Free Republic

Reform: The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee wants levies on insurers to pay for ObamaCare and fines for families who don't sign up. We can cut costs and expand coverage without sacrificing freedom.To keep ObamaCare alive, Montana Democrat Max Baucus has proposed a Rube Goldberg scheme of fees and fines on insurers and the uninsured designed to forcibly bring everyone into the loving and protective arms of the nanny state. To help finance his Plan B, Baucus would impose annual fees of $6 billion on health insurers, $4 billion on medical-device makers, $2.3 billion on drug manufacturers and $750...

Health Systems: Health care in France is often held up as a model the U.S. might follow. Yet the French have their own problems that show there's no such thing as a free lunch — or a free doctor's visit.Call it the grass-is-greener syndrome. Advocates of national health care, acknowledging the flaws in ObamaCare yet despising the current U.S. system that has the best medicines, the best medical equipment and the shortest waiting lists, have turned their eyes lovingly to places like France. As City Journal contributing editor Guy Sorman notes, the French would also love to have the low-cost,...

Medical Care: A leaked report shows that Vancouver's health authority is considering cutting thousands of surgeries to balance the budget. However organized, government-run health care inevitably leads to rationing.Defenders of ObamaCare continually point out that their plan is not like Canada's, that holding that country's system up as an example of impending medical doom is invalid. Canada's system is different. Instead of having a single national plan, Canada's national health insurance, a kind of public option, is composed of 13 interlocking provincial and territorial plans, all framed under the Canada Health Act. But based on a report leaked to the...

Leadership: Scores of congressmen and women are trying to hide from their constituents this August recess as the revolt over ObamaCare continues. If you haven't seen him or her lately, you might try your refrigerator.IBD Exclusive Series: Government-Run Healthcare: A Prescription For FailureIt's amazing how frightened of the community the party of the great community organizer has become now that the community has organized itself against his attempt to impose socialized medicine on the country. They cheered when he told them to get in the faces of their opponents. Now they won't show their faces, period. Senate Majority Whip Dick...

Why do the British lag behind American survival rates? Screening standards are different. In the United States, internists recommend that men 50 and older get screened for colon cancer; in the National Health Service in the United Kingdom, screening begins at 75. And British patients wait much longer to see specialists. A Clinical Oncology study of British lung cancer treatment found in 2000 that 20% "of potentially curable patients became incurable on the waiting list." Novel drugs offered here often aren't available there; for instance, Avastin, a drug for advanced colon cancer, is prescribed more often in the U.S. than...

Health Care: There might not be a "death panel," as Sarah Palin described it, but federal bureaucrats will be making end-of-life decisions. That's why state-run medicine is a leading cause of death in Britain and Canada.A post on the former Alaska governor's Facebook page has caused a stir by discussing openly what many privately fear and something we have written about. End-of-life counseling and efforts to measure cost-effectiveness of treatment will combine in a perfect storm to ration care in a way that lets the government decide who lives and who dies. "The America I know and love is not...

Legislation: Still believe in post-racial politics? Read the health care bill. It's affirmative action on steroids, deciding everything from who becomes a doctor to who gets treatment on the basis of skin color. President Obama is on the record as being officially opposed to reparations for slavery. But as with other issues, you have to sift through his eloquent rhetoric and go beyond the teleprompter to get at what he really means.

IBD Exclusive Series: Government-Run Healthcare: A Prescription For Failure Discourse: At a town hall last week in Dallas, an elderly "mob" with "manufactured" outrage questioned AARP's support for nationalized health care, asking: "Do you work for us or do we work for you?"There were no swastika-wearing grannies at Tuesday's meeting, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi might claim. Nor were they "taking their cues from talk show hosts, Internet rumor-mongers . . . and insurance rackets," as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said. But they were mad as hell at the perception that AARP was selling them out in the...

FRIDAY, Aug. 7 (HealthDay News) -- Even if Congress extends health coverage to the nation's 46 million uninsured Americans, there's no guarantee that everyone will have access to care -- unless payment reforms and new models of care are adopted, some experts say. "As more people have insurance, they will try to get appointments with more doctors, and that will lead to dramatic increases in the time it takes to get an appointment." Depending on the coverage people have, where they live and whether they have an existing relationship with a physician, some Americans could encounter long delays in getting...

The original targets of the Ku Klux Klan were Republicans, both black and white, according to a new television program and book, which describe how the Democrats started the KKK and for decades harassed the GOP with lynchings and threats. An estimated 3,446 blacks and 1,297 whites died at the end of KKK ropes from 1882 to 1964. The documentation has been assembled by David Barton of Wallbu More..ilders and published in his book "Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black & White," which reveals that not only did the Democrats work hand-in-glove with the Ku Klux Klan for...

