
EDITORIAL: Networks censor health care debate -- ABC and NBC take one for Team Obama
THE WASHINGTON TIMES ^ | September 6, 2009
Posted on Sunday, September 06, 2009 7:49:40 AM by kingattax
The major TV networks don't even let revenue get in the way of their biased coverage in favor of President Obama's agenda.
ABC and NBC in particular seem afraid of a simple 30-second advertisement. Both networks have refused to run an ad proposed for national telecast by the League of American Voters, a nonprofit group with 15,000 members. The supposedly offensive ad makes the simple claim that the proposed government-run health care program would ration medical care.
ABC won't run the ad because it says it is "partisan." NBC won't run it because that network says it questions the ad's facts. So what does the script of this horribly troublesome ad say? Here it is:
ObamaCare and Catholic social teaching
The American Thinker ^ | 9/6/2009 | Mark Wauk
Posted on Sunday, September 06, 2009 8:13:50 AM by IbJensen
he 9/2/09 issue of the Wall Street Journal, in its Notable and Quotable feature, calls attention to an important article that Roman Catholic Bishop R. Walker Nickless of Sioux City, Iowa, published in his diocesan newspaper on the subject of health care and health care reform. The article is important for two reasons: first, because there has been and continues to be a certain amount of confusion regarding Catholic social teaching as it affects health care; second, because Bishop Nickless goes to great lengths to base his discussion on principles, and not merely on tactical considerations.
Obama must seize his chance to give health care debate Cincinnati (Barf alert)
Cleveland Plain Dealer ^ | September 6, 2009
Posted on Sunday, September 06, 2009 8:50:43 AM by KeyLargo
Obama must seize his chance to give health care debate clear direction -- editorial Posted by kevobrie September 06, 2009 04:48AM
President Barack Obama plans to wade back into the nation's health care debate this week, possibly during a Labor Day speech in Cincinnati and certainly during a televised address to Congress Wednesday evening. Most reports suggest that he hopes to bring some clarity to a discussion that has lost focus amid a flurry of competing congressional bills, wild talk of death panels and other distortions by his opponents and, quite frankly, Obama's failure to enunciate clearly what he wants in any reform.
Nancy DeParle: health czarina, abortion queen (Hey Glenn Beck, here's your next target)
Michelle Malkin ^ | July 26, 2009 | Michelle Malkin
Posted on Sunday, September 06, 2009 11:06:46 AM by eartotheground
Former Kansas Democrat Governor Kathleen Sebelius won Senate confirmation as Health and Human Services Secretary. But the real power lies with with newly-created health czar Nancy-Ann Min DeParle. Her official title: Director of the White House Office for Health Reform.
DeParle ran the behemoth Medicare and Medicaid programs under Bill Clinton. She parlayed her government experience into a lucrative private-sector stint. Over the past three years, she made nearly $6 million from her work in the health care industry. Despite President Obama’s loud denunciations of the revolving-door lobbyist culture in Washington, DeParle’s industry ties didn’t bother the White House.
Government Health Care? Not on Your Life!
Dakota Voice ^ | 9/3/09 | Bob Ellis
Posted on Sunday, September 06, 2009 2:12:30 PM by wagglebee
In recent weeks one of the many problems Americans have had with plans for the federal government to take over the health care industry has had to do with life and death issues such as rationing, euthanasia and “death panels.”
The socialists pushing government health care have tried very hard to whitewash these concerns, but to little avail. Even the elderly (who are often solid Democrat supporters because of their addiction to the government largess they already enjoy in programs like Social Security and Medicare) are deserting the Temple of Government in droves; apparently the thought of euthanasia and rationing scares them more than the blessings of the Government god draws them.
Despite those attempts to whitewash this very real concern, the information continues to come in to substantiate those fears.
