Free Republic

A group of campaigners, including Prof Stephen Hawking, has been given permission to challenge a government health policy in the High Court. They will pursue a judicial review against Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and NHS England over plans to create accountable care organisations (ACOs). These are to act as partnership bodies incorporating hospitals, community services and councils. Campaigners say it risks privatisation, but this is denied by ministers. 'Radical changes' NHS England wants hospitals and other trusts to work closely with GPs and social care services to look after more patients in their communities rather than in hospital. In some...

Liberal consumer groups are aghast to learn that the Obama health team are really monopolists at heart, bent on handing hospitals a cartel in their local markets. Sunday's New York Times report on this horror confirms what I wrote about in these pages weeks ago ("Killing Marcus Welby," PostOpinion, Oct. 18). I warned that the creation of "accountable care organizations," which put hospitals in control of all the doctors in their outlying areas, would lead to concentrated power over the provision of medical care -- turning physicians into salaried employees and reducing consumer choices ACOs were invented as a way...

Rumsfeld Selects Retired General as Army Chief of Staff By Robert Burns The Associated Press Tuesday, June 10, 2003; 4:40 PM Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld reached into the ranks of retired officers to pick a successor to departing Army chief of staff Gen. Eric Shinseki, officials said Tuesday. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Rumsfeld chose Peter J. Schoomaker, who retired from the Army after commanding the U.S. Special Operations Command from 1997-2000.