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As the funeral parade of fire trucks passed beneath an enormous U.S. flag suspended over the roadway, the citizens of the twin towns of Berwick and Nescopeck were dealing with tragedies that seemed out of proportion for such a small population. Sunday afternoon’s procession – going down Nescopeck’s main throughfare, across the Susquehanna to Berwick, and back – was for Dale Baker, 19, whose funeral was held alongside that of his sister, Star Baker, 22, earlier in the day. The siblings were two of the 10 victims of a house fire in Nescopeck on Aug. 5. Dale was an up-and-coming...

In 2013, the American people learned what whoppers the key promises of ObamaCare turned out to be. But the biggest whopper about the Affordable Care Act is yet to be exposed: the tightening grip the federal government will have over your doctor — even if you’re paying with private insurance. Section 1311(h)(1)(B) of the health law gives the secretary of Health and Human Services blanket authority to dictate how doctors treat patients. Not just patients in government programs like Medicare and Medicaid, but patients with private plans they pay for themselves. On Dec. 2, 2013, we learned from the Federal...

Folks, go here and watch the video, this needs to go VIRAL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqXI919xn_E

Donald Berwick, the rationing advocate President Barack Obama nominated to head the U.S. Medicare and Medicaid programs in the face of opposition from pro-life advocates, has quite his post in the Obama administration. Because he is unable to get enough votes in the Senate to approve his nomination, his recess appointment will end and Berwick has decided to stop down from his position as the chief implementor of Obamacare, the health care law pro-life groups opposed because its prompts concerns about abortion funding, rationing, and fails to protect the conscience rights of medical workers.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The point man for carrying out President Barack Obama’s health care law will be stepping down after Republicans succeeded in blocking his confirmation by the Senate, an official said Wednesday. Medicare chief Don Berwick, a Harvard professor widely respected for his ideas on how to improve the health care system, became the most prominent casualty of the political wars over a health care overhaul law whose constitutionality will be now decided by the Supreme Court. Berwick’s Dec. 2 resignation was confirmed by a senior congressional official, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of an announcement by the...

A proposed federal health insurance regulation set to take effect next year requires insurers to provide consumers with explanatory summaries of their plans, but the insurance industry contends this could be costly to enrollees, and offer little benefit. The new rule – part of the $1 trillion Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare – was announced Wednesday by Donald Berwick, President Obama's recess appointee to be director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Berwick has never been confirmed or subjected to a confirmation hearing by a Democrat-controlled Senate.

On June 7, 1995, KFOR-TV broadcast its first story in which witnesses Magazine Cover featuring Jayna Davis: Oklahoma Woman identified the disgruntled Gulf War veteran, Firefighter with child bombing victim Timothy McVeigh, drinking beer with a swarthy, soft-spoken foreigner in an Oklahoma City tavern. Those brief moments of television history launched Jayna's decade long quest to unveil the Middle East's hand in the heartland massacre. In 2001, she founded a non-profit corporation, Journalists' Committee for Justice, Inc, which has carried on the mission to seek justice for those who perished. In April 2004, Nelson Current Publishers released the New York...

WASHINGTON — The Health and Human Services Department is telling the state of Indiana that its Medicaid plan, which bans funding to Planned Parenthood, is illegal and must be changed. In a letter sent to Indiana's Medicaid director, and obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday, Medicaid Administrator Donald M. Berwick says Indiana's plan will improperly bar Medicaid beneficiaries from receiving services. Berwick writes that federal law requires Medicaid beneficiaries to be able to obtain services from any provider qualified to provide services.

May 19, 2011 Boy may have been killed in Hampton Staff and Wire Reports The Daily News of Newburyport Thu May 19, 2011, 03:59 AM EDT HAMPTON, N.H. — State police have cordoned off the parking lot at Stone Gable Inn on Route 1, searching for evidence of whether 6-year-old Camden Pierce Hughes was killed there. Camden's body was found Saturday in South Berwick, Maine, just over the New Hampshire border. Yesterday morning, his mother, Julianne McCrery, 41, of Irving, Texas, was taken into custody at the Chelmsford, Mass., rest stop on Interstate 495, just south of Lowell. She reportedly...

Professors gone wild. That is the only conclusion you can come to when you apply Sherlock Holmes' astute dictum to the striking similarities between the widespread failures of American education and government, institutions universally dominated by a self-proclaimed "educated class." Think about what the great fictional detective said: "Once you eliminate the impossible whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." And so extracting the truth underlying the dysfunction of what the inimitable James Lewis more correctly terms our national corps of "educated idiots" (or, as our Harvard-educated president puts it more accurately, "corpse") one finds...professors. Professors have...

