Free Republic

The physicians' plan would single out Black and 'Latinx' patients in 'fight for racial justice in medicine.'Critical Race Theory influenced the physicians' support for 'medical restitution' and 'federal reparations.'Harvard Medical School instructors Bram Wispelwey and Michelle Morse argue in a Boston Review article that race should be used as a determining factor in how heart failure patients are treated. They write that the necessary "proactively antiracist agenda for medicine" should be direct, and the solution they propose could reach patients exactly at the point of care: "a preferential admission option for Black and Latinx heart failure patients to our specialty...

Progressives are becoming more enthusiastic about using race to allocate medical resources. Two years ago, we learned the story of Dr. Lara Kollab. During 2011–2013, while an undergraduate at John Carroll University, she tweeted many antisemitic comments, including: “I'll purposely give all the yahood [Jews] the wrong meds,” and “People who support Israel should have their immune cells killed so they can see how it feels to not be able to defend yourself from foreign invaders.” SNIP Recently, ten years after Dr. Kollab's undergraduate antisemitic tweets, Drs. Bram Wispelwey, a 2014 Ben-Gurion University medical school graduate, and Michelle Morse, a...

California...public health officials are still planning for a “worst-case scenario,” quietly publishing a sobering set of detailed guidelines to answer the troubling ethical question of who lives and who dies should California face a new surge in the coronavirus outbreak, resulting in a shortage of ventilators and medical supplies. A 38-page document by the California Department of Public Health, published last weekend, prescribes a method to prioritize patients in the event that an outbreak overwhelms hospitals, preserving intensive care beds and ventilators for people with the greatest likelihood of surviving with treatment over those with serious chronic conditions that limit...

March 25, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – A group of U.S. lawyers have warned that rationing health care based on disability or age during the coronavirus outbreak violates federal civil rights law. “Federal law requires that decisions regarding the critical care of patients during the current crisis not discriminate on the basis of disability or age,” lawyers representing the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund and the Thomas More Society wrote in a March 23 memorandum. “In this respect, anticipated longevity or quality of life are inappropriate issues for consideration.” “Decisions must be made solely on clinical factors as to which patients have...

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter was admitted to a hospital on Monday evening for a surgery to relieve pressure on his brain, caused by bleeding due to his recent falls, his spokeswoman said. The procedure is scheduled for Tuesday morning at Emory University Hospital, Deanna Congileo said in a statement. Carter has fallen at least three times this year, and the first incident in the spring required hip replacement surgery. He traveled to Nashville, Tennessee, and helped build a Habitat for Humanity home after getting 14 stiches following a fall on Oct. 6. And he was briefly hospitalized after fracturing...

A contentious battle over a law that gives hospitals the power of life or death over patients A contentious battle is taking place at this courthouse in downtown Houston, Texas over a law that gives hospitals virtually unlimited power to decide the fate of patients. Oral arguments took place centering on the question whether the law, called the Texas Advance Directives Act — or TADA for short — violates patients' constitutional rights by depriving them of due process. Texas Right to Life has led the vanguard in opposing this law. Incredibly enough, their main opposition is none other than the Texas Catholic bishops, who argue the...

LIVERPOOL, England, April 20, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – A nurse who worked at Alder Hey children’s hospital until this month has published on social media what he says is a scan of Alfie Evans’ brain along with the message that the baby “deserves” to die. “Up, Alfie’s brain. Down, same age healthy boy,” the nurse wrote about the brain scans of two children that he posted to Facebook this week. “Sad reality, but IT’S THE REALITY. He deserves to go, he has had enough,” states the message from the nurse who described himself online as a “PICU Staff Nurse at Alder...

A St. Anthony, N.L., mother who claims she was told by a doctor that assisted suicide was an option for her adult daughter says she wants an apology from Labrador-Grenfell Health, in part because the 25-year-old could hear the conversation. Sheila Elson's 25-year-old daughter, Candice Lewis, has several medical conditions, including spina bifida, cerebral palsy and chronic seizure disorder. During a hospital stay in St. Anthony last November, when Lewis was very sick, Elson said a doctor told her that her daughter was dying and that she had the option to end her life...

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...

Mental health advocates are raising concerns about a bill passed by Kansas lawmakers that would require doctors to try cheaper drugs before more expensive ones for Medicaid recipients, but the bill's backers say the concerns are overblown. The process, called step therapy, is common in many private and public health insurance plans. It was key to resolving budget issues because it would reduce the state's cost of providing health care for poor residents by nearly $11 million a year. Gov. Sam Brownback is expected to sign the bill Monday. Mental health advocates asked that drugs used to treat mental illnesses...