Your right to eat healthy food and use supplements of your choice is rapidly vanishing, but every effort has been made to keep you in the dark about the coming nutricide. Codex Alimentarius is scheduled for full global implementation on December 31, 2009, and not a word has been spoken in main stream media about this threat to humanity. Yet, according to the projections based on figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a minimum of 3 billion people will die from the Codex mandated vitamin and mineral guideline alone. Former Nazi is...

Obama’s questionnaire responses at odds with health care claim By James D. Agresti August 5, 2009 Click for more detailed footnoted version In a speech before the American Medical Association on June 15, 2009, President Obama lashed out at those claiming he is pursuing a stealth agenda to socialize the U.S. healthcare system. Declaring that his health care plan is not “a Trojan horse for a single-payer system,” Obama vowed, “So, when you hear the naysayers claim that I’m trying to bring about government-run health care, know this – they are not telling the truth.” However, Obama’s responses to a...

Senate negotiators moved a step closer to a comprehensive health care package this week, but the American public seems increasingly wary of what "reform" might mean. The latest polls show that the majority of Americans are satisfied with their own health insurance and are now worried that they might be the big losers once Washington starts meddling. And for all the talk about the uninsured in the current health debate, the most important constituency in determining whether a health care package passes Congress may turn out to be the happily insured. According to the latest Rasmussen poll on the topic,...

This morning Geraldo Rivera had a small tantrum on the Fox Morning Show as he tried to defend Obamacare to the rest of the guests who weren't having any of it. I was surprised and disappointed to hear Rivera say that he believes in Obamacare and that opposition to it in town hall meetings is being organized by Obama-hating professional right-wing goons. He then raised eyebrows by offering that Obamacare is disintegrating before the Dems' eyes (despite the Libs' bussing-in violent union thugs, whom Obama describes as "grass roots supporters" of Obama).

The Democrats' proposal for health care reform would put more health care decisions in the hands of the government. Government involvement means special interests dominate. This is not a good thing.Each decision about care would mean millions or billions of dollars for interest groups that pressure legislators with all the means at their disposal. Already the physician lobby — led by the American Medical Association — dominates Medicare reimbursement decisions in this country. Physicians control the codes that are used for reimbursement and the committee that determines Medicare reimbursement rates. Put the federal government in charge of deciding what is...

I keep reading about healthcare "reform," but I have yet to see anyone explain how the government can make it easier for more people to obtain medical services, control the already exploding cost of those services, and not interfere with people's most intimate decisions. You don't need to be a Ph.D. in economics to understand that government cannot do all three things. (Judging by what Paul Krugman writes, a Ph.D. may be an obstacle.) The New York Times describes a key part of the House bill: "Lawmakers of both parties agree on the need to rein in private insurance companies...

Legislation: Still believe in post-racial politics? Read the health care bill. It's affirmative action on steroids, deciding everything from who becomes a doctor to who gets treatment on the basis of skin color.President Obama is on the record as being officially opposed to reparations for slavery. But as with other issues, you have to sift through his eloquent rhetoric and go beyond the teleprompter to get at what he really means. His opposition to reparations is based on the fact they don't go far enough. In a 2004 questionnaire, he told the NAACP, "I fear that reparations would be an...

Health Costs: Lawyers are responsible for more unneeded procedures than "greedy" doctors. But instead of capping malpractice awards, bureaucrats will soon decide which treatments are OK and whether you're worth it.Health Costs: Lawyers are responsible for more unneeded procedures than "greedy" doctors. But instead of capping malpractice awards, bureaucrats will soon decide which treatments are OK and whether you're worth it.

Health Reform: If Democrats in Washington think their health care reform with a public option is a good thing, why have they exempted themselves from it? Why isn't what's good for their constituents good for them?During ABC's June 24 infomercial for government-run health care broadcast from the White House, President Obama was asked if he and his family would abide by the restrictions and limitations that came with his proposed reforms. In what Ed Morrissey at HotAir.com called "Obama's Michael Dukakis moment," President Obama refused to make such a pledge and confessed that if "it's my family member, if it's...

Rationing: In the recesses of the House health care "reform" bill is a provision for end-of-life counseling for seniors. Don't worry, granny, they're from the government and they're here to help.At a town hall meeting at AARP headquarters in Washington, D.C., President Obama was asked by a woman from North Carolina if it was true "that everyone that's Medicare age will be visited and told they have to decide how they wish to die." At first, the president joked that not enough government workers existed to ask the elderly how they wanted to die. The idea, he said, was to...