Professors gone wild. That is the only conclusion you can come to when you apply Sherlock Holmes' astute dictum to the striking similarities between the widespread failures of American education and government, institutions universally dominated by a self-proclaimed "educated class." Think about what the great fictional detective said: "Once you eliminate the impossible whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." And so extracting the truth underlying the dysfunction of what the inimitable James Lewis more correctly terms our national corps of "educated idiots" (or, as our Harvard-educated president puts it more accurately, "corpse") one finds...professors. Professors have...

Elderly people in the Netherlands are so fearful of being killed by doctors that they carry cards saying they do not want euthanasia, according to a campaigner who says allowing assistant suicide in Britain would put the vulnerable at risk. [...] In an article published on BMJ.com on Friday, Mr Fitzpatrick wrote: “Disabled people, like others, and often with more reason, need to feel safe. Thus eroding what may already be a shaky sense of safety in medical care poses a further threat to disabled people’s wellbeing...and life itself.” He cited the experience of Baroness Campbell of Surbiton, the disabled...

(CNSNews.com) – At a press conference on Tuesday to announce the allocation of $1 billion in federal funding to improve patient health in the nation’s hospitals, Donald Berwick, administrator for the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), compared the new health care law, which requires more government control, to other products that have become better and cheaper over time in the marketplace, without more government control. Berwick said health care is “just like any other important segment of our economy” and “doing it right” will cost less in the long run. “Computers today do more than they ever...

Washington (CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration is standing “firmly” behind the nomination of Dr. Donald Berwick -- who was recess-appointed without Senate confirmation last summer to run Medicare and Medicaid -- despite growing Republican opposition because of his controversial comments, such as the remark that a “civilized and humane” health care funding plan “must redistribute wealth.” “The president stands firmly behind the nomination of Don Berwick because he’s far and away the best person for the job, and he’s already doing stellar work at CMS saving taxpayer dollars by cracking down on fraud, and implementing delivery system reforms that...

Barack Obama’s renomination of Donald Berwick to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) came as a surprise on Capitol Hill. Presidents do not usually renominate recess appointments after a recess ends their term unless the recess appointment was a true emergency or the President in question wants to make a point. In Berwick’s case the decision makes even less sense, as Obama gave the controversial Berwick the recess appointment without even allowing the Senate to hold a single hearing when his party had nearly a supermajority in the Senate. Indeed, Berwick didn’t even do the Senate the...

According to Politico, President Obama will be forced to abandon his controversial nomination of Donald Berwick as the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Politico reports that "Senate Democrats have given up on confirming Don Berwick as CMS administrator in the wake of a letter from 42 Republican senators opposing the nomination," as "there's no way for Berwick to get the 60 votes needed to clear the Senate." As with his various "czars," President Obama had previously circumvented the Senate confirmation process (despite having a Democratically controlled Senate) to install Berwick in his post. He had...

According to Politico , President Obama will be forced to abandon his controversial nomination of Donald Berwick as the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Politico reports that “Senate Democrats have given up on confirming Don Berwick as CMS administrator in the wake of a letter from 42 Republican senators opposing the nomination,” as “there's no way for Berwick to get the 60 votes needed to clear the Senate.” As with his various “czars,” President Obama had previously circumvented the Senate confirmation process (despite having a Democratically controlled Senate) to install Berwick in his post....

Senate Democrats have given up on confirming Don Berwick as CMS administrator in the wake of a letter from 42 Republican senators opposing the nomination, sources tell POLITICO. Citing the GOP letter, a person familiar with the situation said Senate Democrats and the White House "can do the arithmetic" and now see that there's no way for Berwick to get the 60 votes needed to clear the Senate. At a meeting with health care lobbyists Friday, Democratic Senate Finance Committee staffers indicated that the nomination is dead, that there will be no confirmation hearing, and that they'll soon be discussing...

In Robert Louis Stevenson's famous novella about the duality of human nature, a minor character describes Mr. Hyde thus: "There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something down-right detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked." It is difficult to avoid similar feelings of revulsion watching the C-SPAN video of Dr. Donald Berwick's alter ego testifying at the February 10 hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee. His disingenuous opening remarks, evasive answers, and transparent contempt for congressional oversight revealed Obama's recess-appointed administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) as a grotesque changeling. Gone...

With little fanfare, Rationer-in-Chief Donald Berwick, President Obama’s choice to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, appeared before the House Ways and Means Committee and did his best impression of Gumby – twisting and turning his support for rationing health care. Berwick has championed the British health care system for years proclaiming his outright support of rationing. In 2009, Berwick said, “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care — the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.” In a 2008 speech, Berwick proclaimed, “I am romantic about the NHS; I love...