HICAGO — Denee Mallon marveled at the view of Lake Michigan from her hospital bed in the Windy City, where she had just made history: the then 74-year-old transgender woman underwent a milestone sex reassignment surgery she'd sought for decades. "Here I am, finally, after all these years," she said. "It happened." Her operation will be one of the first paid for by Medicare after she won a challenge in May to end the government insurance program's ban on covering such procedures for transgender individuals. Mallon's victory opened the door for other seniors to access this care and may influence...

While Obamacare’s proponents continue to insist that the program presents no threat to Americans’ healthcare, new comments from Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber demonstrate that Obamacare was designed to do just that. Gruber stated: You get a law which said healthy people are going to pay in, it made explicit that healthy people pay and sick people get money, it would not have passed…Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage and basically, you know, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically, that was really, really critical to get this thing to pass. In other words,...

There is a famous thought experiment called the trolley problem, and it goes like this: A runaway trolley is headed toward five people bound on the tracks. You are standing before the switch that could divert it onto another track, where it would kill only one person. Do you pull the switch? The trolley problem is the most flattering possible way to think about the conservative movement’s fanatical commitment to repealing Obamacare. If they pull the switch and repeal Obamacare, or if they persuade five Republican Supreme Court justices to cripple it, they will spare America from the evils of...

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the masterminds behind Obamacare, has now explained that he wishes to die at age 75. In an article in The Atlantic, Emanuel writes, “Seventy-five. That’s how long I want to live: 75 years.” He explains that his daughters disagree; so do his brothers and his friends. But, he says, “I am sure of my position…here is a simple truth that many of us seem to resist: living too long is also a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but

Scotland's second largest health board, NHS Lothian, will not be giving further treatment to smokers for non-urgent cases, with referrals from GPs being refused. Dr. Zahid Raza said: "In Edinburgh, we will not see patients at the clinic that are still smoking. Evidence shows that they would not do well with the treatment." He also went onto say: "We try to avoid intervention and, in around 80 percent of cases, a smoker’s condition will improve just simply by stopping smoking and smoking other lifestyle changes."Dr Jean Turner of the Scotland Patients Association said that she was "extremely disappointed", adding: "I'm...

A Los Angeles Superior Court Judge reversed his own ruling, permitting Casey Kasem’s daughter, Kerri Kasem, to remove her father’s food and hydration (via feeding tube), which will result in his death by starvation and dehydration. Kasem’s wife of 33 years, Jean Kasem, is fighting for the life of her husband, with her attorney, Steve Haney, calling the judge’s decision, “the functional equivalent of a death sentence.”Growing up in the 70’s, I was introduced to Casey Kasem’s easy to recognize voice as each week he counted down “American Top 40″ hits for almost four decades on a radio show heard...

North Carolina Democratic Congressional candidate Clay Aiken declined to say whether Secretary of the Veterans Administration Eric Shinseki should resign Tuesday on NBC.The former American Idol runner-up offered a somewhat bizarre rationale, telling the Today Show because he was not in the publicly broadcasted Senate hearing and “hasn’t paid attention to those details” he could not say whether Shinseki should go.“I think we have a lot of people who are making decisions without being in the room,” he said. “I’m not going to be one of those folks who wasn’t in the hearing and hasn’t paid attention to those details...

As controversy swirls around the Veterans Administration over deaths caused by delayed care, an investigation by the Dayton Daily News found that the VA settled many cases that appear to be related to delays in treatment. A database of paid claims by the VA since 2001 includes 167 in which the words "delay in treatment" is used in the description. The VA paid out a total of $36.4 million to settle those claims, either voluntarily or as part of a court action. The VA has admitted that 23 people have died because of delayed care, and is facing accusations that...

At least 40 U.S. veterans died waiting for appointments at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care system, many of whom were placed on a secret waiting list. The secret list was part of an elaborate scheme designed by Veterans Affairs managers in Phoenix who were trying to hide that 1,400 to 1,600 sick veterans were forced to wait months to see a doctor, according to a recently retired top VA doctor and several high-level sources. For six months, CNN has been reporting on extended delays in health care appointments suffered by veterans across the country and who died while waiting...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Here's more fallout from the health care law: Until now, customers could walk into an insurance office or go online to buy standard health care coverage any time of year. Not anymore. Many people who didn't sign up during the government's open enrollment period that ended Monday will soon find it difficult or impossible to get insured this year, even if they go directly to a private company and money is no object. For some it's already too late. With limited exceptions, insurers are refusing to sell to individuals after the enrollment period for HealthCare.gov and the...