A new talking point of the Left: older Americans against Obamacare are hypocrites
Examiner.com ^ | September 6, 2009 | Bridgette Wallis
Posted on Sunday, September 06, 2009 2:41:30 PM by LibertyThug
According to the Left, older Americans are hypocrites to protest Obamacare because they use Medicare. Many opinion articles have been written about this hypocrisy of the elderly. There was the Newsweek article titled, Health Care Hypocrisy, where Daniel Gross wrote:
Union Bosses get major role in Obamacare Management
The Examiner /WAExaminer.com ^ | 9/2/09 | Kevin Mooney
Posted on Sunday, September 06, 2009 2:46:57 PM by Eva
Kevin Mooney: Union bosses get major role in Obamacare management
Union officials are likely to fill key positions on committees making major decisions if President Barack Obama's government-run health care reform proposal becomes law, according to a new study by the National Right to Work Committee.
Government Insurance 'Trigger' Draws Bipartisan Criticism in Health Care Debate
Fox News ^ | 9/06/09
Posted on Sunday, September 06, 2009 4:37:59 PM by Libloather
Conservatives and liberals alike are puncturing the latest trial balloon in the health care reform debate, finding flaws with a proposal that would keep a government-run health insurance plan on reserve in case private insurance companies don't meet certain benchmarks.
The so-called "trigger" has been floated by Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, a member of the "gang of six" Senate negotiators who are trying to broker a bipartisan compromise. Under such an option, if agreed-upon goals are not met by the insurance industry, then that would pull the trigger on government-run insurance.
Health Care Debate Revives Immigration Battle
New York Times ^ | September 5, 2009 | Julia Preston
Posted on Sunday, September 06, 2009 6:11:45 PM by reaganaut1
The Obama administration took an overhaul of the country’s immigration laws off its legislative agenda this year, but the prickly issue of public benefits for illegal immigrants has resurfaced in the health care debate.
During the summer recess, members of Congress faced persistent questions from constituents worried that health care changes could leave taxpayers footing medical bills for illegal immigrants. President Obama has not been able to extinguish the doubts despite giving repeated assurances that illegal immigrants would be excluded from any subsidized benefits under proposals before Congress.
... Republicans argue that some of the voters’ concerns are justified because, they say, the proposals before Congress do not spell out procedures to verify the citizenship of those who would receive health coverage.
Soros Care
Front Page Magazine ^ | 8-16-09 | Ben Johnson
Posted on Sunday, September 06, 2009 9:35:07 PM by STARWISE
A rising chorus of discontent – more a citizens uprising – shows Middle America’s deep suspicion of President Obama’s health care reform proposal. Average citizens have voiced their disapproval at townhall meetings hosted by Sen. Arlen Specter and HHS Director Kathleen Sebelius, Rep. Lloyd Doggett, Rep. Tim Bishop, and staffers of Sen. Claire McCaskill.
In a burst of passion-envy, Chris Matthews asked on Monday night’s Hardball, “Where the Hell are the people who want health care, the poor people out there…the union people? Where are they? I haven’t seen one placard, let alone one protest demonstration, for health care.”
In fact, tens of thousands of people have rallied in the nation’s capital supporting the president’s health care reform plan, including the controversial public option. However, national momentum is not with them, because they are, to use Nancy Pelosi’s phrase, “Astroturf.”
These demonstrations were organized by Health Care for America Now! (HCAN), a new “national grassroots campaign of more than 1,000 organizations in 46 states representing 30 million people dedicated to winning quality, affordable health care.” Most of its component organizations have two things in common: they have no experience or expertise in health care, and virtually all received large, tax-exempt grants from far-Left billionaires like George Soros and Teresa Heinz Kerry.
Bottom line on public insurance plan gets blurry
Yahoo! News ^ | September 6, 2009 | RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, AP
Posted on Sunday, September 06, 2009 3:16:18 PM by Still Thinking
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration's bottom line on a government health insurance option blurred Sunday as White House officials stressed support but stopped of short of calling it a must-have part of an overhaul.
As President Barack Obama prepares for a Wednesday night speech to Congress in a risky bid to salvage his top domestic priority, no other issue is so highly charged. Obama's liberal supporters consider the proposal for a public plan to compete with private insurers do-or-die. Republicans say it's unacceptable.
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